It's Friday and I'm a little pressed for time since I have a week off next week and I am trying to get all my work finished before heading out for the weekend. So for today, in light of the recent women's international friendlies as teams ramp up for this summer's Women's World Cup, I thought about sharing a few previous posts discussing the history, growth and presence of women's soccer in Canada and internationally.
We are on the cusp of having one of our own ( if you are Canadian) becoming women's soccer leading all time scorer at the international level. Christine Sinclair needs 7 goals to surpass Abby Wambaugh and take over the top spot. This will be a great accomplishment given the longevity of her career but the fact that for many years she did not have the supporting cast that players from other countries did. For many people, especially younger type, there is the perception that women's soccer at the international level started in 1999 with the World Cup that took place in the US. This is in large part due to the fact that it was the first World Cup that was extensively marketed and covered ( being in the US ) and of course got tons of residual post competition coverage because the Americans won. However, women's soccer has been around for a long time, at both the domestic and international levels and today I wanted to reshare a few previous posts. So hopefully you will take the time to click on the links below and read through them history-of-womens-soccer-in-canada.html history-of-the-canadas-womens-national-soccer-team.html the-growth-and-exposure-of-womens-soccer-myth-or-reality.html womens-soccer-is-mainstream.html some-stereotypical-differences-between-womens-and-mens-teams.html best-refs-at-the-womens-world-cup.html some-stereotypical-differences-between-womens-and-mens-teams.html
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As technology has grown over the recent years, we have seen so many changes in how information is shared, presented, distributed and consumed. This is nothing new, it have gone on for generations, from pictures being drawn on cave walls, to scrolls, to the town crier, to newspapers, radio, television, websites, digital media, podcasts and blogs ( or vlogs).
Throughout time, people have found ways to get the word out and that is the one constant. There has always been and always be a medium for the share of information. The biggest change in recent times is the speed at which information can now reached a significantly broader audience. The internet and social media platforms can take any piece of information and readily make it accessible across the globe. The growing digital age and the rapid expansion of social media platforms has also increased the sources of information with pretty much anyone having the capacity to set up websites, blogs, and podcasts for example. I have previously posted about the growth of podcasts as well as my personal reasons for attempting to blog, you can access those posts via these links the-growth-of-the-podcast-industry-and-its-popularity.html writing-for-personal-benefit-and-growth.html However today I wanted more to cover the topic about blogs in general, what they are, why people blog and what purpose they serve. When blogging started, the first blogs were really glorified online journals, and in all likelihood, becoming a professional blogger and making money online wasn’t the goal. Since then, the blogosphere has evolved, and now people blog for many different reasons. There are even distinctions among types of blogs - business, lifestyle, fashion, food, and entertainment blogs, among others. While the blogging scene has developed over the last decade, the benefits of blogging are still plentiful. For some it is simply an avenue for self expression or relaxation ( much like I share via my past post on writing), for others it can be a venue for personal or professional development. The landscape has changed, but there are still countless blogs that serve as a platform for people to voice their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Whether your passion is sports, business, personal finance, cooking, politics, photography, or marketing, blogging gives you the opportunity to connect and network with like minded individuals who share the same passions. Beyond simply sharing about oneself, blogging can also be seen by some as a path to trying to affect change. Some people’s passions lean toward supporting a cause. Whether it’s a political, environmental or social cause, a blog is a great way to build awareness and garner support. Many people have something to say. Take my passion for coaching. I have been fortunate to have had a platform to share about my experiences, thoughts and give advice on coaching and working with athletes via presentations, conferences, being a coaching certification instructor and the simple act of interacting with other coaches and athletes. Writing a blog is simply another medium to share. If you’re someone who loves to teach, starting a blog can provide the opportunity to educate others interested in your field of expertise. The best part is that, as you build resources on your blog to teach others, you may realize there is a chance to monetize your blog by creating educational products or services online The more you write, the better you become at it. Most professional bloggers write on a regular basis and therefore analyze and proofread their writing constantly. You may even get feedback from readers to help you become a better writer. However, being a good writer is not a prerequisite for a successful blog. Many very high profile bloggers are self-proclaimed terrible writers, and part of their success could be attributed to their message of “If I can do it, so can you”. For me personally, blogging is often really a stream of thought exercise. I am thinking about a topic I want to write about or something comes to me because of an everyday occurrence and then I simply start writing. I find myself literally transferring my thoughts into words on a screen. Of course I try and pay attention to grammar and syntax but often times it really is just transcribing the thoughts as they present in my imagination. Once done, I post and publish with the excitement of getting it out there. I have often proof read or reread something I wrote a few days later only to discover errors or even some shared thoughts that make no sense. Plus also get feedback from my mother, who will say, I can't comment on the content but..... she was a teacher for 20+ years so once a teacher always a teacher. Blogging is a community-based endeavor, and networking is one reason people engage in it. Whether you are an individual with a passion and desire to share or someone who starts blogging to market a business idea, building relationships facilitates a blog’s growth. Like writing of any type, of course it is about content, about having something to share that will interest others, having a way to present it that captures attention and stimulates the imagination, however blogging is also about find a way to direct traffic and readership to a blog site. Often times, blogs are tied into social media platforms like facebook or twitter ( that is how I do it) or attached to a website that can generate hits. There is of course a commercial reason for blogging. More and more business from start ups to small to larger companies, use blogging as a marketing and promotional tool. Businesses create blogs primarily to expand their online presence, connect with potential customers, promote their brand in a positive conversation, and even generate online revenue. Beyond the immediate results, businesses use content marketing to rank their posts in search engines, thereby generating residual leads and revenue. A blog can be utilized as a platform to showcase knowledge and expertise. Publishing blog posts that are accurate, timely, relevant, and informative will eventually get the attention of liked minded individuals, trendsetters, decisions makers and in the case of companies, even industry insiders all of which can earn visibility and recognition as an authoritative source and thought-leader. Blogging is a great way for aspiring authors, freelance writers, designers, artists and other creative types to build up an online portfolio. By showcasing their writing skills on large platforms with expansive reach, freelancers can grow their exposure and sign new clients. As the internet and technology become more ingrained in our day-to-day lives, the benefits of blogging or building a website become impossible to ignore. However, unlike in the early days, bloggers don’t need to have computer science degrees or HTML knowledge. Software such as WordPress.org and “how to start a blog” guides have made it simple and easy to set up a website and blog in 15 minutes. If you’re unsure of whether blogging is right for you, use a free blogging platform for a few months before transitioning to a self-hosted solution. While the free website hosting site I use ( just an FYI, there is a premium pay for use version with the ability to register a domain name and get improved functionality ) does have a simple statistics display that shows how many distinct site and page visits occur daily, there is no way for me to really know how many people actually fully read my posts or if they do, how many might find then enjoyable and relevant. All I can do is keep writing, keep posting and enjoying myself. The year that was 2018 was fairly significant for me in terms of life changes, personal growth and a few moments of realization. Of course as anyone who might regularly read my blog and see my tweets would know, I retired from coaching after 27 years. In conjunction with this, I was inducted into the Lac St Louis Soccer region Hall of Fame ( this is the region in which the club where I started coaching belongs to and with which I am considered affiliated). These events made my quite reflective on my coaching career, my contributions to the sport, to women's soccer, to women in sport, but also on how my involvement in coaching impacted my life and personal growth.
This past year also saw me reconnect with some high school friends, attend a small reunion and in conjunction with my retirement from coaching, it added to the nostalgia and self reflection about the path my life has taken up until now. I have shared different thoughts about my life both in coaching but some general and very personal thoughts via this blog as it has become a way for me to express myself but also as a way for me process emotions, feelings, perceptions and thoughts somewhat openly, something I guess I am not really known for in person. Following getting together with some former high classmates, I had a run of blog posts where I reflected back on high school, talking about high school memories, friendships and how I perceived myself to be back then and who I think I am today. I am not generally one to open up very easily about my personal feelings and emotions, at least not with many people but someone blogging has given me a venue with which to do so. However, and now the crux of today's topic, the most important factor in sharing opinions and perceptions is being open to having a well balanced and sometimes diverse vision. Just because seems true to me doesn't me it is. So what if I got it all wrong? What if how I perceive who I was, who I have become and what I have given back to my athletes through coaching is completely wrong ? Sometimes we imagine ourselves as different than what we really are. We think we are one way, at least we picture ourselves as this, and yet in reality we do not fit this picture. We may think we are kind and gentle, when in truth we have very little patience for things. We may see ourselves as open minded and respectful of diverse opinions, but we hate to be wrong. However we picture ourselves, it is good to see ourselves for who we really are. Perception can be altered, whether it is how