The Coaching Chronicles: Game 2
Down by one with four seconds in the game. Fourth Down and three yards to go, down by five. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, down by three, 2-1 count. Time out. Whatever your situation is, we have faced some type of scenario that puts our backs to the wall. Within this, at some type of level, as a spectator, as a parent, and maybe even as a coach, we have witnessed some coaches absolutely just lose their minds and go “nuclear” on their players. Granted, the crowd maybe loud where the coach naturally has to raise their voice to be heard, but I am talking the “Big Red Button Version of a Nuclear Option”. When you see the veins popping in the neck, red cheeked, sweat popping from the skin on the forehead, eyes bulging, hair disheveled and the best yet, spit spraying from the mouth just like a missile excreting steam just before it launches… you know it’s melt down time.
What if I told you coaches aren’t the only ones with these behaviors? At the present moment I am currently coaching Middle School Basketball, and in our most recent game, we were down by six at halftime and as a team, we were coming together in a huddle to go over adjustments and things we could do to limit our errors and take advantage of some mismatches from the other team. In my mind, as the head coach, we were in a good spot – we had a great week at practice, our heads were in the game, we had great personnel present, and the ability to make specific changes. There were no worries in my mind… until I saw a missile taking off and fired from across the other side of the court. I saw what looked like a parent walking from the spectator area and moving fast paced towards our direction on the other side of the court where there are just players and staff. My first thought, “Nah… not coming to us.” The parent kept coming. I turned my attention back trying to get my team together, because there is only a few moments between halves in a middle school game. Still coming… Now concerned a little, I am thinking “Security.” But my radar told me that I shouldn’t worry, because why would a parent be coming over when it’s just a middle school game, the team is only down by a few buckets, and a whole second half to play? Still coming… “Security…” As I try to start to begin talking to the players, I notice a missile, I mean parent, landing on the bench and absolutely exploding on their athletes (two siblings in the game), and releasing a hell bent storm of what I referred to above as the “Nuclear Option” on their kids. At first I stood there wondering what had just happened??? Really? Did a parent just go nuclear on their kids??? Not only that, but in the middle of a game right next to other kids that are not theirs? Not only was the parent explosion horrendous to those players, but the collateral damage sent shockwaves into our whole team and game. Immediately I asked if there was an issue? What can I do to help? …and other neutralizing actions I could to try to stave off this crisis.
Where in the world do we as humans think it is acceptable to go nuclear on someone? In the coaching world, there are so many wrongs here. Even if you have never had this happen before in your career, or seen this as a parent, this situation presents a mountain of different things to traverse through. First off, yelling is considered taboo. New studies and research present that yelling as a form of communication is a deterrent to allowing information to move through different portions of our brains. The stimulation and initial emotional responses of those receiving information from someone that is yelling at them, is stunted at the neural cortex and limits whatever is being said/communicated or information loading to be limited because the receptors are being overly exerted upon. The stress that is placed upon the receptors creates a coping response that dulls or numbs the information absorption. In other terms, if you yell at someone, they may hear you, but their brain is protecting themselves by putting a wall up from getting injured. Anything that may be said, probably won’t be heard because the brain is doing it’s thang. This is an important consideration because once you understand this as a communicator, you start to understand that you need to control your emotions in the way you talk to people. There is deep rooted science in this that overrules any emotion or opinion you may have otherwise, no matter how much you want to win.
