Five More Quotes From Smart People

Our first of five comes from former Olympic Marathoner and Coach Mark Coogan gave us this absolute gem of the realities of being an Olympic athlete;

"You have to put in 100% effort to extract a 1% improvement, and that 1% improvement is kind of what keeps us going forward. And to give that 100% , knowing that you might only get 1% back, that's the true courage."

Remember the last 11 year old you coached? Or maybe the last 17 year old? Maybe it didn't seem like they were giving 100% because they were slow to process or their body hadn't caught up with their mind yet. But this is a daunting proposition that we ask of our athletes each and every practice. It deserves our utmost respect and to be grateful for that courage!

"Coddling produces an ineptness that doesn't prepare us to survive, much less thrive. If Momma bird over cares for her young, then nature will destroy them. The bird that can't fly or hunt doesn't eat. The bird that doesn't eat doesn't survive. Bye bye Baby Bird. It is Momma Bird's responsibility to prepare her young to survive and it is our responsibility as leaders and Parents to prepare our young to survive. We don't do that by coddling them."

Authors Chris McAlister and Bret Burchard in their book "Leading for Impact" talk about how we as coaches, parents and leaders are letting down our kids, students and athletes by not holding them accountable and  how too many leaders are leading for validation, not impact, and modern leadership development isn’t helping people become great leaders.

Long Beach Men's Volleyball Coach Alan Knipe has been the leader of one of the most consistently excellent volleyball programs in the country for the last decade. In his tenure as the Long Beach coach, he took a four year hiatus to coach the 2012 USA Men's team in London. Here, Knipe talks about why WHEN we give feedback is as important as what feedback we give as coaches.

"It's not that it doesn't matter that we just made an error or we made a mistake or we did something out of character that doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter right now. It matters after the match in between sets in video session tomorrow as we go on Mindset Monday. It doesn't matter right now because it doesn't have anything to do with us winning the next point. So once you can kind of get to that point that you can go back later and talk about things you don't have to fix everything real time because it's not going to help them win the next point. "

"If you were to use for example, like an American baseball pitcher or any golfer, you look at that situation when they're getting ready to pitch and no one says anything to them. When someone's getting ready to hit a golf ball, they're going to go to their backswing, the whole crowd, they put signs up that say quiet, be quiet. And it's a technique sport, right so they don't want that. But in volleyball, even though it's a highly highly technical sport and techniques work, we tend to constantly coach about their last play and their technique, but then ask them to be really dialed in and focus on the next point. I don't think that the athletes over time can mentally do that very well. So the idea is to try to be so good in training that we can truly allow them to be as freed up as possible on the court to make the proper reads during the game. But more importantly than how, and this is probably the most vital part, is in between the points as they prep for the next point, is their total focus on just winning the next point there."

Coach and Communication Specialist Betsy Butterick was on a recent podcast talking about one of the most frustrating elements of being an athlete; the inconsistent coach. In interviewing an athlete, Butterick continued...

"She was like, I'm just ready for the season to be done which was very different than how she felt during basketball. I'm like, Well, why what's going on? And she said, I'm just tired of my coach's inconsistencies. And when I started asking more questions about that, she's like, some days, he shows up hot and he's mad when we start practice, and it's a long day. And then he comes back the next day and wants to be everybody's best friend. He just doesn't have a consistency in how he shows up. And that really makes it tough for the players because they don't know what to expect. And they're not really sure how to interact with him, depending on the mood he might be in or frustrated from the last game. And so it just makes that environment very difficult for them. I think that's true for parents and administrators as well, like the biggest headaches come from coaches, that are just not consistent with how they enforce policies or how they communicate. That you can be going on Friday and play on Saturday, JP is going on Friday but doesn't play till the following Wednesday, with no explanation. And so you know, those inconsistencies just produce headache after headache after headache, and they frustrate everybody around the coach. And I think something related to that maybe is just, for lack of a better word, is hypocrisy."
This inconsistency can be the death knell to a culture and can lost your athletes trust and focus quickly. Butterick's point that it is not just an athlete that suffers but Parents and other coaches as well. Consistency is a must in leading a program.
Finally, from another future Hall of Fame Coach, Nebraska's John Cook talks about how his newfound love of riding and roping has translated into him being a better coach for his players.
"When I'm roping on horses, I'm not thinking about any of that stuff. I'm thinking about staying on the horse, doing my job on something that's very fast, but I'm also learning. I'm learning a ton from these cowboys. You might think this is nuts, but I wish I could write a book on this. Now I've got the chapters in my head. But what I've learned from the cowboys and how they work with horses is made me a better coach because especially when you're riding a horse, you're trying to get that horse to trust you. You're trying to get them to do what you want him to do, but you can't talk to him. That's one of the things I see with young coaches. They all want to talk all the time. When you go watch these young coaches, they all stop every two minutes. They've got to talk, talk, talk. It's what I see in club practices, because they have to show everybody how much they know. Horses can't talk. So you have to get them to feel and trust and understand what you want and so it's now how I look at coaching. And as I'm riding horses, I got to get these players to trust and feel what they need to do and the cowboys have really really helped me with this."
It's an exemplary trait for a successful coach to always be looking for another edge. Using riding and roping, Cook reexamines how he relates to his athletes to get the best out of them. 
What can we do in our lives and hobbies to elicit a better coach inside all of us?

Replantear....

Reframing is a strategy that people can use, either on their own or in therapy, to help adjust their mindset. 

Seems simple enough. Find the positive in the negative. See the light instead of the dark, OR find the things to DO in the dark that you can't do in the light.