we see the world or how we see ourselves. All it takes is a little honesty, without trying to make ourselves feel better, which is what we usually do when we see what we call faults in ourselves. We try to feel better about it, and this often means we find ways to alter our behavior. We try to change how we are to supplement our perceived faults. We are far better off just seeing ourselves for who we are, and leaving it at that. In our everyday lives, we build about perceptions about ourselves through interactions with others. We try and gauge how they might see us, what they might think about us and once we have created the perception, we seek out signs that will either validate or contradict what we perceive as being reality. For me, one example is how my involvement in coaching might have affected the lives of my athletes or how I might have done my part to help further then women's game and the equitable treatment of female soccer players. However, have I ? I don't have any true measurable evidence that my involvement actually impacted anyone or anything. Some might argue that being inducted into a Hall of Fame was a sign of recognition but it is really? Someone nominated me ( I actually don't really know who), some others looked at my documented coaching path and made a decision that I was worthy. However, did they ask my athletes if I made any difference in their lives? Is there some empirical data that can unequivocally state that women's soccer is somehow a little better because of my efforts? Knowledge about perception vs reality is an ongoing eternal process. We never really go from “wrong” to “right” or "true" to"false" once we with the discovery of additional information about ourselves or about other's opinions of us. Rather, we go from partially wrong to slightly less wrong, to slightly less wrong than that, to even less wrong than that, and so on. As we discover new information, we might adapt our behavior or actions in such a manner that might render serve to show that what others might think of us is not accurate. Therefore, from a perspective of self-awareness, we should not seek to find the ultimate “right” answer for ourselves, but rather seek to chip away at the ways which we’re wrong today so that we’re a little less wrong tomorrow. We need to have an open-mind and be ready to discover that who we thought we were, or at least how we thought we might be seen by others is wrong. When looked at from this perspective, personal development can actually be quite scientific and not tied into emotions. The hypotheses we want to test are the perceptions we have of our ourselves. Our actions and behaviors are the experiments. The resulting internal emotions and thought patterns are our data. We can then take those and compare them to our original beliefs and then integrate them into our overall understanding of our needs and emotional make-up for the future. It is quite possible, we really are the person we imagine ourselves to be deep down, but our the actions, body language and verbal cues with give off publicly can distort who others see. The reason behind this inconsistency between who we thing we are, who we want to be and how others see ourselves can occur for many different reasons, anything from fear of being judged, the need or desire to conform to convention or because we might have had negative experiences in the past acting a certain way. For example, let’s say that I have started blogging on a more regular basis because deep down since I have always enjoyed reading, I might harbor some aspirations to be a professional writer. It starts with some assumptions, that I have something to share, that I am creative, that I am both comfortable sharing my thoughts and opinion, that people will enjoy my writing, and that I would be happy writing every day, and so on. Then what ? The answer is easy. I write. A lot. I try and find topics I think I am qualified to write about ( soccer, coaching, maybe my personal path in life), I might try and throw in some short stories to test out my creativity. Then I share them and hope to be able to gauge people's interest. Sharing via my blog is a way to test those perceptions I have about myself out in the real world and get real-world feedback and emotional data from them. When I started blogging initial, I tried to post something every so often and for all I knew it could have turned out that I didn't enjoy writing every day as much as I thought I would. As I started writing more and more, there were ( and still are ) moments where I realize that while I seem to have many thoughts going on in my mind there are actually times that I have a lot of trouble expressing some of them. There is a stark realization that there is a need for validation when you write not to mention a lot of failure and rejection involved in writing, which kind of takes the fun out of it. This, in a nutshell, is called life. Or at least what life should be. But somewhere along the way we all became so obsessed with being “right” about our lives that we never end up living it. So fact, what I've realized is that I enjoy writing, not so much for sharing and the hope that some or many are reading it but simply as a type of relaxing activity. I actually wrote a post about writing in the past. If interested you can find it here. writing-for-personal-benefit-and-growth.html However, again that isn't the main topic today. It is often said that people don’t take action because they’re afraid of failure. Someone is single and is always talking about wanting to meet someone and yet, they never put themselves out there or get out of the house. Or, those friends we all have who complain about their work, about how they feel they deserve better pay or a promotion but never confront their boss about it. The conventional wisdom about these examples is that they’re simply afraid of failure, of rejection, of someone saying “no.” But it goes beyond that. Sure, rejection hurts. Failure sucks. But there are certainties we hold onto which we are afraid to question or let go of, certainties which meet our needs and give our lives meaning. Not getting out there to date in order not having to confront perceptions about desirability and self-esteem. Or not requesting a meeting with the boss to discuss possible promotions or a salary review because it might actually challenge the self held perceptions about the value of one's work or whether they are actually productive or not. These type of certainties are designed to give us moderate comfort now by mortgaging greater happiness later. They’re terrible long-term strategies. These are the certainties that keep us in place and out of touch. I can tell myself that I will let others judge whether I was a good coach or not, I can let others express how I might have had some impact in their lives but that I for my part I am comfortable in the knowledge that I always did my best. However if I am honest, that is also a bit of a cop out, like saying that others' opinion of me don't matter and don't affect how I view my contributions. I have never been worried about other's judgements, in the sense that I didn't let the specter of how others might perceive my decisions affect making them. I have been a manager in the work place since I was 27 years old and spent 27 years coaching, both leadership roles and I always prioritized being fair, transparent and consistent over making decisions in order to be liked. Doesn't mean that hearing criticism or complaints didn't hurt, I am a human being, of course it has an effect on me, however, when you accept any type of leadership role, it is a reality of the role that you will not make everyone happy and some will simply not like you. However, I am talking in the bigger sense, was the "good" I hoped my coaching was doing, were the primary reasons behind my actions and commitment, those the drove me to continue giving of myself, really what I thought they were? Does my longevity and the perceived recognition I might have gotten along the way validate my commitment? What if maybe accomplishment something great and long lasting in life has less to do with the ability to be right all the time and more to do with the ability to accept we just might be wrong some or lots of the time. What if we take those moments when we are wrong as a way to ensure we can improve moving forward. So maybe I should try it, assuming that I am wrong, about everything. What would that mean? Where might it lead me? Whatever doubts I might be having right now, what if I approached them with some uncertainty. What if asked myself, “What if I was wrong about "this" or about myself?” Because in most likelihood, it is quite possible that how I perceive myself, compared to what others think is very different. Maybe I simply am very wrong just like everybody else might also be. Is it really so bad ? Actually no, it can actually be good news. Because being wrong means being open to change. It means being open to improvement. Every generation looks back at the past and points out all the errors that were made and how things could have been done better. We also have older individuals ( like myself ), who talk about " things today" and how they changed in ways that don't make sense. Imagine if we for once looked at who we were, regardless of what we thought we were, and just were, instead of trying to realign ourselves with what we think we are. We let go of our identity of self and our judgments of who we are. We let go of the trying, the act, and the effort that goes into our lives. Our reality fades from trying to keep up a persona to one that is at ease with the world. You will find the more you let go of who you think you are, the easier it is to be you. Now, this is not just about faults, but about all areas of your persona, for who we are underneath everything is who we are meant to be. It is us who gets in the way of being who we really are. We can carry false ideas of ourselves around for our whole lives, they can weigh us down and make us do things we don't really want to do. All because we once decided this was who we were. Usually any perception we have about ourselves tends to be negative or it can be on the other end with highly placed approval, again the balancing act. We try very hard to keep the scales even, even in our own mind. Let's tip the scales and be done with them. Let's throw away the good and the bad. Let's have no idea of who we are. It may seem deep and perhaps a little hard, but it can be done, for all we are really doing is letting go of the judgment we feel for ourselves. We are letting who we really are be there. Perhaps there is a part of yourself that feels unused, covered up, and waiting for release. Perhaps this idea of who you are really doesn't fit any longer. We change, and often our perception of ourselves doesn't. Maybe there was one time in your life where you were stingy or untrustworthy, but are you still, and is it fair to hold onto that, fair for you? What if we got rid of everything, all of the ways we see ourselves, and just left it open. What if we did not look for a identity. So much is connected to how we see ourselves. It controls our behavior, attitude, and how we relate to others. When we let it go, we are free to be ourselves completely. Stop identifying yourself by what you think you are. Let go of how you see yourself, so you can be you. When you do, you will feel so much better, happier, and freer because of it. So what if am wrong about how I am, what I have accomplished and how I am perceived? I guess I can only approach like I approach most things in my life. This is me, this is who I am, I can't change my errors of the past, just simply focus on my actions of the future. Avant de rentrer dans le vif du sujet pour l'article d'aujourd'hui, je voulais, pour la transparence, dire que je n'ai pas d'enfants et que les commentaires et opinions que je vais partager sont basés sur des expériences vécues en tant qu'entraîneur durant 27 ans. J'ai pu a plusieurs reprises être témoin d'interactions entre athlète et parent et eu moi-même plusieurs interventions avec des parents au sujet de " la carrière" sportive de leur enfants. Sans me penser expert du tout, je pense avoir vécu assez pour pouvoir partager une opinion assez crédible.
