Lies Your Coaches Told You…And You Tell Yourself And Others

Rick Albrecht, Ph.D.

Department of Movement Science

Grand Valley State University

These Slides Are Available at:

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/albrechr/

You Are “Advanced” Level Coaches: So Always Remember This...

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few."

--Shunryu Suzuki

Lies Your Coaches Told You… And You Tell Yourself and Others

“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”--Franklin D. Roosevelt

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

--George Bernard Shaw

Lie #1:“Pattern Your Coaching

After A Successful Coach ...”

Rethink The Way You Coach…• Make Deliberate And Conscious Decisions

• Fight Against The Natural Tendency To Coach Out Of Habit

• Fight Against The Natural Tendency To Coach Like Others

• Don’t Just Be ‘As Good’ … Be BETTER!

Lie #2:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“Motivations Come From Within -- If My Players Are Not ‘Self-Motivated’ There’s Very Little I Can Do”

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

Okay, This One’s a Half Truth… Motivation is a Combination of a Player’s “Personality” AND the “Situation” in Which They Find ThemselvesPersonality

Motivation

Situation

So What Should You Do As A Coach?

If Motivation Can Be Changed By Altering Either A Player’s Personality or The Situation…Which Should You Spend Your Time Trying To Change?

THE SITUATION!

It’s All About What You Can Control...

“When You Blame Others, You Give Up Your Power to Change”

-- Anonymous

Lie #3:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“If You Want To Be An Effective Hockey Coach, Your Main Job Is To Motivate Your Athletes”

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

Your MAIN Job is to Motivate YOU!• You Need to Develop a TGIM Attitude

• How Do You Expect to Motivate Others If You Can’t Motivate Yourself First?

• Motivation is Contagious

• You Have to Control The Things YOU Have Control Over -- Nothing Else

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…

Courage to change the things I can…

And wisdom to know the difference

Lie #4:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“If I ‘Light a Fire’ Under My Team, They’ll Perform Better”

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

What We ONCE Thought…

Per

form

ance

Arousal (Fired-Up) Level

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

THEN What We Thought Was …

Per

form

ance

Arousal (Fired-Up) Level

What National-Level Hockey Players Started Telling Us Was . . .

What Did We Say About An “Expert’s Mind?

Per

form

ance

Arousal (Fired-Up) Level

There’s More To The Story That You, As A Coach Need To Know…

Importance of “FUN”!!

Per

form

ance

Arousal (Fired-Up) Level

•Fun

•Challenge

•Opportunity

•Threat

•Chance to Fail

Lie #5:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“The Following Are Excellent Goals For Young Hockey Players To Set For Themselves...”

“Winning the Game”

“Making the Team”

“Scoring A Goal in Tonight’s Game”

“Winning The League Championship”

“Winning The Gold Medal”

“Competing to the Best of My Ability”

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

• To Be Effective, Goals Need To Be:– Based on performance -- NOT OUTCOME!

– UNDER YOUR CONTROL

– Specific and Measurable Realistic but Challenging

– Focused on the PROCESS (How not What)

– Set for every PRACTICE!

Lie #6:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“There’s No ‘I’ In Team --

Setting Team Goals is an Great Way to Promote Good Hockey Team Performance”

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

• There is nothing but “I”s in Team

• “Teams” Don’t Really Perform Skills -- Only Individuals Do

• Having “Team Goals” Can Often Be Counterproductive – Nobody (no human being) is Actually

Responsible for Accomplishing Team Goals

• Your Job is to be the Conductor

Lie #7:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“The Following Punishments Are Generally Effective in Correcting Performance Errors…”

Yelling/Screaming/Criticizing/Ridiculing

Removal of Playing Time

Running/Skating Laps

Running/Skating Sprints

Push Ups, Sit Ups, etc.

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

• As Physical Educators, One of Our Main Goals is to Promote Lifelong Physical Activity

• Why Do We Use What You Want To Promote As Punishment?

Other Reasons Punishment, in General, Doesn’t Work

• It Only Works When You’re There, You See the Mistake, and Are Willing To Punish

• Waste of Valuable Practice Time

• Makes the Game Unpleasant

• Increases the “Fear of Failure” and Thus Decreases “Risk Taking”

Lie #8:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“A Bad Performance Can Hurt a Hockey Player’s Confidence Level”

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

• By Believing This, We Give Ourselves A Convenient Excuse For Future Failure

• It’s Not The Performance -- It’s What You Think About The Performance

• Your Players Spend Countless Hours Training and Perfecting Their Performance -- What Makes You (or Them) Think That One Bad Performance Will Destroy All That Hard Work?

Lie #9:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“Practice Makes Perfect and There’s Almost Never Enough

Practice or Ice Time”

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

• Only “Perfect” Practice Makes Perfect

• Most Practices Last Far Too Long -- You Just Risk Mental and Physical Fatigue and Injuries (80/20 rule)

– Place More emphasis on Practice of Mental Skills -- Less on Physical Skills

– Use of “Mental Practice”

Lie #10:What They’ve Told You Is . . .

“Injuries Are An Athlete’s (and a Coach’s) Worst Nightmare” -- There

Are Few Things Worse Than An Injury

What The Research Tells Us Is . . .

• “Benefits of Injury”“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more wisely”

“You learn very little from winning -- losing is the great teacher”

Reconsider The Opening Quotations

“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

--Franklin D. Roosevelt

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

--George Bernard Shaw

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few."

--Shunryu Suzuki