Mental Training (part 3/5 Inside the Mental Game of a State Champion)

Having a built-in expert in sport psychology is rare and is something that not many teams, let alone high school teams, have. But just having access isn’t enough. Coaches traditionally like full control of what goes on with their teams, and have trouble trusting an outside source to teach and implement new skills that they may know little to nothing about. Fortunately for the Franklin HS boys soccer team, Oregon Coach of the Year Ty Kovatch trusted me enough to allow me the time and freedom to implement the mental training plan I have always dreamed of putting into place.

As the assistant coach, I did my best to support the vision the coach had for the team. I was a basic assistant coach: supporting practices, running some drills, training small groups, and more. Within each of these, I tried to bring an element of mental training in the area of focus, positive mindset, communication and more. For the pure mental coaching piece, we did regular classroom sessions and various activities throughout the year.

Positive Culture is essential to Mental Training

A strong mental game starts with a strong, positive culture and positive coaching as I wrote about in Part 2. To have a strong culture though is to actively embody it. We hve to live the traits we espouse. And part of that was having the right mentality. Here are some of the mental training elements that were essential to our run to the state championship.

1) Process over Results

Just about every team’s goal at the start of a season is to win a state championship, but only one gets to achieve that goal. So it’s important to set process and performance goals and not just set the outcome goal. I asked each player during the preseason what their goals for the team were. As I mentioned in Part 1, we knew we had enough talent to go deep into the playoffs, so not surprisingly the most common answers were: State Championship, PIL Championship, beat Cleveland (our rival who has historically pretty much owned the series), and to go 14-0.

This is a good starting point, but again, most teams have these goals at the beginning. In sport psychology, the outcomes they listed are considered out of your control. What’s in your control is how hard you work, your attitude, your preparation and other things. So, to not to let the goals just sit in outcome mode, my next questions were “How? How are we going to do this? What is the focus day-in-and-day-out that will get us those results? What are the things we need to be and do ‘No Matter What’?”

The photo below shows the process the team decided to follow and the results they hoped to achieve.

2) Apex Soccer Journal

Consistency throughout a season is crucial especially the mental game. Throughout the season players used The Apex Soccer Journal to set personal goals each month and each week. We had them check in on their goals regularly to stay focused and self-motivated. The book served as the perfect tool, and the players were expected to have it with them at all times like any other piece of equipment!

After each game, the journal guided the players through a self-evaluation and also an evaluation of the opponent they had just faced. This helps by making sure they learn from as many details as possible throughout the season. Not only that, but we ended up facing three teams in the playoffs that we had seen in the regular season. Because of this, the players had an extra bit of preparation as they could read over their own notes about that opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. In the regular season we were 1-0-2 vs those teams. In the playoffs we were 3-0.

3) Team Building

We did team building in two ways. The first thing we introduced was 6am Saturday practices. No teenager wants to get up at 6am on Saturday. It makes them miserable. But nothing brings people closer quite like being miserable together. Several players I spoke with admitted as much: ‘we hated that you made us do that, but we all saw the results’.

The second thing we introduced was road trip challenges. On our bus trips, instead of just allowing the kids free reign, we implemented structure and reserved the first 30 minutes as time without phones or music. The goal was to get the kids talking and interacting, to ensure cliques didn’t form over the course of the season, and to talk face to face without screens and without distractions. During that time we created collaborative and competitive challenges to complete. These activities helped the players not only get closer as the season went on, but to stay focused on those long road trips. As a result, we only lost one game on the road all season.

4) Visualization

During the season all the players had access to the Sports Mindset Audio program. They could listen to these at anytime on their phone. As a team I led various types of visualization exercises throughout the season. Before games we might do skill building visualizations like seeing themselves making a tackle or scoring a goal. After games we often did recovery visualization to allow dedicated time to process mistakes and dwell on positive things they did in the game. Before training we sometimes did a few short mindset visualizations: to transition from a school mindset to a soccer mindset. All of this practice culminated in a 10 minute visualization in the locker room at Hillsboro Stadium before the championship game that got everyone calm, confident, and on the same page. There’s no doubt that that final mindset shift helped tie everything together.

So there you have it – a general view inside the mental game of a state championship team. The consistency and attention given to the sport psychology training did not make these soccer players great, but it did allow them to have a certain freedom of mind in the most pressure-filled situations. The next two parts of the series will focus on adversity and “living up to the cliches.”