Secondly, what would possess an adult, parent, family member, or whoever to think that what they are saying in the middle of a game, would be more important than the coach coaching the game??? Being politically correct, I understand there are a lot of coaches that need re-evaluate their career choice – they aren’t good coaches and everyone in the room can see this – but this is not the situation we are examining. The discussion of ill-prepared coaches is a future conversation we can examine. What we are talking about is a coach that has prepared a game plan, set the tone, and is reflexively executing game time decisions to match the needs of the team. Highly likely, they are experts in their sport and have a different perspective than a general spectator. They have put in the time and invested efforts into building and developing each athlete on their team and understand from a non-parental view, the positive and negative attributes of every player. They use this data to build teams and their cultures. There is a lot that is a part of the equation during the team building process and a game itself. So… when someone from an external source comes in and goes nuclear, it absolutely obliterates anything that the coach has done or is trying to create for the team. All the hard work… gone. Wasted. Not only does it trash anything that the coach is trying to accomplish with the team, it creates harmful effects that hurts the player emotionally and developmentally, as well as those around them. It doesn’t take a deep thinker to understand that nothing good is going to happen when you yell at your kid in front of their whole team, their coach, and everyone in the gym during the middle of the game. Nothing. But there are some that think they need to do this, and it will create some high performance miracle and turn the game around in their favor. Instead, what it does is creates resentment between you and your kiddo, and you may never be invited to watch one of their games again because you embarrass them. That’s sad.
The main point here is we need to do a better job in controlling our emotions so we can build deeper connections with our players, teams, or whoever we come into contact with. Our society places an extreme amount of pressure on achieving victory, or winning. Its the “Win At All Costs” mantra and many believe if you can’t subjugate your victories on the stat sheet, then you are a failure. This pressure is transferred to our kids as intimidation or fear to achieve this. This is extremely unhealthy and if you are still living by this mantra you need to change. More than ever, there is more research, information, and opportunities for players to grow into highly dynamic-highly intelligent athletes. Nowhere is this achieved by archaic methods anymore. Sports psychology is almost a billion dollar industry now. This is because those with money are finding more effective results with their people with higher performance ratios and percentages than ever before with its effective use. We need to adapt for the benefit our players and teams, at least at minimum, for the mental well being of those we are responsible for. It’s time to be a part of solution and not carry on old habits or conceptions that produced unstable results. Eventually, training under harsh conditions will create an environment that will fail or crumble. We see more athletes having mental breakdowns because of these pressures, and we need to use this new breed of coaching to mitigate and revive player development in a more positive way. We already see benefits in sports for certain teams that have adopted these new standards. One specific type is this concept of Neutral Thinking Psychology. The expert in this field is Trevor Moawad, who has written two monumental books on this concept, It Takes What It Takes and Getting to Neutral. Both books are ground breaking work in the field of Sports Psychology (as well life in general), and will be transcendent pieces of work generations to come. Trevor also served as the mental performance coach, strategic performance advisor, and psychological expert for multiple professional sports leagues, teams, and players – NFL, MLB, NBA and collegiate programs such as Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks, Pitcher Marcus Stroman, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida State Football Programs… to name a few… as well as an advisor to the Unites States Special Operations community. Trevor goes onto to identify key aspects of our current thinking and the inter-connected emotions and emotional habits driving our actions. In his research, removing the barrier of emotions to performance allows for the athlete, coach, and person to freely perform without fears, anxiety, or other negatively effecting behaviors that affect the potential results created by their actions. This is a very reflective concept that takes a lot of work and training, but the general concept is easy to grasp. This concept is what I aiming for us to have a better understanding of when we are dealing with our athletes and kiddos.
Why do you want to hurt your kiddos? Why do you need to yell or intimate to retrieve certain anticipated desired results? …and depending on level of play, why is that important to push results over development? At the youth level, they need to build life skills and we need to promote development in these areas that will serve them, rather than some fake championship that doesn’t exists. I am one of the most competitive people on this planet, but I also know what’s on the line. Whether it is coming from a coach that loses their junk on the sidelines, or it is the irate parent whose judgment is clouded by their emotions, all because they want to win… a significant mindset shift needs to happen. We need to take a look at what the true victory is… our ability to lift up our kiddos, athletes, and others to perform at their very highest abilities and potentials in an environment conducive to their personality and support them when they are needed. We need to build them to where they can trip and fall, and pick themselves back up. We need them to understand failure is temporary. When they fail on their own, they can be strong enough to lift themselves and know they will be supported and not criticized or yelled at. We are damaging our youth and our athletes. This damage needs to end. We need to stop trying to “Win At All Costs”.
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Written By Chris Hulme ( aka – Coach Hulme ) #CoachHulme #ChrisHulme #TheHulme
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