I. Person – Athlete - Player
A. Can you look at the player and see the athlete?
B. Can you look at the athlete and see the person?
C. Your success at coaching the player depends on your success in coaching the athlete and your success at coaching the player and the athlete depends on your success with coaching the person.
II. Person
A. A player/athlete does not care what you know to help them as a player or an athlete until you are able to connect with them to show them you understand them as a person.
B. You must be able to discover, relate to and validate their feelings and experiences as a son, daughter, friend, student and person in general.
C. You must be able to take the person as and where they are and educate and motivate them to want to improve as a player, athlete, teammate, and person despite their obstacles and adversity.
III. Athlete
A. Can you see a flaw in a player’s fundamentals and recognize whether the player needs help with the mechanics of your sport or needs first to correct a flaw in their athleticism?
B. You must be able to watch a player move and recognize weaknesses in their mobility, stability, elasticity, endurance, strength, power, speed, agility, and/or quickness. All corrections to fundamentals begin with an analysis of posture, balance, footwork, angles, and rhythm/timing. However, the solution to these problems many times must start with physiology and psychology, not methodology; coach preparation and reaction before action.
C. Then you or an assistant must know how to design a program and teach the techniques to the player to correct these physiological weaknesses.
D. You must also be able to educate the athlete about nutrition and recovery so the work they are doing to improve physically will be optimized.
IV. Player
A. Do you have accurate information and an understanding about how the fundamentals of your sport should be done? (Very rare!)
B. Can you teach the mechanics of the fundamentals in logical and efficient building block progressions?
C. Can you teach the building block progressions using all of the learning modalities (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic)?
D. Can you program your teaching in a differentiated way so that players along the entire ability spectrum can consistently progress?