Positive Culture and Positive Coaching (part 2/5 Inside the Mental Game of a State Champion)

Positive Culture and Positive Coaching

As I addressed in Part 1, the 2019 Franklin High School men’s soccer team had tons of talent and depth coming into the season, but you can never really tell how the chemistry is going to be. To fuse the talent with the heart, it takes the right environment, the right balance between structure and freedom, and a place where everyone feels valued. In other words, it would take having a positive culture.

According to m-w.com, culture can be defined as:
the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization

Build a Positive Culture and Evolve it over time

Culture doesn’t happen overnight. And it never really ends either. It’s always a work in progress. Finding and shaping shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices is constantly changing and evolving. I don’t want to give away all of our secrets, of course, but I do want to share some of the general ingredients to creating a winning culture.

So what made this team’s culture so powerful? In a word – Positivity.

First of all, Franklin High School is not an athletic powerhouse. The school opened in 1914 and had produced but two state championships in over a century (boys basketball, 1959, and boys cross country 2019). The boys soccer team had only once made it past the first round of the playoffs. So there was no “championship culture” to speak of. However, the culture had been built slowly by a couple dedicated coaches over the past 12 years or so.

Enter current head coach, Ty Kovatch, this year’s Oregon Coach of the Year, who joined in 2014. Here is my take on some of the key elements on how he has taken the program to the next level, and has built the culture of a state champion.

A Positive Culture Attracts Positive People

Over his five years, Ty has built a culture that is overwhelmingly positive. It’s a program that people want to be a part of. When you intentionally set a culture, one of the big benefits is that you attract the right kind of people to the program, people who embody those same attitudes and values. Part of Franklin’s lack of previous success was that good players wouldn’t come out for the team because it wasn’t worth their time. This is definitely not the case anymore.

This is true not only of the players, but of the coaches who have come on board. Each coach has come in because it’s an environment they want to be in. For example, when I joined the staff last year, I wanted to implement my sport psychology knowledge and be not just an assistant coach, but the team’s mental performance coach. That’s been added to the culture of the program – a strong mental game, with time and focus dedicated to mental training. But more on this later, in Part 3.

And this year it showed up beyond just the players and coaches. As I mentioned in Part 1, many friends, acquaintances, and neighbors have commented to me about how fun it was to watch our team play. That fans came to watch us play (including our semifinal match, which drew over 2500 fans! *see photo below) was a byproduct of our culture.

Culture of Inclusion
One of the attractive qualities of the FHS program is it’s culture of inclusion. There are 4 teams (Varsity, JV, JV2 Grey and JV2 Maroon) – that’s nearly 80 players in the program. There aren’t many schools who have more than 3 teams. We had just under 100 boys try out each of the last two seasons. Instead of cutting half of them, Ty created another team.

And it’s not just a place to play, it’s a place where you can contribute and find success. On top of the varsity team winning a state title, our other teams had success too:

JV went 11-1-2 and had a stretch of 7 1/2 games without giving up a goal.
The JV2 Grey and JV2 Maroon teams had success as well, often playing and holding their own against more talented opponents.
JV2 Grey and JV2 Maroon played a season finale game in the stadium, under the lights, with JV players as referees
At times during the season, players were able to move up or down to give more playing time.

A culture of inclusion also includes how to handle conflict, academic, attitude, or behavior issues. When players make mistakes off the field, we do our best to include and not exclude. We give players second chances but are firm with expectations moving forward.

Culture of Ownership

Ownership basically means that every player on the roster feels valued and has a role on the team, and that their opinions matter.

All of the coaches are available to the players for questions and for feedback. Many players end up taking advantage of this throughout the year. We don’t always use the player’s ideas, but they always feel listened to. And that is extremely important for effort and buy-in of what we are trying to do. One example of player feedback that was implemented this season was that they didn’t like the pre-practice warm up. After a discussion between the team captains and the coach, the players took over the warm up. Giving players ownership makes the whole experience more intrisincly motivating.

Giving players ownership helps the balance between freedom and structure. Soccer is a game of solutions: Too much structure, and players won’t be able to come up with their own solutions. Too much freedom, and they won’t play together as a team. Teams whose culture is too structured, more of a dictatorship, aren’t typically as adept at solving problems when the pressure is on. This team was very easy to motivate game in and game out, because they mostly did it on their own.

