The 12 Days of Christmas - The 5 Things Players Want from their Coach

Published: Fri, 12/09/16

The 80/20 rule for coaching

What we often do:

Spend 80% of our time strategizing on the gameplan and creating the next great Sportscenterworthy play on the back of a napkin.
Spend 20% of our time planning our practices to build culture, teamwork, and improving the fundamentals of each player on our team.

What the good coaches do:

Spend 80%(or more) of their time planning their practices to build culture, teamwork, and improving the fundamentals of each player on our team.
Spend 20%(or less) of their time strategizing on the gameplan and are never worried about creating the next great Sportscenterworthy play on the back of a napkin.

This week we look into the 5 things players want from their coach, as shared by John O'Sullivan at the Way of Champions transformational coaching conference. The 5 things are:

Respect & Encouragement
A positive role model
Clear, consistent communication
Knowledge of the sport
Someone who listens

It's so easy to fall into the trap of spending 80% of our time on things the players don't really care that much about. Let's be transformational coaches that are focused on being these 5 things instead of being worried about being seen as an offensive genius or game strategist. It's what the players want and it's what they need!

Next week we'll dive more into point #3, establishing clear and consistent communication.

My Culture Journey

12 weeks in on my journey to turn around the culture of a team I help coach, you can follow along here: The Culture Journey

NEW WYC PODCASTS

WYC PODCAST #100!!

WYC 100 – Personality Science – James Leath & Will Drumright discuss Hot Topics in Sport Psychology from the AASP

The Association for Applied Sport Psychology National meeting was a few weeks ago – so for Episode 100 we invited 2 of our favorite sport psychology guys who attended to share with us some lessons learned.
James Leath has been a WYC guest previously in episodes 61, 50 and 31. James’ first interview on the show, WYC Episode 31, was a huge hit and is the #1 downloaded episode all-time on the show.
Will Drumright is a sport psychology coach who has worked with Dr. Rob Bell, providing mental skills and performance psychology training to coaches, athletes, and teams. Will focuses on the high school and middle school athletes. Will is also a professional Ultimate Frisbee player and coaches the local high school Ultimate Frisbee team.
Both guys now work for IMG Academy, one of the world’s premier training schools for athletes in many different sports.

Go to podcast episode

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Make winning the right way your habit starting today,
Craig

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 100 interviews and has been downloaded over 100,000 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