We, as coaches, can use this to our advanteage and disadvantage throughout a season. But working with coaches this week, a familiar pattern emerges from the summer camp season.

A coach will talk about their team with a fixture on the work ahead. "They can't pass,", "She is too slow," "They have a low volleyball I.Q.,"  "She isn't a leader," "They are too short to block," "She has a slow armswing," "She is late to everything," and on and on it goes.

So reframing the questions at hand coach, how about asking the following:

What CAN they do? What are their strentghs? Why are they at camp on the top court? What do you see in them that put them here?

We tend to spend so much time on what we want and can't have instead of what we do have in front of us. Coach, can we limit the bad passers in serve recieve with a creative rotation? Can we put the setter in a position where she can get to the ball quicker? Can we help this player grow as a leader? Can we play more in practice to help the team's volleyball I.Q?

The culture of the team isn't what you are looking for. They can get cranky with each other, they snipe and judge and can be inhospitable to one another. 

But coach, what IS good about the culture? They seem to work hard together, they love to compete. They enjoy being pushed out of their comfort zones. Can we focus on these traits and work with the others as the season progresses? 

We are surrounded by negatives all day. The news, social media, politics, sports, entertainment. It's hard to find positivity in our culture these days. It certainly isn't at one's fingertips BUT we do appreciate it. Who remembers during COVID when the Office star John Krasinski put together positive posts and stories once a week called, "Some Good News." just to offset the constant barrage of negativity streaming through our lives at that time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5pgG1M_h_U With over 19 million viewers on a YouTube post, it was clear then, as it is today, we need positivity and reframing in our lives now more than ever.

"I can't believe she just let's balls drop in front of her," "None of you talk," "We are doing lines if you make one more mistake," "We are running a lap for each missed serve this tournament." 

Coach, none of your players are trying to lose on purpose, trying to screw up, trying to make you mad or look bad. Chances are YOU are the culprit of these mistakes and misinformation. You haven't coached them well enough yet. See the mistakes for what they are. A chance to make a young person feel good about themselves, to help them succeed on THEIR terms, to help them become better players and part of a bigger mission: the team. Reframe your frustration into learning opportunties for your players AND yourself.

Reframing is a life tool, an educational tool, a coaching tool. It costs nothing but a little time, a mindset change and some patience. Give your athletes opportunities, not punsihments. See the positives and highlight them and work to repair or minimize the negatives. Find what each player can BRING to your program instead of constantly reminding yourself what they can't do for you and the team.

They are worth the time. And so are you, Coach.

Five for the 4th

We present another installment of five quotes in which smart and accomplished people give us new ideas and thoughts about life and how we can apply those to our coaching minds.

"I've been in the presence of so many people from whom through osmosis and watching them work. I have learned things about physical comedy, about the nuances of comedy, about the fullness of comedy, but there's always room to learn more. And for me that is an incredibly joyful adventure."

Comedian and actress Susie Essman gives us another example of the process. Her time in the comedy clubs of the Northeast to her hilarious role as Susie Green on the long-running sitcom, "Curb your Enthusiasm." Her joy of the journey kept her head above water during the lean years and the rejections and helped her secure a sitcom for which she has enjoyed for the last 24 years.

"Guess what the number one predictory variable is for mental toughness? When I'm interviewing coaches, scouts, fighter pilot trainers;  guess what they think? The predictor is what they look for. Yeah, like one of the first things that they look for because actually the majority of people who need people to have some level of mental toughness, don't believe they can grow it in people.  Because of this one predictor variable. Humility."

Brene' Brown discussed this idea of humilty being a difference maker in mental toughness. As coaches, we work to instill the quality into our athletes, but are we just as good modeling humilty for them? As coaches, athletes and even parents and fans, the idea of humility is swimming upstream against the raging stream of youth sports. Social media, awards and rewards, recognition and on it goes. Humility is a strength to be worked out each day, especially with those we coach.

"We use language everyday. Whether we use it by speaking or writing or signing. And we do it without thinking about it. Sometimes we think about the words we're going to say and they just tumble out of our mouths, or we make these incredibly sophisticated, meaningful utterances, without any upfront planning at all, without the awareness about the amazing blend of brain processes and bodily processes that it takes just to make one word, let alone combine them into making phrases. And when I said something, the remarkable thing is that the listener can understand it, and words are just puffs of air that is received and then translate back into brainwaves and that activates their brains. So this is such a remarkable, complex, sophisticated process that we use just without thinking about it every day of our lives for everything. Whether it's for social relationships, for our work, for talking about what we're gonna do or reflect about the past expressing emotions. So it goes right to the heart of everything we do." 

Author of "The Language Puzzle,"  Steven Mithen talks about, well...talking. His point of how amazing the idea of language has evolved and continues to affect nearly everything in our lives leads us, as coaches, to honor this miracle and use it effectively, positively and sparingly.

"The very first slide I offer says, research your own experience, absorb what is useful, discard what is not and add what is uniquely your own. This is the journey that we all should be on."

Shawn Myszka is a Ecologoical Dynamics proponent who has started his own company, Emergence, to help coaches and players train more effectively and efficiently. His quote is one that every coach should take to heart. Not everything is for everybody, not every player, sport or movement is the same and we, as coaches, need to meet players and teams where they are and take them to the next level. The tools we use are valuable but there can be many options. As a Coach, research, absorb, discard and add.

Finally from leadership and culture guru Jennifer Garvey Berger who succinctly puts our coaching goal in front of us:  "Create the conditions for good things to happen."  

This is a great one to end on. It's simplicity is brilliant, it's impact neverending.