Ironiquement, le fait que justement je n'ai pas d'enfants a été a plusieurs occasions la base des reproches dans le style de " tu ne peux pas comprendre comment les jeunes athlètes se sentent parce que tu n'as pas d'enfants". En tout cas.... alors, voici mon article pour aujourd'hui. Les parents jouent un rôle primordial dans la réussite sportive de leur enfant: soit ils sont une source de motivation, soit ils peuvent transformer le projet sportif à leur compte et être des briseurs de carrière. Beaucoup de parents comprennent le sport, ses enjeux et sont intéressés avant tout par l’épanouissement de leur enfant à travers leur pratique sportive. Mais il y a également des parents qui ne jouent pas leur rôle d’adulte auprès de leur enfant, car l’enjeu devient plus important que l’expérience en elle-même. On peut voir très souvent des histoires entre parents et sportifs qui ont des répercussions très néfastes et qui peuvent mettre un terme à la pratique du sportif. Je commencerais d’abord par rassurer les parents: votre tâche n’est pas facile. Savoir gérer un enfant qui fait un sport de compétition n’est pas une chose aisée. Que vous ayez été vous-même sportif ou non, le moment de la défaite est toujours difficile à vivre, pour lui, comme (bien souvent) pour vous, parce que vous ne savez pas toujours comment «bien» réagir. La pratique sportive de compétition demande souvent aux parents (ou plus fréquemment à un parent en particulier) de s’organiser, de trouver des solutions pour conduire votre enfant à une compétition, de participer financièrement à ses entraînements et ses compétitions. Je rencontre plus souvent des parents qui essayent de faire de leur mieux, qui tentent de gérer les aspects émotionnels, qui se posent de bonnes questions mais parfois sans même s’en rendre compte, certains basculent dans des comportements qui deviennent néfastes pour leur enfant. A vous, parents de sportifs, j’aimerais donc apporter mes observations et opinions, sans tout fois donner de leçon, car on ne peut pas parler de normes en matière d’éducation et que je n’aime pas séparer le comportement en «bon» ou «mauvais», mais je vous propose plutôt des questionnements sur vos comportements et votre vécu de parent avec votre enfant sportif. La première question à se poser est d’abord celle de la motivation de votre enfant. Pourquoi votre enfant a l’envie de faire un sport? Pourquoi le pratique-t-il en compétition? Quelles sont ses motivations réelles? C’est une chose essentielle à savoir car bon nombre d’enfants jouent souvent pour le plaisir de la pratique, prennent goût à un sport, à s’entraîner, à progresser aussi, et puis parfois le sport est simplement un prétexte pour passer de bons moments avec les copains. La socialisation est une des raisons principales qui pousse un enfant à continuer dans son sport. Il faut donc chercher à savoir si votre enfant joue pour son propre plaisir ou pour le vôtre et savoir comprendre (et entendre) que même si votre enfant est doué pour son sport, qu’il n’ait pas forcément envie de s’investir dans la compétition de haut niveau. En tant que parent, il faut vous poser la question de votre propre motivation dans le projet sportif de votre enfant: est-ce que vous voulez que votre enfant poursuive le sport vers une carrière professionnelle? qu’il s’épanouisse dans le sport? Vos propres motivations ne sont pas toujours claires à ce sujet. Même en insistant sur ses efforts, vos attentes de résultats transparaissent dans vos réactions. On peut voir parfois des attitudes positives excessives lors des victoires et bien souvent des attitudes négatives (ou une absence de réactions) lors des défaites. Même si vous essayez d’avoir un discours positif, votre émotion peut être interprétée par l’enfant. Il ressent souvent un double discours «c’est pas grave» et en même temps une déception dans le regard ou la voix du parent. Un amalgame est donc souvent fait entre vos réactions et ses résultats. Lorsqu’il ressent une déception de votre part, l’enfant associe souvent cela à «j’ai gagné donc je suis aimé» et inversement quand il perd «j’ai perdu, alors je ne suis pas apprécié par mes parents». Même si ce n’est pas votre intention, vos réactions induisent forcément ce ressenti chez l’enfant. Un enfant a souvent tendance à vouloir naturellement faire plaisir à ses parents. Il est donc important à savoir que si vous vous focalisez sur les résultats, le plaisir de l’enfant diminue pour sa pratique et il est souvent une source de pression: l’enfant commence à stresser parce qu’il ressent une pression de ses parents à gagner. Gagner ne doit pas être un but en soi, mais il faut donc véhiculer le message que l’effort, l’investissement, la détermination, le dépassement de soi sont plus importants que de parler uniquement de la performance ou d’insister sur le résultat brut. Il faut donc veiller à ce que la pression ne soit pas insupportable sur les épaules de l’enfant, qui doit déjà gérer sa propre déception d’avoir perdu. Le parent doit être là dans un rôle de soutien, avoir une capacité à dédramatiser la défaite, savoir consoler et réconforter l’enfant avant tout. Quel rôle joue la compétition dans votre famille ? Cette question est aussi cruciale à se poser, car parfois dans une fratrie, un seul enfant peut faire du sport de compétition et la famille entière se retrouve souvent impliquée dans le projet: les frères et sœurs aussi ont peut-être d’autres intérêts, passions et peuvent se sentir négligés dans le projet sportif de leur frère/sœur qui fait un sport de compétition. Sans compter le temps passé par un parent avec l’enfant dans les déplacements, l’enfant sportif peut souvent porter le poids des attentes d’une famille entière et se sentir ainsi le centre de la famille. Quand il perd, et que le parent est de mauvaise humeur ensuite, cela a des répercussions sur toute la famille et peut être une source potentielle de déséquilibre au niveau familial. L’enfant se sent aussi uniquement perçu comme sportif, compétiteur aux yeux de ses parents. Ceci est particulièrement délicat, car il ne faut pas oublier que c’est avant tout un enfant et qu’il a aussi envie que l’on parle d’autres choses que de son sport (surtout quand il n’est pas en réussite). Une des choses qui est souvent frappantes est la première question que vous posez à votre enfant quand il vous appelle après une compétition: «Alors, Est-ce que tu as gagné?». Cette question induit implicitement pour lui que seul le résultat compte. En demandant par exemple «Comment cela s’est passé pour toi?», la démarche est différente, cela démontre que vous vous intéressez à lui, à comment il se sent plutôt que d’être centré sur le résultat. Enfin, par rapport à la famille, l’enfant ressent parfois aussi dans votre déception, le fait que vous investissiez beaucoup de temps et surtout de l’argent pour sa pratique. L’enfant ressent souvent les sacrifices que font ses parents d’une manière inconsciente et cela pèse également sur sa pratique. Quelle importance placez-vous sur la réussite sportive de votre enfant ? Il y a parfois une tendance chez certains parents à vivre à travers le projet de leur enfant. Le parent a envie de rattraper son propre passé, car il n’a pas réussi lui-même dans le sport ou qu’il rêve de gloire qui pourrait combler sa propre existence. Le bonheur du parent devient ainsi intimement lié à la réussite de l’enfant. Il est donc important de vous questionner sur votre investissement et si votre enfant vient ainsi combler un vide ou une projection de votre propre désir. L’enfant a sa propre histoire et ne doit pas être une substitution. Il est important de prendre du recul quant à votre implication dans le projet de votre enfant et qu’il sente que votre vie ne tourne pas uniquement autour de ses entraînements et de ses compétitions. Certains parents aussi rêvent de fortune que l’on peut retrouver chez des sportifs professionnels (tennis, football, golf principalement) tout en oubliant que seul quelques sportifs arrivent à vivre de manière luxueuse de leur sport. L’aspect financier ne doit pas être un objectif en soi car il sera de toute manière toujours une source de frustration, car l’apprentissage vers le très haut niveau peut prendre beaucoup de temps et est surtout basé sur de nombreuses incertitudes sur la réussite future. Votre enfant peut être très bon dans les catégories juniors mais ne jamais arriver à vivre son sport de manière professionnelle. Dans l’euphorie de la réussite sportive, le parent a tendance à oublier aussi le bien être de son enfant. Il pense aux entraînements, à l’organisation, aux compétitions, aux résultats mais oublie parfois de demander à l’enfant ce qu’il ressent, ses doutes, ses difficultés. Par exemple, la période de l’adolescence est déjà en soi un passage compliqué à vivre et le parent doit savoir accompagner son enfant dans son développement psychologique global. L’enfant qui ressent trop de pression aura tendance à se renfermer et à ne pas vouloir communiquer avec le parent par crainte de rejet ou de ne pas être à la hauteur des attentes. Connaître la psychologie de votre enfant peut être importante pour savoir comment réagir face à lui, face à ses déceptions et aussi être un soutien indéfectible quel que soit l’issue des résultats. Dans le sport des gens, on parle souvent de la relation entraîneur et athlète, mais je pense que la relation parent et entraîneur a aussi une grande importance pour que l'expérience soit positive en enrichissante pour les jeunes. Le parent a une place à part dans l’univers du sportif. Il a même la première place. Mais dans le projet sportif, le parent doit aussi savoir laisser sa place aux autres et faire confiance notamment à l’entraîneur. Quand un parent vient assister à tous les entraînements de son enfant, il n’aide pas à développer cette relation de confiance avec l’entraîneur qui se sent scruté, jugé et désinvesti de sa mission. Savoir se mettre en retrait aussi bien dans les entraînements que dans les compétitions est souvent très bénéfique pour l’enfant et pour l’apprentissage de son autonomie, qui est primordiale pour son développement psychologique. Savoir privilégier une bonne communication avec l’entraîneur est toujours un atout dans la pratique compétitive de votre enfant. De plus l’entraîneur a l’expérience du sport et peut aussi être un soutien pour vous et une source d’information concernant la pratique sportive de votre enfant. En conclusion, votre vision du projet sportif de votre enfant doit être au cœur de vos questionnements. Il faut apprendre à s’analyser, écouter aussi parfois ce que l’enfant n’exprime pas uniquement par les mots, savoir détecter quand votre investissement a des répercussions négatives dans le développement sportif. Le sport ne doit pas être central dans votre vie car il sera source de déséquilibre pour l’enfant. Enfin, l’enfant apprend de ses parents, interprète ses commentaires, et à mon sens, le parent doit déjà commencer à contrôler ses propres émotions, rester positif pour que le centre du projet soit accès sur le bienêtre de l’enfant et non pas les résultats uniquement. Le 22 Juin 2018, le Département des Sports à l’université Concordia, a annoncé que par accord commun, je ne retournerai pas pour une 17e saison comme entraîneur-chef pour l'équipe de soccer féminin des Stingers de Concordia. Depuis la saison d'automne, avec la nomination d'un nouveau directeur, nous avions discuté de divers scénarios d'un plan de transition vers une nouvelle direction pour le programme de soccer et qui éventuellement solliciterais un changement d’entraîneur. Comme toujours, ma principale préoccupation était d'assurer que tout changement soit fait d'une manière qui serait le meilleur pour les athlètes.