Ty makes sure that every guy on the roster feels like he has a role in the team, and like they always have opportunities to prove themselves. And they delivered! Over the course of the year, 25 players got playing time on the varsity level. 15 players scored at least one goal. 13 players notched at least one assist. Here are some of the big moments in the playoffs:

Game winner in overtime of the second round came from a player playing out of position
Won the quarterfinal without our two leading scorers (injury) and our leading assist man (red card in previous game). Non-starters provide both the goal and assist in the game’s only goal.
3 JV players saw action in the quarterfinal
Backup goalkeeper scores game winner in overtime of the semi final
State Championship opening goal came from a player who hadn’t scored all season
State Championship game winner with 6:42 left in the game, the assist and the goal came from players who didn’t start most of the season.

The best part? No one cared who got the glory, because they all had ownership in how they played, in the outcome of the games.

Franklin players celebrate the game winning goal in the 2019 OSAA 6A Championship game.
*Photos by Leon Neuschwander, for The Oregonian/OregonLive*

Positive Coaching

This one seems obvious. Ty is a positive guy. He’s a high energy guy. And the boys feed off of his energy. And so do the coaches. We strive to be encouraging and enthusiastic in our communication. I can count on one hand the number of times that the players were punished by extra fitness, which is extremely rare in my experience with soccer. But I want to make it clear that positive coaching is not just “rah-rah,” “you-can-do-it!” positivity. That’s only a small part of it.

Positive coaching is more about setting expectations, having clear goals to work toward, and problems to solve. It’s about a culture that brings people together. It’s about not only creating, but living the positive culture you are trying to set.

Positive coaching is about using all the tools available for players to succeed. For Franklin, we give all our players access to video of our games through Hudl so they can study film. We do mental training all season. We put them in uncomfortable situations in practice to prepare them for uncomfortable situations in games. One example is the 6:15am Saturday practice. Which seems negative. They all hate it. But, they hate it together. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s uncomfortable together. And bringing a team together? That’s positive coaching.

A side note on Positive Coaching: In this day and age, negative coaching and negative cultures still exist. I really don’t get it. There are amazing organizations out there from AMPlify Sport Psychology and other mental performance coaches, there’s Positive Coaching Alliance, and Changing the Game Project, and Proactive Coaching. All of them teach how to build a positive culture that athletes are strongly motivated to be a part of. They teach not only why positive coaching is important, but give the tools to do it. But so many coaches still use the shortcuts of yelling at players, being demanding and negative, blaming referees and everyone else for their failures.

One of the things I am most proud of is not that we won a State Championship, but it’s that we won it the right way. That’s positive coaching. And. It. Works! I don’t know why more coaches don’t do it. Not only is it effective, but it’s FUN!

So that’s the culture that has been built at Franklin. It’s not all of it, but it’s the basics, and all you really need to know. The rest is up to the coach or the leader to determine what’s right for their program.

What’s Next?

On a final note, I’ll go ahead and say it: we have most of the pieces back for another year. Returning will the Oregon Coach of the Year, the Oregon Player of the Year, 2 All State players, 3 All PIL players, and tons of experience. This will be the first time playing a season as defending champions, and the expectations are sure to be sky high. It will be the first time that every opponent we play will be excited to play us.

So our culture from last year will need to be updated to match. We can’t just sit back and say “we’re good, let’s just do what we did last year.” I am looking forward to the challenge of growing and evolving our positive culture.

In Part 3 of the series, I will go more into the sport psychology of our team.

Inside the Mental Game of a State Champion (a 5 part series)

This year I had the pleasure to coach the Oregon 6A State boys soccer champions. I served as an assistant coach and mental performance coach for both the varsity and JV teams. As I write this, it’s exactly a month later, and I am still feeling the glow of the title. Friends and acquaintances I run into in the neighborhood stop me to say congratulations. Most of them tell me just how fun the team was to watch, how much heart they played with.

Thinking back and reflecting on everything that went into it has been a really valuable experience. Not just the outcome, but the journey we took to get there. It’s an experience that I want to share: How did we have so much success? How did a 14 seed make a run through the playoffs that included winning 3 overtime games? How did we manage after losing our captain and leading scorer 2/3 of the way through the season and our next leading scorer for the semi and final matches?

I could come up with dozens of reasons, but here are the top 5:

1 – Talent

2 – Positive Culture/Positive Coaching

3 – Mental Training

4 – Facing Adversity

5 – Embodying the cliches

I will write 5 sections based on these. So, let’s start with #1: Talent

Let’s face it, without talent, coaching can only take you so far. Sport psychology and the mental game is great, but confidence can only take you so far… you have to have the skills, the sports IQ, and the athleticism to compete at the highest level.

