OLD Ways Work Only When Coaching OLD Athletes Article

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OLD Ways Work Only When Coaching OLD Athletes

If you are new to coaching kids and your only point of reference is your own sporting career, you are already fighting against the current trend within our society. Our children are sedentary, unphysical, and unable to think in sequential ways. We must think differently.

Author: Michael Clapier

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I stood behind the dugout watching a neighborhood little league baseball game.

A young athlete made a mistake in the outfield and at the end of the inning was met at the third base line by an irate coach who unloaded on the boy. Yelling, screaming, and red-faced intensity met a child who did nothing other than miss a fly ball during a little league game.

An angry coach is not a remarkable thing but the kid’s reaction was eye-opening.

Following his encounter with his coach, the young boy reached the team bench and sat down. I was standing behind the dugout. His friend turned and said, “Wow, coach was ticked.”

The reprimanded player looked at his friend and simply offered, “What?”

Even though coach was upset, the kid simply turned off the noise, looked at coach, waited for the end of the diatribe and proceeded to the team bench where the waiting treat was more meaningful than any instruction he just received. This young man shut coach out so successfully that he did not even notice the anger that his team mate witnessed.

Kids today are not the same as you. The sooner you recognize their differences the quicker you start effectively coaching them. The men and women who coached you would find it difficult to handle the kids you coach. Here's why:

a) No More Play for Fun – I recently stood in a high school gymnasium where a sign read “No Unsupervised Play”. Today's young athlete usually plays little league sports under the supervision of adults. Sand lot baseball and pickup basketball are disappearing faster than analog televisions.

a) Attention Spans Nothing. Kids labeled with attention deficit disorder (ADD) defiantly dare you to coach around their condition while blaming their lack of focus on your lack of skill.

c) Work Ethics are Not a Given. A young person who stays on task and can work for any extended period of time is the exception rather than the rule. Their capacity for work comes from you not with them.

d) Quick and Easy – Instant fame, quick cash, and everyone gets in for free is the culture our kids worship. Your challenge is to teach those kids how to develop skills knowing they will miss kicks, drop passes, or fall short the thousand of trials required for athletic excellence.

e) You Owe It To Them Anyway. When everyone gets a trophy and the pictures look the same me what is the point of competition?

If the majority of your philosophy of coaching is guided by your personal experience a generation ago, then you need to seriously examine how you handle the kids on your team. I suggest that it is a new day and those of us engaged in the mentoring and coaching of young people need to look for solutions other than those we grew up with.

Old school is done.

The challenge for every parent whose child is involved in little league sports is that the books and processes for the new school of coaching thought and practice are just being written.

About Author

Michael Clapier is a coach, sports official, media producer and author. In "Coaching Young Couch Potatoes" he explores the challenges of today's young athlete and offers effective methods to coach kids. His current blog http://www.wrestlingtrainingmedia.com introduces foundational messages for the development of core muscles groups in young athletes.

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