Quand j'ai commencé à Concordia en 2002, je n'avais aucune idée combien de temps je serais en fonction mais certainement à l'époque, je ne pouvais imaginer que je serais impliqué encore 16 ans plus tard. J'ai commencé sachant pas vraiment à quoi attendre et soudainement, une saison est devenue 5, puis j’ai atteint 10 saisons et là j’étais rendu à 16e saison. Comme je l'ai dit à plusieurs personnes et à plusieurs reprises au fil des ans, malgré que le poste d'entraîneur à Concordia était belle et bien temps partiel, il était en fait une passion à temps plein. Le réseau universitaire de soccer autant chez les hommes que les femmes a tellement changé et grandi depuis mes débuts par la qualité de jeu, le niveau de compétition, mais surtout par les demandes d’engagement de la part des entraineurs. J’étais le seul dans le réseau qui ne faisait par carrière temps plein dans le coaching. Avec l’introduction d’une ligue complète à l'intérieur pendant l'hiver, il est devenu un engagement qui a couru assez intensément de la mi-août à fin mars, mais ne prenais jamais vraiment fin entre mars et août avec d le recrutement, les tâches administratives, la préparation de la saison, etc. Durant mes années comme entraineur chez Concordia, j’ai participé à deux reprises aux Jeux Universitaires Mondiaux représentant USport et le Canada ( 2009 et 2011), siégé pendant 7 ans comme président du comité des entraîneurs su soccer féminin universitaire ainsi que d’avoir passé les 5 dernières années comme représentant de notre conférence sur le sous-comité technique de USport (l’organisme national de sport universitaire). Alors que vous pouvez le constater pour un rôle temps partiel, il avait pas mal d’engagement et temps investie. A fuir et mesure que cette 16e saison arriver vers sa conclusion, et qu’a avec l'arrivée d'un nouveau directeur et une nouvelle vision, c’était évidant qu’une planification à long terme serait nécessaire, et alors j'ai commencé à regarder vers la possibilité de quitter mes fonctions. Les saisons d'hiver en particulier étaient devenues de plus en plus difficile à gérer en même temps que mon travail à temps plein que je ne prévoyais pas rester au-delà de la fin de la prochaine saison d'automne. Ainsi, après diverses discussions, on a conclu que le moment pour un changement était venu. Ainsi, vendredi 22 Juin 2018, est devenu non seulement le dernier jour de mon temps avec les Stingers, mais le premier jour de ma retraite comme entraineur tout court. La plupart des gens qui connaissent mon implication dans le coaching, m’associer comme entraîneur-chef des Stingers de Concordia parce que c'est là où je suis depuis 16 ans. Il est le poste le plus vu et connu dont j’ai eu mais qui en même temps coïncide avec la croissance dans les médias sociaux et la couverture en ligne ce qui signifie une plus grande visibilité. Cependant, la réalité est que j'ai été entraîneur près de 12 mois par année depuis les 27 dernières années (16 avec Concordia, 6 avec les provinciales et le Centre national de formation et en commençant avec 7 ans au niveau du club avec Lakershore Soccer. Et oui en faisant le totale ça semble être plus 29 ans mais il y a eu chevauchement de deux ans entre les équipes club et provinciales ... (ce qui m'a fait encore plus occupé). En plus de cela, vous pouvez ajouter 3 années passées en tant que directeur technique de Soccer Lakeshore, 4 ans en tant que directeur de cours de certification des entraîneurs avec la Fédération et de nombreuses cliniques, présentations, 4 mois de travail avec le Sport-Études au Lac St Louis dans une position de remplacement et ainsi de suite. Donc fondamentalement, être entraîneur de soccer a été une partie énorme de ma vie ou comme ma conjointe a dit suite à ma décision, elle n'a jamais connu une période de temps depuis nos noces en 1991 qui ironiquement c’est la même année que j’ai débuté comme entraîneur où je n'étais pas impliquer dans le soccer. Si j’ai pu rester implique toutes ces années c’est beaucoup grâce à son soutien, sa patience et sa compréhension de ce que le soccer représentait pour moi. J’ai souvent depuis quelques années que quand mon temps chez Concordia finirait, il serait, selon toute vraisemblance la fin de ma participation active dans le coaching. En Octobre 2017, j'ai posté un article ( en anglais par contre sur mon blog intitulé « Quand le coup de sifflet final souffle pour la dernière fois », vous pouvez y accéder via ce lien, when-the-final-whistle-blows-for-the-last-time.html Ou je partageais quelques réflexions sur la façon dont je pourrais me sentir une fois que je n'étais plus entraîneur. Je ne savais pas à ce moment que ce serait ma dernière saison mais je savais certainement que la retraite était proche. Je dois dire que la que la fin de ma carrière d'entraîneur est arrivé beaucoup de pensées et des sentiments que j'exprimais dans ce poste sont très précis. Je me trouve à réfléchir beaucoup sur ce que le soccer et plus précisément le coaching représente pour moi et la place que c’a pris dans ma vie. Quand l’annonce a sortie en juin, assez rapidement j’ai commencé à recevoir plein de messages textes, courriels et appels de divers personnes que j’ai croisé au cours des années comme entraineur; des anciens joueuses et entraîneurs adjoints, des entraîneurs des autres universitaires à travers le pays d'anciens étudiants-journalistes qui ont couvert l’équipe et surtout plein de gens qui sont devenus d'ami(e)s à cours des années. Disons que c’a fait du bien savoir que peut-être ma passion, mon implication et ma façon de faire avait quand même laisser des traces sur plusieurs personnes. Sachant que même si j’aurais revenu pour la saison et 2018, elle aurait été sans doute ma dernière, la réalité est que j’avais déjà fait un peu la décision que le coaching pour moi arrivait à sa fin. Le fait que le changement s’est passé un peu plus tôt que peut-être prévu à simplement fait devancer un de quelques mois ce qui était une éventualité. Alors je ne me suis pas trouvé face à des sentiments de grosse perte ou un moment choquant. Je l'avais déjà vu venir depuis quelques mois, tôt ou tard et alors j’ai pu me réconcilié avec la plupart des émotions qui j’aurais pu sentir sachant que c’était fini. Bien sûr, la mi-août arrivé, avec l’ouverture du camp de sélection quand j’aurais normalement eu à passer des longues heures sur le terrain, entouré des joueuses, j’ai senti un petit vide mais surtout je me suis senti bizarre d’être à la maison en sachant que l'équipe débutais ses activité. J’ai assisté à un seul match au cours de la saison voulant prendre une certaine distance puis bien sûr c’était très diffèrent comme sensation, assis dans les gradins à regarder comme un simple spectateur. Cependant, comme avec toute autre chose, la vie continue, les joueuses que j’ai coaché seront toutes parties en 2 ou 3 ans et mes liens avec l’équipe ne seront plus les mêmes. On est rendu à presque 7 mois depuis l’annonce de mon départ alors les échanges avec les gens qui faisait partie de ma vie de coach sont de plus en plus rare Dans les jours et semaines qui ont suivi mon départ, j’ai reçu plein de messages dans le genre « félicitations pour votre carrière d'entraîneur », «merci pour tout ce que vous avez fait pour l'équipe et le sport » jusqu’aux messages dans le genre « tu vas bien? ». Ils ont tous fait du bien autant par leur contenu et par les gens eux même qui ont voulu me contacter. En novembre comme le championnat canadien a eu lieu à Ottawa, je me suis déplacé pour aller voir des matchs mais surtout croiser les entraineurs avec qui j’avais fait connaissance durant tous ces années. J’ai eu de plaisir les revoir et en discuter eux comme on avait fait pendant des années lors des championnats, mais bien sûr c’était évidant que les choses avaient changé, eux ils continuent leur travail et pour moi c’était fini. Je suis maintenant du passé. Je ne dis pas ça avec tristesse, au contraire, je suis en paix avec la situation et quand je regarde l’ensemble de mes à 27 ans comme coach, je le fais avec fierté et un sentiment d'accomplissement. Je voulais essayer écrire quelque chose en français qui tenterait d'exprimer ce que je ressens maintenant que ce chapitre de ma vie est fermé et de ce que le coaching a signifié pour moi. Sur mon blog, j’ai mis plusieurs articles couvrant divers sujets dont certains sont liés à mes pensées, liées aux aspects techniques et l'encadrement comme entraîneur, les étudiants-athlètes, les femmes dans les sport et divers autres points de vue incluant quelques pièces de fiction. En passant à travers mes divers articles, j’en ai sortie quelques-uns de ceux que je considère les plus personnelles (en anglais et français) où je partage un peu plus sur ma personne et comment le coaching a eu un impact sur ma vie. Vous pouvez les consulter via ces liens sans ordre particulier; suis-je-homme-feministe-ou-je-me-prends-trop-au-serieux.html coach-de-soccer-oui-mais-quel-genre-de-coach.html letter-to-my-younger-self.html life-lessons-ive-learned-from-sports.html every-day-i-pinch-myself-i-am-so-privileged.html Donc, pour ceux qui ne visiteront pas ces anciens articles pour découvrir en peu plus sur moi , et bien, si nous regardons le soccer et mon parcours comme coach, je commencerais à dire que le soccer m'a permis de rencontrer ma conjointe. Elle a transféré au même club où je jouais et nous avons commencé à se fréquenter. Et puis comme je l'ai écrit plusieurs fois, si j’ai passé autant de temps comme entraîneur, c’est en partie dû à elle et son équipe. Un ami a voulu essayé être leur entraineur, il a demandé mon aide parce j’assisté quand même régulièrement aux matchs et de la a commencé ma carrière de coach. Je suis entré dans le coach vraiment par hasard et un concours de circonstances mais tout est parti de là. Sur un base plus élémentaire, le soccer et le coaching sont fondamentalement liés directement à ma vie de couple, et la relation entre moi et ma conjointe, elle-même une joueuse et entraineur reconnu pour son implication. Pourquoi est-ce pertinent? Parce qu'à travers tout cela, elle m’a appuyé dans ma poursuite de ma passion, de me laisser travailler essentiellement deux emplois, en particulier les 16 dernières années où j'ai plus ou moins disparu le soir et week-ends durant la saison universitaire. Juste pour ça, je serai toujours reconnaissant. Coaching m'a permis de trouver ma voix, de développer mes compétences en gestion, de rester impliqué dans un sport que j'aime bien après que ma carrière de joueur aient fini. Durant 27 ans, j'ai coaché des centaines de joueuses, fais des grandes amitiés, pour voyager vers des pays et villes qui sans le soccer j’aurais jamais connu, et découvert l’importance des liens et amitiés tissés et construits à travers l’esprit d’équipe qui est construit autour des objectifs communs et une passion partagée. Le coaching m'a permis de sentir la fierté de redonner à la jeunesse et ma communauté, d'avoir peut pouvoir aider les gens bâtir des outils qui leur serviront même longtemps après avoir arrêté de jouer le soccer, et qui sait, peut-être faire ma petite part de les aider devenir la meilleure version possible d'eux-mêmes. Le soccer m’a donné comme mission de lutter pour le traitement égale du sport féminin, les femmes dans le sport et peut-être même en fin de compte pour le traitement égal des femmes dans tous les aspects de la société. Je pu voir certaines de mes anciennes joueuses à la télévision lors des Coupes du Monde et Olympiques, et même entendu l'une d'elles dire à mes joueuses actuelles comment quelque chose que je lui avais dit il y a plus de vingt années avait resté avec elle durant tous ce années pour servir de motivation tout au long de sa carrière de joueuse ( 180 matchs avec le Canada, 4 Coupes du Monde, 3 Olympiques). J'ai vu mes joueuses terminent leurs études universitaires, commencer leur carrière de travail, se marier et me présenter leurs enfants. Coaching m’a donné des amitiés qui perdureront même si je ne suis plus impliqué et des souvenirs qui restent à toujours, Quel sera mon héritage de coaching? Il y a plusieurs années au moment que je commençais chez Concordia, deux grands noms du soccer football québécois, Jacques Gagnon et Georges Schwartz ont sorti un livre sur l'histoire du soccer dans notre province. Mon nom est là à quelques reprises soulignant mon implication comme entraîneur dans le soccer du club équipe provinciale et de niveau universitaire. Dans une section, Je suis inscrit comme étant parmi les pionniers et bâtisseur du soccer féminin. C'est une belle reconnaissance, mais assez de temps a passé que mon implication dans les premiers jours de soccer féminin dans notre province a probablement été oublié. Mes exploits avec Lakeshore Soccer ou les équipes provinciales sont aussi il y a assez longtemps et à un moment où les empreintes numériques étaient pas comme ils les sont aujourd'hui et alors ne sont que des souvenirs du passé (ou de ceux qui étaient là). Comme la plupart des gens associent ma carrière d’entraineur avec mes années chez les Stingers, bien sûr que pour beaucoup de personnes mon héritage de coach est directement associé avec le manque de résultats ou championnats durant mes années en place. Telle est la nature du sport compétitif. Il est très facile de regarder la fiche victoires-défaites d’un entraîneur et faire jugement sur ses compétences et efforts sur cette base la et surement pour beaucoup de personnes ça sera le cas envers moi. Peu importe les efforts que j’ai pu mettre pour soutenir les etudiantes-athletes des Stingers ou pour hausser l'image et crédibilité du programme de soccer chez Concordia ce sont des choses que n’ont pas été visibles de l’extérieur. Ai-je été un bon entraîneur? Pour certains peut-être je l’ai été et pour d'autres, surement que je ne l’ai été ou je ne le suis pas. Encore une fois, telle est la réalité d’un entraîneur au dans le sport compétitive. Ça serait impossible penser que toute athlète avec qui j’ai travaillé aurait ou aura une opinion positive de moi. Je peux juste espérer que la plupart penseront de moi comme quelqu'un qui se souciait de ses athlètes et qui était passionné, Pour moi personnellement, autant bien les hauts et que les bas de ma carrière d'entraîneur ont contribué à ma croissance en tant que personne. Est-ce que j’ai des regrets? Bien sûr ! Je peux regarder avec le recul et trouver des choses ou décisions que j’aurais pu faire mieux ou différemment. Comme dit le proverbe, le recul est toujours 20/20 mais je me rassure en pensant qu’à chacune de ces décisions ou actions, ils ont été faits avec les informations disponibles et en passant qu’aux meilleurs intérêts de l'équipe les joueuses elle mêmes. Au fil des mois et des années qui passeront, comment les gens se souviennent de mon temps comme entraîneur pourra changer et s’établir. Je ne peux pas contrôler ce que les autres pourraient penser, je ne peux que me concentrer sur ce qu'il a signifié pour moi et comment