Though far more effort is required of the coach in the matter.
“A Coach/Athlete relationship, like any relationship, is a 2-way street.
Trying to dictate and bulldog your way through kids because you’re “coach” is the fastest way to turn them off.
Successful relationships start with trust and love & are sustained with empowerment and affirmation.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
I am no relationship expert.
How my wife stays with me, without taking a wage for her efforts in the matter is beyond my realm of comprehension.
However, I have worked with athletes long enough to understand the importance of quality relationships.
We live in a dog-eat-dog world. It’s Rec Ball, now they’re in Middle School playing travel ball on multiple teams, and then they get to High School and the phenomenon just goes on and on.
Because of the speed and chaos, we often spend most of our time talking about how “fast it goes” and before you know it “I’ll be coaching your brother!”
This sense of brevity and speed causes us to often overlook the present.
What if we slowed down, though? What if we realized that time is a fixed notion and the only thing “changing” about time is our perception of its’ speed or lack thereof.
There is a lot of time, but because we assume it’ll go fast, coaches, and people in general do a poor job of developing real relationships with kids.
It’s “funnel them in, funnel them out, move on to the next class” for most.
Coaches assume, because they’ve “been doing this a long time” that somehow this whole athletics thing is about them.
They think they can do whatever they want and treat kids’ however they want and they’ll just automatically conform because of their “tenure” as coach.
This isn’t how it works. Despite the 2-way relationship truth, the athlete is in the infinitely more valuable person in the relationship because without them, the need for “coach” doesn’t exist.
Coaches can’t just expect there to be a relationship the second the kids walk into your program because they’re ‘established’ coaches.
Kids are ever-evolving human beings and aren’t just going to conform right away.
There MUST be a relationship.
A real, rock solid, ever evolving relationship that requires work, especially from Coach.
A relationship that is built with trust and love & sustained with empowerment & affirmation.
Not sometimes. ALL the time.
You want to coach them hard? Discipline them? Hold them to high expectations?
You better ensure they know you truly care about them.
If not, you’re just digging yourself a deeper hole.