And we had an embarrassment of talent. We knew this coming into the season. We were strong from player 1 through player 22, including arguably the best goalkeeper in the state, and 7 returning starters from a team that went 9-5 the year before. Plus two extremely talented newcomers. Many of our players train at high level clubs like Eastside Timbers, River Plate, and Portland City United.

Not only that, but we had 6 JV players who trained with us fairly consistently, 4 of whom saw minutes on varsity in the playoffs. That JV team went on to go 11-1-2 including 7 ½ straight games without giving up a goal. We knew we had the talent and depth to win the whole thing.

Some teams have a ton of talent, but lack the chemistry, drive and heart it takes to go all the way. Some teams have all the chemistry, drive and heart, but lack the talent to match. This team had both. It takes more than talent to win. It’s what you do with that talent that makes the difference. It takes the right coaching, the right environment, and the right mindset.

Next time, I will talk about the Positive Culture within our program, and the Positive Coaching style that helped fuse the talent with the heart.

This is Your Brain on Sports – book review

“We’ve spent the preceding chapters trying to make the case that there are rational underpinnings for all the supposed craziness and unusual behavior that sports seem to trigger. That is, that “your brain on sports” is really just your regular brain acting as it does in other contexts.”

Sound interesting? This is how Wertheim and Sommers sum up their latest book, This is Your Brain on Sports. From a sport psychology perspective, it’s a great book in the same vein as classics like “Freakonomics” or “Outliers.” The authors take common ideas and phenomena in sports and put them under the sociological and psychological research microscope to explain certain peculiar behaviors and that are common not only in sports, but in life in general.

Each chapter explores a unique idea from sports, examines the research, and relates it to real life. Beginning by promising answers to Why questions: “Why Hockey Goons Would Rather Fight at Home” to “Why We Need Rivals” to “Why Our Moral Compass is More Flexible than an Olympic Gymnast” these chapters offer excellent insights into how the mind works, how people relate to each other through the prism of sports, and uncovers why things that seem bizarre are actually quite common.. The conclusion is that sports isn’t so much different than life. Although, they do go on to explain: “…sports and athletic competition are fertile ground for scientists across disciplines to test their hypotheses about basic aspects of human nature.”

There’s a lot in here to relate to sport psychology and the mental game. For instance, popular theory says that sport psychology was founded in 1898 by Norman Triplett, who noticed that he rode his bicycle faster when he was with other people. In the chapter “Why We Need Rivals,” the authors explain how Triplett created a “competition machine” to test in a lab setting if people did in fact ride faster against someone else as opposed to against the clock. His theory proved to be true, and was used in further studies by other psychologists on how athletes compete against rivals – something that seems to make sense, but now backed by research.

One of my favorites was the chapter that was in essence about goal setting. “Why Running on a Treadmill is Like Running a Business.” In it the authors talk about “the power of the finish line” and how very important to performance setting milestones is. In my experience at SPINw, one of the reasons goal setting fails is that there are not enough measurable milestones on the way to a long term goal. There is some compelling anecdotes and evidence here explaining why this is the case. This chapter, like many others, should prove to be a powerful tool for athletes and especially coaches, to use goal setting for motivation and increased effort.

Overall, there is something for everyone in this book, whether you are an athlete, a coach, a sports fan, or even someone who is just interested in psychology and how the mind works.

Click here to check it out on Amazon.

What does US Soccer’s new mandates mean for you?

The implementation of US Soccer’s 2015 Player Development initiatives is right around the corner. There has been lots of discussion on the topic, but few concrete answers, which is leaving many involved in youth soccer a bit confused and unsettled about what these changes will mean for players. These initiatives are changing the youth soccer landscape completely, so there are a lot of unknowns for parents, coaches and players alike. The bottom line is, what’s best for the kids? Do these mandates help or hurt?

Here in Oregon, youth tryouts for club soccer are taking place May 9-14. In this article we will take a closer look at the changes coming up, give our take on them, and what they will mean for the youth soccer community.

{SPINw is hosting Tryout Prep Mental Game Workshops to help players go into tryouts focused & confident} -Click on the link below for more information and to register-

First off, why all the changes? Why now?

Click here for a video explanation from US Soccer

According to US Soccer, here’s the reasoning behind the changes:

Despite the increased popularity of soccer and the success of our national teams, the youth soccer landscape at the entry level needs to be improved.

Our soccer culture at the youth level focuses on winning and results rather than focusing on developing the skills of individual players.

The concept of a team outweighs the importance of players having fun and developing to the best of their abilities.