il amélioré ma vie. Je laisse le coaching avec un le sentiment de fierté et d'accomplissement et sachant que je suis une meilleure personne à cause de cela. Le reste, je vais laisser à chacun d'entre vous de décider. Je tiens à remercier tous ceux que j’ai pu croiser durant mon parcours et qui pourrait lire ceci et qui faisait partie de ma carrière d'entraîneur. Le coaching peut être fini pour moi, mais le soccer fera toujours partie de ma vie, et ma volonté de soutenir tous ceux qui veulent entrer dans l'entraînement aussi. Et bien sûr le sens de devoir à parler haut et fort pour le traitement égal du sport féminin ne me quittera jamais Maintenant, sur ça, vers l’avant et vers le prochain et excitant chapitre de ma vie. In March of 1991, a teammate of mine who had volunteered to coach our club's senior women's team asked if I might be interested in being his assistant coach. I am sure he respected my understanding of the game, my interpersonal skills and my ability to to manage a game plan as I was the team captain and occasional player coach, but his main selling point for why I was a great candidate to help him out was that I was uniquely qualified since my fiancé played on the team and I attended most of the games anyways ( yes those were pretty much his words). With no actual coaching experience and probably even less ambition to be a coach, I accepted his invitation .... only to have him quit by mid-July and find myself on my own, coaching a team of women. In that moment of " Oh crap!" and trying to figure out how to proceed, never could I have possibly imagined the importance and magnitude that coaching would come to take in my life. For many people, the measure of coaching success is measured by the number of win and losses and how many championships, league titles, tournaments etc a coach has lead his team or athletes to. When you coach as long as I did, you accumulate quite a few of both wins and losses and there are some other successes there, but I will let others evaluate my achievements based on results. However, early on, I came to the realization that for most coaches, for those of us working in youth sports and in non-professional environments regardless of the level of competition, we had a responsibility and obligation as coaches that went far beyond results. From that point on, there were two guiding principles which guided my decisions and actions and were the underlying principles to my coaching philosophy that endured throughout my career. The first one was that as a coach, I would always put the athletes first and foremost, that coaching was not about me but about them. My obligation as their coach was to create an environment that would allow the athletes to thrive, reach their potential and if done properly would provide them with skills that they could take with them into their lives well beyond their athletic careers. The second one, and this one sort of crept up on my over time, was that being involved in female sports, I had the responsibility to be an apologetic advocate for women's soccer, for women's sports and on a larger scale, for women in sport. This second principle actually influenced my greatly in my professional life in terms of my beliefs towards the equitable treatment of women in all facets of life. I have posted a few times about my views on women's sports and women in sport, the most recent being available via the link below, but this isn't the main purpose of today's article. apologist-vs-advocate-for-womens-sports.html In addition to these two guiding principles in my coaching philosophy, there was always the underlying notion that coaching should always remain fun, that the environment around my teams should always be fun, that in everything we did, the idea of fun should always play a prominent role. Sports are at their core games and by definition, games should be fun although how we might define fun at the different competitive levels might differ. My retirement from coaching became official on June 22nd 2018, although my final game in charge was actually back in March. I use the June date as my last day as that is when Concordia announced my departure and as they say, something really becomes official when it's said out loud. So while the specter of my coaching career was in the back of my mind for a few months, it is that specific date where for me, the page was turned. In the moments since, I have found myself being reflective about my years in coaching, moving between being nostalgic, reflective, analytical and even perhaps even self critical of my path as a coach. Part of the reflection is related as I have previously written to how I hope to be remembered as a coach ( you can see a previous post about this via this link) how-should-coaches-strive-to-be-remembered.html However much of the reflection about coaching is to remember what coaching brought to my life and the progress I made as a coach and as person through the 27 years. Most importantly did I live up to my self-imposed principles ? Coaching has changed over the years, especially in the area of youth and amateur sports which the influx of more visibility via social media and the so called professionalism of coaching. With the idea of compensation for coaching duties comes the the added responsibility of providing a service worthy of being paid for. I have noticed that the joy, the fun and the iconoclasm have eroded from sports. take a look around and you will see that many coaches have evolved into somebody that resembles corporate managers: terrified of losing their jobs, muzzled and stunted for life. Coaching at the youth levels always had a certain pressure coming from the athletes themselves, club administrators and of course parents. However it seems the feelings of needing to conform to some sort of ideal or to keep up appearances as dictated by others has somehow taken a lot of the fun out of coaching. So much is now based on simply generating results. As an observer, I take in how many coaches go about their duties these days while now taking it all in from the outside, coaches are best off if they either haven’t got to strong a personality or know how to hide it. Enjoying your life, loving your work but not being a slave to it, while keeping a certain “what-the-hell” attitude alive, is a battle that has always existed in every generation, in every year even if in different ways. Everyone has a certain amount of that certain joie de vivre attitude in their lives and personalities, I mean come on, no one wants to be seen as a conformist robot, but sometimes, any amount of non-conformism and individuality is often seen as too much for society. Exuberant joy is often an inch from insubordination. Humor lives next door to “edge,” which is only a block away from danger. Individuals often cut us slack. But those same people when in a group, in the workplace, institutions, leagues, teams where a mesh of rules is needed, often don’t. That’s just how it works. Fear that our candid words (or tweets) may be thrown in our faces by the bitter, the cynical or the anonymous is hardly new. The crimping of delight, of idle play or just of time to revive the spirit never goes away. Exuberance and mischief are natural to a child. But in the name of maturity, much of that gets disciplined, coerced or forced out of us. One of the disguised challenges in growing up is defending as much of our childishness as is compatible with being a functioning adult. Nobody offers a course is being mature while remaining exuberant and fun loving. . As we age, we learn new pleasures, but not many give us that same sense of child like excitement. Individuals who seem to have way too much fun are often accused of being arrested adolescents, but I think there is a huge difference between growing up and growing old. When you are involved in sport, there is nothing wrong with daring to live large, demand elbow room and, mostly, get away with it. Having a sense of fun, being a prankster is not a character flaw, and ironically when we are like that, we are judged by those who feel the need to be serious and bottomed up at all times. Little damage is really done when you are willing to to enjoy the moment. Too many people take coaching and sports way too seriously. The coaches that remain successful over time are those who take the job as seriously as it deserves but still understand that we play and watch sports to find some joy? I hope that some of these traits are those that I brought to coaching and more importantly how I interacted with my athletes. It’s been 28 years my teammate approached my about being his assistant and I first fell in love with coaching when I stumbled upon a group of women looking for someone to give them coaching and leadership that had been absent for most of their senior playing careers. No one saw coaching adult ladies as interesting or rewarding. I had never considered pursuing coaching and certainly not my fiancé and her friends However, i, sometimes you get those moments in life when something just clicks and without a shadow of a doubt it was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Coaching has been tremendously rewarding and incredibly frustrating at times, but more importantly it has taught me how to become a better person and leader. Without coaching I would not know how to inspire those who need it, get others to dream bigger than they ever thought possible, teach discipline to those who need it, make all feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves and learn where winning, sport and the coach really fits in. Throughout my 27 year journey I’ve coached everyone from 10 years old to ladies in there 40s. I’ve coached youth, provincial, national teams, club and university and have experienced moments of exhilaration and heartbreak. I’ve coached games on the emptiest of fields to playing a Chinese team in China in front of 40,000 spectators. I have coached players who quickly quickly quit the sport ( maybe in some measure because of me ?) to some that went in to represent Canada at World Cups and Olympics. I’ve have been everything from an official head coach, an unofficial head coach, a skills and technical coach, goalkeeping coach helping out some former players with their team, private coach, assistant without a defined role and a consultant. Coaching has allowed to travel to the US, France, Serbia and China. I was able to meet up with some really amazing coaches, including some of my biggest influences, from many different sports and backgrounds and take away so much from these discussions over the countless shared coffees, beers and meals. It’s safe to say it was a tremendous journey of many ups and downs, but most importantly it’s been one of continuous learning from more sources than I could ever list or even remember! All I have now is a bunch of memories and the willingness to share them with others as I explore the field of blogging and writing. When I started out I believed that the best coaches could turn any player into a crack athlete or turn a team into a championship “Remember the Titans” type story. The longer I coached the more I realised that my insanely well laid out coaching plans and countless hours of input did always make the difference I had hoped. I always felt I would be the difference maker, that with highly talented but so called problem athletes, I would be the one that would finally get through to them and help them reach their potential. That I could turn any team around, that I could come up with game plans that would get the most of my teams. I have seen numerous coaches, myself included, try to achieve this insane goal of creating a high performing team through sheer will (ego?) and countless hours of enforced practice year after year. As harsh as it may sound, sometimes your players are just not as good as the opposition that particular year and no matter how much you try, your tactics, training and moves just won’t be good enough to turn your team into world beaters. So what do you do as a coach then if trying to be champions every year is not feasible for everyone all the time? Quite simple really. Learn to coach according to the players you do have, find out how to bring out the best of what they possess using games as far as possible and teach them learn to love the journey rather than the destination. If you do end up having a cracker of a year, congrats! But remember that your players abilities most likely had far more to with the results than you did. That does not mean you are not vital to this success however. You are, but…often times the environment you create around your athletes is much more important than tactics and highly detailed game plans. In my early days of coaching I knew next to nothing about how to actually prepare a team for competition, even though I had played it for most of my life, so my focus when I started was to learn as much about the basics of the game as possible. This is not uncommon as most coaches I have come across over the years are so damn focused on the tactics of the game, the latest international trends – even if they’re coaching at school level – and in finding the “best” drills in the hope that these will ensure their teams will win more games. I was no exception. What I negated to realize was that even with all the latest knowledge forced into my head, the players are the ones who must execute what is in front of them – no matter what you are trying to achieve with them. It’s not about you. Too often I see coaches being the font of all knowledge yet their players are the ones who are on the field trying to implement the coaches idealistic view of the game and how it “should be played.” What tends to happen as a result are practice sessions where countless hours are spent trying to perfect the coaches’ strategies on defense and attack, often against no opposition, and the players are resigned to being mere robots trying to execute imaginary moves and scenarios with military precision. This cycle perpetuates itself throughout the season as players default to what they know or react to what’s in front of them in the actual match – because you know, it’s a game played against another team – and coaches get frustrated at the lack of “listening” going on. If this sounds familiar you’re not coaching, you’re an army instructor. Pretty early one, I learned that the process of learning, research and improvement was never finished and I learned but more importantly came to believe that creating the right environment around improving the player’s soft skills (and my own) was where I could make the biggest difference, and not what I as the coach thought I knew about the sport. It wasn't about me being a better coach for the sake of being rewarded but about me being a better coach so that I could better serve the interests of my athletes. Many others can comment ( and many have throughout the years) on whether or not I truly was an