Behind every athlete, there is someone who doesn’t know everything. Even experts in their field need guidance about what to do or how to overcome an obstacle. They need someone to push them and encourage them to grow.
They need a coach.
They need to know what each athlete needs, and they need to have flexible personality traits in order to help those athletes grow.
“Helpfulness mainly,” sophomore Shay Williams said. Williams does soccer,
wrestling, and golf, and finds that a coach is most helpful when they are just that— helpful. “For a coach, you’re mainly helping kids grow, and teaching them how to do what they’re doing.”
Williams’ optimal coaching environment is one-on-one. Having dedicated time with the coach makes it easier to get the training they need, without interruptions.
“I feel like I learn better with a coach one-on-one,” Williams said.
Private conversations make it easier to receive advice from a coach. It allows you to get instant feedback on what you need to work on, rather than working in larger groups where you all work on the same thing and get feedback as a group.
Individualized conversation helps build a connection between athletes and a coach by giving personalized advice and constructive criticism. It helps guide the athletes more directly than a normal practice would.
“I personally like it when they tell me I’m doing this good, and then I need to work on something else,” Williams said. “Then they help me work on that thing, instead of expecting me to do it myself or expecting me to just know how to do it.”
When thinking about a coach who has helped him, junior Aidric Washko thinks of coaches who can mess around and still get work done.
“Encouraging and serious, but the ability to mess around with their athletes [too],” Washko
said. Having someone who is focused helps when being coached, but that only works if the athletes are focused as well.
“When you don’t have an experienced group, if a coach says, ‘okay, go do whatever you want’, that doesn’t really work out because not all athletes know what they need to do,” Washko said.
Part of the coaching experience is having a mentor by your side to guide you, but if someone doesn’t know what they need, they’ll need guidance to know what to do. “Even for more experienced athletes, sometimes they have misinformation, but a good coach will know what to do [to help],” Washko said.
For Williams, something that is useful for her is when a coach reminds her to calm herself down.
“It’s all in your head,” Williams said. “You need to win the battle in your head before you win anything else.” Those reminders make all the difference.
“In wrestling, after [I] lose a match, [wrestling] Coach Horn helps me get out of my head,” Williams said. Being able to have that guiding figure is an important factor for improvement and determination in your athletes. “He helps me focus on the next match.”
Washko felt supported during a situation with his track team last year, from how his track and field coach handled it.
“Coach Flores, he messes around a lot and stuff,” Washko said. “But the moment it stood out to me [was when] it just made me feel supported.”
Someone had said something negative about another teammate, and the incident was reported to Flores.
“He gathered the entire team and talked about how we should be a team,” Washko said. “It made me feel supported, because if something happens, it’s nice to know that I would have someone there.”
Experiences like Washko’s and Williams’ show that coaching goes beyond the competitive nature of sports, but the connection also matters. You need to have a strong presence as a coach, one that your athletes feel comfortable coming to and confiding in when they are in need. Building that nurturing environment can make all the difference to an athlete.
