70 percent of kids in the United States stop playing organized sports by the age of 13 because ‘it’s just not fun anymore.’ ~ poll by National Alliance for Youth Sports
Very young athletes want to have fun, be with friends, improve and feel a sense of accomplishment, among many other reasons that they play sports. Very low on their reported list of what they want is anything to do with winning or being a professional athlete or Olympic medalist. Very few little players start with that kind of dream, but that doesn’t mean they can’t foster that idea later in their development. It means that maybe one or two kids on your team have that goal in mind. While early sports participation is great to help create healthy children to open up their options, pushing the idea ad nauseum about being a professional to 6 year olds is really not a good idea. Although there is nothing wrong with telling the kids once or twice that they could be a pro. Keep in mind, athlete centered coaches realize that they are characters in the athletes story, not the other way around.
When It Kicked In
The interesting stories of different times when an elite performer decided to go for it, are uniquely theirs to tell. The place on their timeline when they made the fateful decision happens as a matter of fact, a bolt from the blue, or something in between. The here and now of the sports experience as they see it, includes these things. For some that don’t have the dream, or the goal is foisted upon them, being in the program can feel like a prison term. Because of their own enslavement to the notion of developing future professionals, and in a misguided ‘work ethic’ approach, coaches focus too much on a ‘time on task’ approach, to which the player is a captive. That coach might neglect the relationship building between teammates, and the player/coach relationship. They may view fun activities as a waste of valuable time. On the other end of the spectrum, some coaches spend too much time trying to make it fun, but leave out the essential training that will help the players to be successful. Sure, fun is number one on the list, but improvement and developing skills are as well. The social aspect of being with friends is almost an automatic, as the players will find the time to talk with each other. It’s simply a matter of whether the coach sanctions it, or tries to squash it. Finding the balance point on the relationship building, while using practice time efficiently and including a fun activity almost every practice, that’s when the magic happens. Discovering the tipping point of overall experience for the person who plays, and their ongoing development will make the coach successful on many levels. The coach with a great sense of being fully present, who notices when players are not having fun will begin to deftly strike a balance between these things, or identify that in the short term the activity is not meant to be fun.
Including Social Time
When coaches include time for friendship, they help each player to improve and celebrate each other player’s accomplishments. This is also a vital piece in the mental health of your players long term. People are far less connected than they used to be due to time spent with screen time on devices. When you help your young athletes connect as teammates face to face, they become part of something larger, and that can have a life changing impact on them.
The most practical way to address how you allow players to connect is to ask, how long is your break time? Another practicality is pay attention to break time. One thing I started doing a few years ago was to observe my players during break time. Are they really enjoying each others company and building relationships, or were they really collectively more interested in getting a quick water break and getting back to the activity? Both are good. Is someone left out or not with the group when we take a break? Can I find one of the players who will go out of their way to connect with a teammate? Going out of your way to show a youngster how to go out of their way to draw someone in can have an amazing ripple effect moving forward. Like the analogy of a butterly flapping it’s wings in China starts a hurrican somewhere else. Hurricanes are not good, but you get the point.
Not a week goes by when I don’t allow the players to have a bit extra time between activities, because I can sense that they are getting along great. When my players are having a particularly good time of bonding, the scheduled five minute water break can be extended by a minute or two to maximize the time of team chemistry creation and frankly, increasing the fun. Taking one or two more minutes to allow players to wrap up a conversation can really pay off when the time comes that they really need to play for one another and root each other onward. Contests can be won or lost because of better chemistry or not.
Focus on Processes
Athletes want to get better, and when you create a process oriented program, they might not even realize how refreshing that is compared to coaches that focus solely on outcome goals, placing more pressure on teams to win the big one.
At every level of the game, teaching and refining what it means to give the best possible effort is not simple. 110% effort is not really process oriented, but it is nonsense. Avoid that which really lacks common sense, and it runs counter to what young players intuitively want from their sports experience. They can do without the pressure, as they already put enough of that on themselves to succeed for their team. Don’t be fooled by a couple of kids who such people pleasers or are fairly driven themselves who will agree to 110%. Ask yourself, are they only telling me what I want to hear? Do those who say ‘give 110%’, want things to happen faster than the normal course of time. I’m guessing that they do. In kind, they are training players to want improvement faster than it can naturally come from an honest amount of 100% effort. My experience with trying to reach into the future to try to make it come more quickly is how I have wrecked myself with anxiety and impatience for the results. Acting and talking that way also seems to spoil the present moment, which then never seems to be quite good enough. In my minds eye, I don’t see those coaches affirming players when they reach the mythical standard, but instead chiding them when they are far below it, which they invariably will be.
Make the Shift to Accepting a Challenge
Get into ‘the now’ and stay in it. When we are too future focused, then we it’s tempting to be not OK with temporary set backs in training. When we are actually OK with a temporary lack of fulfillment of objectives, taking a growth mentality, players are more likely to take on the challenge and find it more interesting. We all have to accept our path. Every coach, every athlete will need to deal with adversity. When we accept those challenges at the right time, then we are more likely to make better choices furthering along our path. The road we follow most likely will not end at the Super Bowl, a World Series, or a Grand Slam Championship. We can find some very meaningful achievements in other directions. Taking on new hurdles to overcome, that require us to grow and simply become better, is a far better model, than the ceaseless striving for more, bigger, faster and stronger than today attached to unrealistic standards. When we follow our processes today, then tomorrow we experience better performances.
Giving Only Your All
Another problem with attempting to give 110% effort is that people are asserting that players can give more than what they have, they can give more than what they are. Perhaps they are guided by a vision that when you really give 100%, then you grow, and your capacity is increased, but that’s not what their language says. So, if that is what you really mean, then why not remove the confusion and simply ask for 100% effort. I certainly never accept anything less than 100% effort. If that is the case, then why not teach that? In this case, I do strongly believe that players are better served by communicating more accurately what we want to have happen.
My 30 years of experience in gyms, fields and courts tell me that giving 100% effort is tough enough for players to achieve at all times. A large cross section of players who buy into the 110% myth get themselves so bothered, that they will only end up giving 90%, because they are pressing so hard. Trying to give more than you have can increase muscular tension, mental worry slows them down, or causes mistakes that need to be corrected. Fun is diminished by the thought, the program, the coach of this player, and one strong factor for their burnout is now firmly in place, established by the coach who asks for too much. It is far better to learn to play in a flow state, where players don’t feel pressure, beginning to approach 100% more and more. It’s more something for us to facilitate, than to enforce in a player or a team. Developing a culture of maximum effort is perhaps the most important building block for any program. All these things are best facilitated in the here and now, and giving only all that we have, and all that we are. Sometimes all we can do is observe. Stop and look at how hard players will try when they are having a lot of fun, they will amaze you. More players will stay, and they will play better, and it will be a self perpetuating cycle of improvement.
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