athlete-centered coach. Did I always do everything in my power to put my athletes first. That doesn't mean I didn't care about winning, because trust me I did, in fact it was also about how much I hated the sense of dread that came with losing. There were many times when I felt that being in control of every aspect would equate to an improved performance and better players. I truly did. However, what I did realize was that understanding my limitations in certain areas and not always needing to be in control of the learning environment, both at games and practices, wouldn't severely hinder the players from learning themselves and thus it made the players more involved and willing to take an active role in the process. Over time, and due to much introspection, I realized over time that when you let go of that insane need to win, be in control and in charge, you realize that your players are not as bad as you may think they are. Their current inabilities, mistakes and losses are not a reflection of you as a coach… and they are really not in desperate need of your input every 5 seconds. When you objectively watch your players in action you realize that they know more than you realize, they just need more time and the right environment to hone their understanding, execution and skills. The best teacher for this? The game itself. Not me. Whatever sport, the coach's role should be to create the environment where athletes feel comfortable to express themselves and ultimately, actual action of playing said sport is a phenomenal teacher by itself. One simple piece if advice I would give to young coaches starting out ? Don't be a self-centered individual ! Or in cruder terms, don't be a dick. When you become a coach, you become a leader for your athletes – no matter their age. You are there for them, for without them you would not be a coach. Without you they can still play by themselves. Too often coaches get involved with coaching for the wrong reasons and trust me, athletes can spot these types of coaches with little effort. I’m not perfect. I was never a perfect coach, I never thought I was and if I ever do coach again, I know, I will never will be. But what I do know is that in all my years of soccer specifically but in sport, I have seen the ugly side of coaching. I’ve seen, and been, what I don’t aspire to be known for. But I did ultimately desire to be the coach and person that was truly there for the players I served rather than the other way around. Coaching, as in teaching, is often a selfless and thankless task. It is difficult and challenging but above all else it is hugely rewarding when it is approached with the right mindset, mentality and a true understanding of where sport fits in the world. I found and still find that too often coaches, myself included, are caught inside of a small bubble of their own creation where their sport, their results and trophies become the center of their world. This is not healthy nor is it good for the players, they are often far younger than the coaches and have much more going on in their lives than what you may consider to be the most important game of their lives. Please coaches need to realize that their impact can be far reaching and have consequences outside of the sport they coach. A coach's influence can be both positive or negative in many different spheres. Coaches have the ability to make players believe that they can achieve anything anywhere and at any time, or can confirm their fragile belief that they are not worthy. I’ve been there on both sides of the coin and my task was to make sure I was always on the right side. I went through many phases and changes since I first accepted my teammates invite to join him in coaching. Truth be told that I’ve been the coach to help players believe in themselves and I’ve been the coach who was there for my own interests. There were moments where I had an ego that drove my coaching decisions but I like to think those moments were few and far between. I’ve been over-invested in my coaching and my teams successes, and I’ve come to realise where sport should actually fit into life. These are lessons that have taken a long time and a heavy toll to learn and understand, but ultimately it has was an amazing ride and one which while I have come to terms is now over, there are parts of it I truly still miss and will probably always miss. Thanks to all the people who I’ve shared this journey with, the coaches I’ve worked with, parents and players as well as the people who have selflessly taught me along the way. Those that showed me the right way to go about coaching and even those who served as a glaring example of who not to become. I can't say the coaching door is closed for ever but one thing I do know for sure is that I will never tire of sharing about my passion for sports and coaching. Will I be remembered a successful, good, decent, respectful coach ? Who knows really, but I can tell everyone that my coaching career was a life will lived and enjoyed. Behind most successful athletes you will generally find a dedicated coach who has often spent years and deployed much effort in honing his or her craft. They can often be former athletes, who see coaching as a natural progression after retiring, or might be individuals with limited playing experience who got into coaching for various differing reasons, who started at the grassroots level, learning coaching skill sets by attending coaching courses / clinics, sharing with more experienced coaches as they move up the ranks and devouring various sources of resource materials on the topic.
Coaches must have expert knowledge about the skills, tactics, physical training and psychological preparation associated with their sport. These areas are typically the focus of coaching textbooks and manuals. Coaches must also be competent teachers, and there while are some important lessons they can learn from classroom teachers to get the best performance from their athletes, there are also many differences that can only be acquired through practical involvement with a team. I have often written that in order to be a successful coach, it must be more than a job but a calling or a passion, but the question could also be asked, is coaching an art or a science? At the end of a 27 year coaching career, I would say that from experience and personal perspective, coaching is an art that is becoming more and more heavily influenced by science. So if I consider coaching as an art, I would point out the following characteristics which I consider important. Most coaching courses regardless of the sport, contain small units on teaching skills, but coaches mostly learn in informal ways. This may be through practical experience, or with the help of a mentor. But ineffective teaching practices can be passed on if the wrong models are observed. Many athletes would relate to the experience of having an “old-school” coach prescribing endless laps while screaming and taunting, believing it to be an effective form of discipline because it was the norm “back in the day”. While coaching is a mix of both art and science, coaches should consider the impact of the strategies they select in their particular sport, competitive levels and age groups. Remaining consistent with one's personality and abilities and keeping in mind how it can impact the athletes and not simply coaching the way someone else does, or because of a gut feeling, is at the heart of effective teaching and therefore relatable to coaching. When it comes to teaching in the purest sense, over the years there have been many differing approaches to teaching that have been used and been considered as the "right way" to teach. Regardless of the approach or strategy, if you examined them on their merits individually, you would probably come to the conclusion that depending on context and environment, nearly everything works for advancing student achievement, but some interventions work better than others. A similar argument could be made for coaching, especially in youth sport where athletes improve by default as they physically mature. If every coaching strategy is assumed to work, coaches should instead focus their efforts on what works best to achieve maximum impact. An athlete’s improvement is enhanced by setting goals that are specific, appropriately challenging for their current abilities, and focused on attaining mastery rather than avoiding failure. Coaches who can foster a sense of belief in their athletes’ own abilities, and the ability of their teams (known as collective self-efficacy), may be particularly well placed to improve performance. Team cohesion has a large positive effect on sports performance, but is more effective when coaches encourage teams to rally around a shared goal rather than simply form social bonds. Coaches should also be aware of their influence on an athlete’s mental state: anger, fatigue, confusion, and tension are all associated with negative performance outcomes. More closely related to the traditional notion of teaching are findings on practice and learning strategies. It is more beneficial, for instance, to space skill training out over smaller practice sessions (distributed practice) rather than one larger session (massed practice). There is a popular belief that for an athlete to achieve true success at the highest levels, he or she requires somewhere in the area of something like 10,000 hours. However applying the notion of quality over quantity, there is a contradictory argument that might say it is more important to work with a regularly evolving, regularly evaluated string of practices instead of simply accumulating hours via repetition. However for that to be successful and have an impact, requires coaches who are deliberate in their interventions – watching, tweaking, reinforcing, teaching new strategies, and making practice enjoyable and sustaining. Coaching is an art form in the it is constantly evolving, as a coach it is important to adapt, revise, adjust and sometimes follow gut instinct when working with athletes. While there is plenty of research and documentation that provides on best coaching practices ( which when we say best, it really means best in the opinion of those who compiled the information), there is always plenty of room for growth and improvement. One area which from experience I would say is often overlooked or is difficult for young coaches to find learning tools on, is about how to help athletes better receive and use feedback. Feedback is among the most powerful influences on student achievement, so knowing how to best use feedback with athletes appears important. So one could say that the best advice any experienced coach can give younger coaches is to walk into every training session, team meeting, or pre-game talk aware of their impact. This requires coaches to be conscious of the methods they select, and to continually seek evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of each approach. ' So that is the art of coaching, now how about the science or influence of science on coaching? Every day it seems like a new piece of technology comes out and it doesn’t matter what you use, it can be hard to stay up to date. From new phones, electronics, and apps, technology continues to make major changes in almost every part of our everyday lives. In the world of sports, technology has impacted almost every aspect of playing, watching and coaching. Have those advances in technology made coaching jobs easier or harder? Depending on who you ask, you may get a different answer. In many ways though, technology has increased the demands of coaches from team management and communication, but also created new ways to get the very best out of training and performance of athletes. Whether you’re working at the grassroots or high performance level, technology has greatly impacted the way coaches and athletes train and perform. With the rise in wearable technologies, athlete monitoring systems measuring and tracking athletic progress in real time, athletes and coaches can see not only how, but how well their athletes are performing at every point in a workout and or competition. Like a machine, athletes are able to look at a dashboard that shows how their engine is running, and coaches are like their mechanics, fine tuning the engine to perform at its best. With the rise of social media, email and applications, the advances in communications has increased dramatically. The need and ability to share instant updates and information is paramount to the management of one’s team, club or league. Apps like TeamSnap exist to help coaches save time communicating and managing their teams, clubs and leagues. Acting like a central location for all of your information, you can schedule, communicate and administer every aspect, including registration online rather than paper forms! Technological advances have enabled coaches to be able to better communicate and manage everyone and all aspects of their team at the click of a button. With better communication comes faster results, timely updates, and winning outcomes. Every electronic device it seems nowadays has a camera and every coach, parent or athlete is equipped with a phone, tablet or recording device. Everything from smartphones to Imovie, tablets and mobile applications, offer the easy ability to record, review, and replay performances instantly. These technological advances have revolutionized the way coaches coach their athletes. With frame by frame analysis and performance metrics available at the press of a button, video continues to offer coaches strategic performance enhancements. Coaching can be stressful no matter which level, sport or how long you’ve been coaching and new technological advances are there to help your athletes perform better and make your job easier. From advances in training, communication, and analysis, technology will no doubt continue to evolve from where we are today. So if you've read this far, isn't coaching easy ? lol Simply put, there is no one right way to coach. Successful coaching is about using the tools that available, selecting those that best work for you and with your athletes, and applying them.... but having the awareness to continually seek out new tools. No coach ever truly reaches the pinnacle of his or her coaching development because in coaching like in life, things are always evolving and these days, seemingly evolving quicker than ever. So if you get asked, is coaching an art or a science, I guess your answer might depend on your reality. cheers For anyone who has participating in youth sports at any level, we all have memories of coaches we have had in the past. We remember how their behaviors, words, ranting and raving affected us. We may not always remember exactly what was said but we remember how it made us feel. There are some coaches we would walk through a brick wall for. Others, we tolerated and learned to cope with in the moment.
