Daddy Ball 101 - Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch- Part 9

Published: Fri, 08/26/16

 
One of the biggest culture killers in youth sports today is Daddy Ball. Should we just eliminate it? Is there a way to have parents coach their own kids and still have a great team culture?
Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch Part 9 - The Mom/Dad Coach
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Before we jump into this week's post - I have recently taken on a new role of Character Coach for the high school lacrosse team I helped coach last year. It is a pretty tall task as the culture of this team is very negative and cynical, and even further complicated by the fact that it is a co-op team of several high schools, so there isn't even a cool spirit component.
This is a pretty new journey for me. Is turning around the culture in a team you coach something that interests you? In talking to many of you, turning around a culture is the hardest part of coaching. I am going to keep detailed notes of my experiences and share videos on Facebook Live, including both ideas I try that work, and ones that bomb. If you would like to follow along and learn from my successes and mistakes, and share your stories in a private Facebook group - reply to this email and say 'Yes.' Then I'll add you to our email list and keep you posted. 
IT'S GREAT TO LEARN AND READ ABOUT CULTURE - BUT IT IS HARD WORK TO IMPLEMENT IT.  LET'S DO THIS TOGETHER - JUST PICTURE THE JOY OF COACHING ON A TEAM WITH AWESOME CULTURE.
JUST SAY 'YES' AND WE'LL GET STARTED.
 
I was an assistant lacrosse coach for 4 years, helping coach my son's teams. Then he reached high school. The program he was going into was down a little bit down in attendance, and there only two assistants helping the head coach, and one of them was often working and not at practice. I approached the head coach and offered my services if he wanted another assistant to help in any area, particularly this was a team of 34 players so many of the kids played on the JV team, so I could help work with those kids when he was working with the varsity. (I hate kids standing around and watching.) Then I saw the look. 'Oh boy, here's another daddy-ball coach wanting to get in here and get his son all of the favoritism and playing-time.' I could see the same look on the assistant coaches. Fortunately they expressed their reservations and after sitting down and discussing the expectations and my agreement to not show any favoritism, they were open to bringing me on board. Now I am going into year 2 in this position, and we have agreed to step up my role on the team and I will serve as the Character Coach.

It is possible to coach your own child on a team, and done well can be a wonderful experience, but you need to be aware of the possible negative effects that can creep up. Here are 5 tips that can make it be a positive experience:
  • Talk to your son or daughter about it before you agree to do it. Get their buy-in. Be very clear to your son/daughter that there could be negative comments from other kids and other parents. But also let them know that you are doing this to help every kid on the team and you will not be able to focus on them any more than the other kids.
  • Talk about the elephant in the room to the entire team. Don’t work too hard to treat your own kid as a coach – it’s good to be truthful and authentic in front of the team and treat your own kid from a parenting point of view sometimes.  Don’t be over the top – but kids enjoy and learn from watching you enjoy spending time with your child.
  • It usually works better to have assistant do more of the instructions to your kid. Also utilize your assistants to get an honest assessment of what position/how much your child should be playing. (Sometimes we need help taking off the rose colored glasses!)
  • Turn off the coaching hat. On car ride home – ask your child ‘Anything else you want to ask coach?' Then go back to being a dad again.
  • The Team Manager can be a conduit to hear concerns/complaints from parents – embrace this! Have a great parent manager who keeps you in the loop of any concerns, and one that has your back and can help squelch 90% of the problems before they ever make their way back to you.
It is important for your child to have a positive sports experience early on – and if that means you need to step up and be coach, step up and do it. Don't let the fear of the perception of being a daddy-ball coach stop you if you truly are doing it for the right reasons.

Next week we'll wrap up our series on building championship culture by looking at ways to teach the team to give back.

Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch - 10 part series
  1. Team first - Link to post
  2. Team Cornerstones - Link to post
  3. Positive Environment - Which dog are you feeding? - Link to post
  4. Recognition & Rewards - Link to post
  5. Captains - Link to post
  6. Parents - Link to post
  7. Building Trust - Link to post
  8. Seek First to Understand - Link to post
  9. Coaching your own kid
  10. Perspective & Giving Back
 
NEW WYC PODCASTS
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WYC 089 – Performance Training – Former NFL wide receiver Corey Bridges talks training athletes – from NFL quarterbacks to Olympic ping pong players
Corey Bridges is a former NFL wide receiver who played for the Bears, Vikings, and Browns. He also had an outstanding football, track and baseball career at Newnan High School and was a football and track star at the University of South Carolina, including many All-SEC honors, including SEC 60 meter sprint champion. He has spent the last 10 years training athletes from the youth to the professional level. Corey founded C4 Performance, Personal and Professional Sports Performance Specialist. C4 specializes in the following: Toning & Sculpting; Flexibility/Stability/Mobility; Body Fat Reduction; Stretching; Injury Preventive Program (FMS); Strength and Conditioning; and Speed Training. He was recently featured in a Sports Illustrated article leading up the the Olympics: si.com/vault/2016/03/29/ping-pong-physicality.
Go to podcast episode
 
I love hearing your stories and experiences, both the positive ones and frustrations you're having - just reply to this email and it goes straight to my inbox.
Make winning the right way your habit starting today,
​Craig
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Craig Haworth is the founder of Winning Youth Coaching, a site dedicated to helping coaches and parents make youth sports an awesome experience for the youth and the parents.  He interviews coaches from around the world and posts them on his podcast, which currently has over 85 interviews and has been downloaded over 85,000 times. He writes a weekly note to coaches and parents. He is married to his high-school sweetheart and they share the blessing of 3 children and live in Franklin, TN. You can sign-up for his weekly note here, find him on twitter at @craighaworth1, or visit his website winningyouthcoaching.com.
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men"
- Frederick Douglass