Transactional Coaching
Coaching our youth is a passion! What we have in our hands is precious as we work with young athletes. Why did we get involved in this? Perhaps we were a player ourselves, we want to spend more time with one of our children or our community has a need and we are the person for the job!. Whatever our initial reason was when we entered into this incredible field, we are in it now and there are plenty of highs and some lows as well.
When I say highs and lows that does not necessarily directly relate to wins and loses, but the majority of us that is where our mind immediately goes. Why is that? Sports in general is transactional, look at professional athletes and see how much money they make in exchange for the service they provide. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out the better an athlete you are the more money you make. The more money, the more expectation on their personal performance linking directly to the results the team will potentially get. What happens as an athlete gets older and their performances start to diminish, they either make considerably less money or they are transferred (traded) to another team or told their services are no longer required.
This has long been the model of professional sports and we all accept this. We yell and scream when our star players do well, we yell and scream when they don't do well, maybe even louder this time! It is our money through merchandise, ticket sales, and concessions at events that pay the players salaries. When a player is not performing we call on the coach to make the tough decisions, after all it's not personal we aim for a winning team. When our players do not do well we don't give them the same amount of love as when they are doing well.
We are still talking about professional athletes right? I know it's a tough conversation when we suddenly compare a 27 year old professional athlete making millions of dollars a year to play vs a 12 year old whose parents have forked over $700 to receive two training sessions and one game per week. What happens to that 12 year old when they don't perform or their performances have changed over time.
Do we support the player like we did when they were banging in the goals or does our relationship with them change now that they are going through a period where they are having little to no success. In fact they have become the lowest rank player on your team. Your answer to this if you honestly look will determine if you are a transactional coach or not. A majority of coaches will typically reward the better players through playing time and the biggest benefit is more attention.
As coaches our impact on our young athletes is incredible. We can be inspiring, motivating, encouraging and that can help players achieve their own personal goals and drive their ambition towards their dreams. What do we do when they stop scoring or their performances significantly dip, do we ignore them, do we give them less reps, do we play them at less pivotal times in the games, do we talk and treat them differently. Much of this is subconscious and unfortunately some of this is conscious.
When we view players as commodities to a transactional relationship we have truly become a transactional coach, what do we do about this? When players' performances change how do we support players through this period? They may be dealing with challenges at home, going through a growth spurt and with an ever changing body, trying to figure out how it all works again or relationship issues with peers are a few of the many reasons a player's performance can drop.
What are we hoping to achieve? There is a famous cliche that says “Players don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Nowhere in this does it say care more for players that score and less for players that miss the goal. We must separate how we view sports from a viewer of professional sports on our couch to an individual who is responsible for a group of 12 year olds. Our words and actions can be the difference between a young person wanting to continue to achieve their own ambition whatever that may be, and one who packs it in at 12 years old because their experience is one of sitting and watching others be successful.
When we first moved to Canada within a couple of years we adopted culturally many of the things Canadinas hold so close to their heart. Of course I am talking about hockey! I asked my parents at 8 years old if I could play, they supported me, got me all the equipment, worked the registration to get me on a team and drove me through tough Saskatchewan winters to the rink at 5am for practices and to small town tournaments on icy roads for the next two years. It didn’t work out for me and my memories are very vague from playing hockey for those two years.
My Mum's memories are not vague at all, she shared with me how relieved her and Dad were when I decided to give up hockey for indoor soccer. My parents recount the times when I sat on the bench in a freezing cold rink, getting very little opportunity to play with very little interaction or feedback from the coaches. I think about if I were coaching 8 year olds regardless of the sport and because they had not yet developed skills as well as their peers I just sat them down to watch. It is our less developed players who need the most actions in the sport but unfortunately this is reversed. Our most skilled players get the quality minutes, most important parts of the games, most important position on the team, leadership opportunities and yes the coaches time. The likelihood is regardless of the coaching I would have always found my way into the sport I love, however a more positive experience during that time would have likely left me with some high quality memories and possibly longer lasting relationships.
We cannot view our players in what they give us, it is what can we give them, All of them!! Can we encourage, inspire and motivate all players not for what they give us but for who they are, contributors in equal measure to their peers. What after all is at stake, first place in a league, a shiny medal or trophy that goes into a shoe box only to be discovered two decades later? When I look back at my experiences I remember the times together, the laughs, connection and our ability to be as one group working towards a common goal. It is not the transaction of those parts that defines us, it is instead years later the players who said I made a difference, who call me for a reference, who are still involved in the sport and who stop me on the street when they see me and run over to say hi. That is how I term success!!