So, what made the difference? Was it coaching styles, connection, or was it all about winning? My experiences from playing soccer aren't related to successes per say but none the less some of the memories have stuck with me well into my 50s and probably most importantly might have be at the core of figuring out what kind of coach I was and how I wanted to be remembered. Unlike a lot of my memories from coaching where I can remember many of the games I was involved in for their goals, key moments or decisions I made, those memories from my playing days don't really seem to include much about my playing but about how I was treated by coaches ( and truth be told, my father was my first soccer coach for 3 or 4 years), friendships I made, interaction with teammates, team trips etc. For some reason, memories related to wins and losses or even personal performances from soccer or any other of the sports I participated in aren’t important enough to remember. In a sport with such outcome performance based mindset, it may seem that winning coaches would be the coaches we remember the most. However, as I reflect on my past coaches, we did not always have winning seasons. My point is that too often adults get caught up in winning and losing games. Too many times, grown-ups lose sight of why they are there. Staying true to the basic principles of youth sport. The reason to volunteer should be to provide a safe and fun atmosphere for kids to learn and grow as individuals. Teaching players how to use teamwork and dedication can help them accomplish any goals they set for themselves. As an athlete, I do remember being selected to my first inter-city team, getting that phone call from the coach telling me I made it. Or finding out from my high school wrestling coach that my tournament win had qualified me to travel with the provincial team to a national tournament. I remember leaving my soccer club as I finished my youth playing career in order to try out for men's senior team at a different club, being asked to play in an exhibition game and having the coach rush over right after asking me to sign all the registration papers. These are but examples but the point being that for many of us as adults, who didn't become professional athletes or participate at the highest levels, our memories of our sports careers will be dominated by non results based moments. Although in the moment, many coaches experience intense pressure to win, it is those that understand that their role is much more than just winning games, that are remembered most. Especially those that coach the younger players. For these young players, their coaches are part of their understanding of what it is to be a man (or woman). How coaches handle stress in moment leaves an imprint on the psyche of these young players. Coaches who can be mindful and act with integrity as opposed to behavior associated with low emotional intelligence, will create positive environment for players to grow not just as players but also, as people. Although for many and sometimes to an extreme that is not ideal, youth sport is focused on outcome, performance and chasing the dream of playing at higher levels, provincial or national teams, university and in the rarest of cases, professionally. However, the reality is few will experience these dreams. That is why enjoying and learning from the process is that much more important. As I have said in various ways via many of my posts, sports are games, although they can be ultra competitive, intense and have their battles they are still just a game and by definition, games at their core, should be fun. The players are just emerging young people, who are learning about life, by playing the game they love. Long after coaches are done coaching, some will be remembered by their players as someone who influenced them by their authenticity and integrity. Others will be remembered as a negative influencer because their inability to handle their stress appropriately and/or lack of awareness of how they showed up. In the end, how do you want to be remembered? I don't have the chance to run into former coaches but I can still remember a few that really stood out and had an impact on my life in ways that transcends sport. One of these is the wrestling coach I mentioned above, someone who has also a phys ed teacher at my high school. A couple of years back, my former high school was celebrating its 50 years of existence and organized a huge reunion for all graduates. This teacher/coach is retired and was at the time of the reunion by like many former faculty and staff he attended. Some friends and I ran into him and greeting were exchanged. when he got to me, he addressed me by my the correct pronunciation in Spanish of my name and quickly asked about my parents and some other personal information, something he hadn't done with my friends. In that moment, the impact this man had had on my life was again very apparent. Even after all the years of not seeing him, the dynamic if our coach-athlete ( student) relationship returned. As someone who was involved in coaching for as long as I was, I would hope that there are former athletes of mine who might remember me for the impact I had on their lives just in the way I remember the impact this coach and teacher had on mine. There is no better feeling than having one of my former players approach me with their son or daughter and say “Let me introduce you to my former coach!” Yes, there are former players who I have run into who quickly change directions, or avoid eye contact but there are many cases where the above has happened, or where I've run into former players and we exchanged memories about experiences we shared, or they tell me about how something I told them "years ago" stuck with them. Ironically, rarely do these discussions cover specific games or results. Through the years I was in coaching, I often thought back to how coaches I had treated me, interacted with me, motivated and even disappointed me. I’ve often found myself remembering my time and experience as an athlete and letting those memories guide how I approached my teams and my athletes, using them as a baseline on how to act and even how not to act with them. Did I get it right all the time? Absolutely not, at the competitive levels I coached, it was impossible to make everyone happy and truth is, there are without doubt former athletes who think of me as one of those terrible coaches who was unfair with them. And I probably was in some cases but I’ve also had enough of those special moments when former players have introduced me to their spouses or kids and described how I impacted their lives to feel a sense of accomplishment that maybe, I got it right more often than I got it wrong. When those moments come, there is plenty of reflection and personal pride, but more importantly its then when you realize that you’ve impacted a person’s life. Most people don’t join become coaches to be a role model or mentor, but when coaches and players come together and bonds are formed, how you are remembered makes all the difference and how you are remembered will often evolved over time as your former athletes progress through adulthood, get kids of their own and often move into coaching or other leadership roles and are able to better understand some of the "why" you did some of the things you did as their coach. I have told many people in my entourage that I am content to be retired from coaching, that I don't miss coaching, but the reality is that I do missing being a coach if you can understand the nuance. I miss that part of my life and the fulfillment that came from being a coach with the ability to interact with younger individuals and share my passion for soccer and maybe with luck have some impact on their lives. If I was asked how I might specifically want to be remembered as a coach, I would probably sum it up something like this; As a coach who never game up on his athletes - As a coach, I never wanted to give up on anyone however if I said I have never given up on anyone I would be lying. It happened but at the outset, especially during the 16 years that I coached university, I tried to make sure that I never gave up on anyone on or off the field. As student-athletes, I tried to provide them with all the tools so they would enjoy their soccer but most importantly successfully complete their studies. If soccer or playing soccer at the university level didn't work out for certain individuals I tried to be fair with them and ensure that the landing was soft and that they could still move forward. I wanted to follow the path of of great coaches that never gave up on any athletes. As a coach who impacted athletes beyond the playing field - I always believed that organized sport, for the majority was a proving ground for life as an adult, I wanted the student-athletes ( and prior to my time at Concordia, simply athletes ) to understand that having a conversation with an adult, coach or someone that has a vested interest in that student-athletes success is only there to help them. The same way we as kids might have looked at adults who tried to guide us as being lame, out of touch or too strict, I am sure I was seen like that by many of my athletes, but it never deterred me from trying to help my student-athletes. As a coach who wanted to know the athletes as individuals - The individual relationships between coach and athletes can be very special and now that I am done coaching, these are the interactions I miss most about coaching and that I would hope I am remembered for. I always wanted the athletes to be able to say that I made the effort to get to know them during my time as their coach. Relationships drive everything in our world. If I was able to athletes learn how to develop relationships over time, by modeling this behavior, then maybe it had some impact in all the relationships they had throughout life. I just hope that they remember the time spent getting to know them as people. As a coach who believed in teaching the right way to do things especially be good people - Most of us as coaches have a strong desire to win in everything we do. We want to teach our athletes how to win in the area of competition. Regardless of the sport we work in, we have to prepare each and every athletes by teaching them the fundamental and sport-specific skills, by pushing them during conditioning and working on their motivation and confidence building skills. I am not the type of coach who believes in winning at all costs. There is a right way to do things, even of the right way sometimes prevents you from winning outright. Many say it is important to learn how to lose graciously, but at the opposite end of that spectrum, winning without being a good person is shallow at best. As a coach and person of character and respect - I know I am not perfect however I tend to try my best to lead by example in my daily life. Our actions speak louder than words and I knew that the athletes where always watching. I wanted to be known as a man of character that was honest, fair, responsible for his team, and willing to work with anyone. This is my definition of character and my success as a coach. In today’s world, we as coaches have to teach character to our athletes. Like many coaches, I had occasions when I cut athletes lose that did something wrong instead of finding out why they made this mistake. Maybe this was a cry for help or trying to get my attention. I always tried me best and always hoped to learn from my mistakes. With time, memories of my coaching involvement will fade but hopefully at the same time, the memories that my former athletes hold of me will be positive and with a greater understanding of who I tried to be to them as their coach. I am sure that pretty much everyone has heard some variation of the saying that life is never really just black or white, but rather different shades of grey. It is something I can remember telling myself a majority of my life, but as I got older, I embraced the philosophy more and more. For some reason which is truly beyond explanation for myself, I simply didn't need to always feel that there were only two possibilities to every situation. More important however, I took the mindset that I didn't always need to see someone's else's opinions or ideas as being wrong, in order to feel that I was right.
