The Art of Effective Communication in Coaching
Great communication in coaching is about creating an environment where your athletes feel they can speak up, where their opinions are valued, and where everyone is working together towards a common goal. It's in these environments that athletes truly flourish, where performance soars and strong, cohesive teams are built.
Team Synergy: Cultivating Teamwork and Communication in Sports
Individual brilliance often grabs the headlines in sports, but teamwork wins championships. The difference between a good and great team often lies in their ability to communicate and work together effectively. This lesson focuses on the crucial role of teamwork and communication in creating a cohesive and successful team environment.
Activity: Monster Draw
Monster Draw is a fun and engaging activity for participants to practice their communication skills and creativity. In this activity, two participants sit back to back, one describing a cartoon monster while the other draws it. This activity teaches the importance of clear communication and how it can affect the outcome of a task. Includes lesson plan.
Winning with a Mediocre Team
To find more success in youth sports, simplify your playbook, increase your ability to connect with children, and practice in-game situations. But whatever you do, don’t assume the child has learned how to listen and respond. We are the adults, and we are their models for how to be.
Be a great adult.
Motivation Versus Inspiration
Coach, your athletes are watching you. Your words are motivational, but your actions are what inspire them. Be intentional about what they see, and leave a legacy mark on their character that transcends performance and the scoreboard.
Abusive Coaching
Our voice as “Coach” stays with our athletes long after they hand in their jersey for the last time. Our words echo inside their brains, the good and the bad. For example, I remember when my high school volleyball coach spent over an hour with me after practice preparing me for a job interview and sharing tips on how to dress and what to say. I also remember when my eighth-grade baseball coach yelled at me from the dugout to “just throw fu$&%ing strikes” when I struggled to get the ball over the plate.
Athlete Motivation
Be the kind of coach that is a student of students. Learn about each player and be intentional about growing each relationship appropriately. You are one of the most important models of how to be an adult, so model the behavior you want to see in the world.
Conversation with Coach
Remember, we are in the business of creating adults. In the past week, I have not seen a cone, replaced a cleat, or heard a whistle, but I have had hard conversations with other adults. I can do that in part because the youth coaches I had were my models for communication and I was lucky to have some really great examples.
How to Connect to Athletes
As an older coach, how do you stay relevant to the younger generations? I get this question often. Pop culture is constantly evolving and it can be hard to stay knowledgeable about what is going on. A few years ago I took about 30 minutes to figure out what Pokemon go was all about. When I dropped it in a lesson during class, it was instant street cred!
A Coach's Voice
As parents and coaches, we are in the business of creating adults, so the more we can work together, the better off our future adults will be.
Five Communication Tips for Coaches
These are strategies I have found help get the most out of my young students-athletes. The lesson here is that kids are in school all day and they come to you to play. Don’t lecture from high above. Instead, take your glasses off, find a shady area, take a knee, take a deep breath, and then talk a bit. Then, let them have some fun and play because that is the real reason they are playing sports.
The Art of the Post Game Conversation
As your athlete gets older, the competition becomes better, and the stakes get higher. Losing means close to nothing to most 5th and 6th graders, but as you move into middle school and high school the losses sting a little more. Some teams/coaches/parents put much more pressure on their athletes to win.
Where is the sun?
We should always have high expectations for our athletes, but we should also create an environment that allows for those expectations to be met.
A Life Without Questions
Remember when you were a kid and your favorite thing to ask was why? As we get older, we stop asking that question. In return for our ignorance, we do things that make us less productive and waste energy.