To see the world in black and white is to live within the contours of extreme. This outlook neatly and clearly divides the world and everything we experience on a daily basis into right versus wrong, good versus evil, and yes versus no. Exercising black-and-white thinking means believing that things can be completely right or totally wrong, that people are either friends or foes, that the days are perfect or a nightmare, that all that is not a success is a failure, and that all that is not virtuous is vicious. It is now or never. We are beautiful or ugly, that you love or you hate, and so on. In short: black-and-white thinking tends to define a situation by making clear, rigid and permanent distinctions. It reduces the multiform, complex and sometimes indecipherable chaos to “this” or “that”. It tends to define the reality of people and events with only two opposing categories: good or bad. This thinking is dependent upon such words as always and never. Especially in times of crisis, the black and white worldview is looked upon as strength and courage to the casual observer. It can also come across as very reassuring especially if the thinker automatically puts him/herself on the side of reason, intelligence, justice, beauty and truth. At a young age, thought and how we interpret information will generally begin in black and white terms. This is how we are children tend learn to use words and organize their thoughts. How many parents have provided their pre-teen age kids with a rule, only to later alter the decree ever so slightly and have the child retort with: “But you said?” As we grow older and accumulate more life experiences and engage with different people, we learn that there is a "whole other world" out there. As the boundaries of our knowledge expand, we have a chance to see that there are many different realities. That the things we experienced previously are not the only realities that exist and just because there are normal or right for us, doesn't mean that our opinion is the only one that exists. However, as adults, we are prone to revert to a simpler way of analyzing situations and thinking during moments of crisis and stress, relying on the words “always” or “never,” and seeing the world in black and white terms, thus slipping back to the way we saw the world as a child. In the world of black and white we can become overwhelmed with the desire to find “the” answer. When something bad happens in our lives, we feel the urgent need to figure out the cause and effect as to why it happens to "us". For all of the obvious short- term reasons to embrace black and white thinking, there is definite a downside. Not only does black and white thinking show little appreciation for the world of gray it has even less for the concept of self-reflection. To self-reflect, especially after a decision has been made, could open one to the possibility of being wrong—which defeats the purpose of black and white thinking. Black and white thinking is also flawed because it inherently assumes a static world. It is dependent upon everything and everyone maintaining the role that such thinking has already preordained. There is little regard for the human condition that does not correspond to its beliefs, because black and white thinking is rooted more toward the generic and stagnant occurrences as opposed to seeing them as being situational. Failure becomes harder to confront because one tends to place an inordinate amount of energy being right. It is an unfortunate default against the complexities of the world. It requires far less courage to live in the black and white than it does to live in the gray. The world of gray requires that we show up and be present. It does not afford us the luxury of putting life on automatic pilot. Moreover, black and white thinking, though it may provide momentary comfort, is simply unrealistic to sustain. After all, even black and white photos come with their own varying shades of gray. When we see life as always being simply black or white, that if we are right, then everyone else must be definition be wrong, or if we failed it is because we made a bad decision and therefore we are wrong, it can lead to biases that can obscure our ability to judge and make good decisions. They deform or erase all elements not congruent with the “black and white” vision, which instead should reasonably be considered. The black-and-white thinking is reassuring, at least, in the short term, but in the long run, it has several disadvantages:
Yet, in our everyday lives, the way many of the things we encounter each day and how they are defined express a certain level of black and white connotations. Things like, nature vs nurture. east vs west. peace or war. public and private, masculine or feminine, city or countryside, freedom or oppression, health and illness. reason vs sentiment and simple things like, youth vs old age and even right and left Those examples define two extreme opposites for different facets of our lives, however between the two extremes, there is not some sort of void that can't be described but rather varying combinations of the extremes. Just because are are old, doesn't mean we can thing young. Small doses of black-and-white thinking can, therefore, be useful in life. And as long as you commit to paying attention to all the thousands changing shades of gray, you can have a reasonable and balanced view of the world we live in. When we stop thinking simply in the extremes and take a more positive approach to looking all the things we encounter day to day, we can discover a strong sense of purpose and confidence as we move away from accepting that life it what it is and understand that there are many paths we can choose to take. Positive thinking does not mean having a blind optimism, superficiality in addressing problems or indifference. It is a way of understanding and enjoying life by following a sum of realistic and fair principles. One thing that I have embraced as I have grown older is that we always have choices. Yes, sometimes the choices are better the lesser of two evils, but there is choice none the less. We are more defined by how we react to struggles and disappointments than by our resignation that there was nothing we could do to chance our fate. The ability to see something from many points of view gives an individual the ability to accept and understand a situation much better and find more solutions rather than simply accepting things as they happen. It is by no means easy but we have the power to alter our paths if we get out of our own way. When we accept that life isn't about two opposing extremes but rather a variety of possibilities, it can lead us to being more open-minded and willing to listen to someone without judging or develop certain conclusions before they finish talking. Do not assume you know someone just because they shared with you a few details of their story. Too many people jump into defensive mode during discussions, planning our replies in advance based on part of what we hear, rather than taking the time to process all the words and information. People who are open-minded try not to spend too much of their energy and time thinking of their past negative experiences as this doesn’t help their personal evolution. On the other hand, they also try not to worry too much about the future because there are too many possibilities to be taken into account that can change the plans or the course of a story in a few seconds. Thus, the best way to walk through life’s challenges is to focus your energy and attention on what you have now in the place where life has taken you at this moment. Although the reasons why we choose to think in black and white may vary, we must always remember that there can be infinite ways to resolve a situation and so many aspects that can influence a person’s behaviour or story. So next time before you put a label on someone or something, take a step back and reconsider if you really understood the root cause and all the details. When you think there is only one way to interpret a situation, perhaps you should think about the famous and time tested Indian fable about the five blind men and the elephant. You don't know it? You can access one version and its interpretation via this link https://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/blind-men-and-the-elephant.htm If you still don't get it, just tell yourself this, if you've read all the way to hear and you don't agree with me, just because you think this is some kind of BS, doesn't mean it isn't real to me. Not just in sports but in many part of human interaction, a large percentage of all communication is transmitted by body language. Many coaches don’t realize the extent to which seemingly small gestures influence how their young athletes interpret what they might be thinking or feeling. In many cases, the visual cues given off by body language will send a stronger message to athletes than anything a coach might transmit verbally.
One of the most important things for coaches to master is the art of sideline body language. When kids glance over at the sideline during their sport competition, they are seeing their coaches as role models. When those respected role models display negative body language, they are sending messages that create a lasting impact on their young athletes. Coaches need to be fully aware of the power of sideline body language and the detrimental effect it can have on the development of young athletes. It doesn’t take much. We’ve all seen it. Hands on the head, a roll of the eyes, exasperated sighing, all the way up to barking, shouting and even worse, yelling abuse. When a young athlete sees a coach displaying negative body language, they are probably thinking things like “Oh no, I’ve blown it again” or “they’ll think badly of me and be so disappointed” when in reality, the coach or parent probably feels disappointed not in them but for them . Body language and non verbal communication is ever present anytime two people interact. All of us could find examples from our lives where what we saw from people we were talking with either enhanced or diminished the impact of what was being said. So how exactly and why is this an important and overlooked aspect of coaching specifically ? If we start by taking a general, high level look at coaching on the whole............. There are many different coaching philosophies and styles that youth sports coaches adopt, but they basically fall into two categories – positive coaching and negative coaching. The positive approach is designed to inspire athletes to perform and to positively reinforce them when they do. The negative approach attempts to eliminate athletes’ mistakes through the use of criticism and punishment – here the motivating factor is fear. As the terms themselves might tend to suggest, I don't think that in today's reality, it would be a stretch to suggest that positive coaching is much more effective than negative coaching. Like anything in life, when individuals are in a welcoming, positive environment, the chances for success are enhanced. It the sports field, some of the tell tale signs of an environment conducive to reaching athletic potential are as follows;
So now, lets add the aspect of body language or non-verbal communication into the mix. Believe it or not, some so called experts have argued that as much as 70% of communication comes from non-verbal cues. These cues include things like gestures, posture, facial expressions, tone of voice and eye contact. Touch can also be included in “body language” and includes things like a pat on the back, high five, etc. Eye contact and touch are fairly self explanatory in my opinion but if we were to look at the other four; gestures, tone of voice, facial expressions and posture, these are what I consider important factors to keep in mind. Keep gestures to a minimum, using only calm, positive gestures. Use appreciative low-key clapping where appropriate. Directional hand-signals are acceptable from time to time, always delivered with positive facial expressions. Avoid holding head in hands, hands on hips, angry finger pointing, stamping of feet, throwing hands in the air. Use a calm, positive voice. Keep your voice tone neutral and reasonable. Don’t shout and scream. Players don’t listen when they are yelled at. At all costs, avoid exasperated sighing, angry moaning, screaming, grunting and sarcastic comments. Definitely DO NOT single players out for individual tirades. Keep your expression calm, positive and unfazed at all times. Avoid frowning and looks of contempt, anger and disgust. Do not look away, or get a glazed over, bored look on your face. Stay engaged and interested in the game at all times. Keep a relaxed posture whether you are sitting or standing. You back should be straight but not stiff with relaxed shoulders. Take up some space – try sitting or standing with legs slightly apart. This will signify to your players that you are comfortable and at ease. Don’t cross your arms in front of your body. As someone who both attended and was responsible for running coaching sessions, I can say with credibility that not much time is spent during coaches courses on sideline body language. In fact, I am not even certain how teachable a concept it is. But it seems that if coaches are not only enjoying themselves but also have a body language that reflects their enjoyment, they’re most likely to send the messages to players that bring out the best in them. The whole idea of coaching youth sport is to help kids get the most out of their sport, and help them gain skills that will help them later in life. Even at the highest level, it should be remembered that at its core, sports are a game and by definition, games should be fun, and if it’s not fun then it’s not worth coaching. So next time you find yourself coaching, or having any kind of personal interaction, try and consciously reflect on your body language. Does it reflect that tone and message of the words that might be coming out of your mouth? |
AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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