As a country, we need coaches and parents to spend less time caring about wins and loses, and more time devoted to teaching individual skills.

Part of this initiative is to educate and empower coaches and parents to change the way we look at the sport.

One example of this is U.S. Soccer’s new online F License, which is designed for coaches working with players ages 6-8.

Our take: Hard to disagree with the reasoning behind it. Player development over winning titles, especially at the younger ages, is common sense (although sadly, not so common, which is why some changes are needed!) In sport psychology, we strive to have athletes focus on the process, improving skills, and growing as a player over results. So this logic fits from a development perspective. There is nothing wrong with wanting to win, and learning to compete, but it should not be more important than technical and tactical player development.

First initiative – Small-Sided Standards

Basically, the size of the field and the number of players on the field start smaller and progress as players get older (see chart above). Here’s the why according to US Soccer:

Fewer players on the field means more touches on the ball and more involvement in the game, which helps develop more individual skill.

Players who are more skilled may become more confident and comfortable when in possession of the ball.

The ratio of players to field size is designed to assist players with making the right kind of decisions and improving their awareness.

As players get older, and numbers increase on bigger fields, this approach builds on itself.

And as players get older, the building block approach also allows them to better integrate into a team model where they develop partnerships with other players that make up the team.

Overall, the standards provide for an age appropriate environment where players can achieve these objectives.

Our take: Love this one, no problems here. For player development it’s great, and should have been done long ago!

Bonus part of this initiative: The Build Out line. This one hasn’t been talked about as much as the others, but we love it. Basically, the build out line forces teams to play out of the back. The keeper is not allowed to punt the ball, and defenders must give a little space and time for the defense to start the play. This will be in effect through the U10 age group (7 v 7).

Second initiative – Birth Year Registration

This is the one that’s caused the most ruckus. Here’s why, according to US Soccer:

Not only will this change align our players with the international standard, but it will allow us to be better informed to combat relative age effect when making teams for youth players.

According to wikipedia, the relative age effect is:

“The term relative age effect (RAE) is used to describe a bias, evident in the upper echelons of youth sport^{[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][1]} and academia,^[2][3] where participation is higher amongst those born early in the relevant selection period (and correspondingly lower amongst those born late in the selection period) than would be expected from the normalised distribution of live births. The selection period is usually the calendar year, the academic year or the sporting season.”

Our take: This is pretty ill-conceived, and the cons outweigh the stated benefits. The relative age effect doesn’t magically go away by making this change. It just shifts to a new birthday. In the best-seller Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell describes the relative age effect in hockey where a majority of high level older players are born in January, February and March. Is this change really going to help the US produce the next Lionel Messi or win a World Cup? It seems highly doubtful. This mandate flies in the face of the stated objectives. The real objective behind this is to prepare players to become national team caliber players, meaning a fraction of a percent of players will see any benefit from it.

The negatives – There are several, but here are the top three as we see them:
1) Teams that have been together for years will be dismantled –
2) Teams will not be primarily based on school grade level – for recreational teams especially, this mandate doesn’t make sense. A big part of the fun of playing soccer is playing with your friends and classmates, and this basically takes that part of youth soccer and makes it more difficult.
3) Rising 8th graders and high school seniors may have limited options for a team or worse, left without a team.

Our overall take: So there are some clear cut plusses and minuses with the new changes. And some major uncertainty. But don’t fear, our take is this – The next 6 months or so will be rough and chaotic, but after that we will forget it ever happened. Sports is like life, in that change is the only constant. We want our young athletes to learn, grow, become resilient, be problem-solvers, and be able to handle adversity. That’s how to build confidence. So if you look at it that way, it’s not that big a deal in the long run. It’s up to the adults to keep that in mind as we head toward this unknown territory in youth soccer.

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How Can Coaches help players out of a slump?

I do a regular interview with Michael Austin from Basketball Coach Weekly. Coaches often ask me about team motivation techniques, and what sport psychology skills they can use with their athletes. In this most recent interview, (which I particularly enjoyed) I address the answer to those questions in terms of how coaches can spot and help correct a player who is in a slump. Check it out!

What to do about abusive coaches

Coaches are teachers, motivators, amateur sport psychologists, and parental figures. A great coach can teach life lessons that go on well beyond the playing field, while a bad coach can make a young athlete hate sports and quit playing altogether. I was like many young athletes, figuring that the leap from a high school level to the collegiate level would mean not only higher competition, but better coaching, and wow, was I wrong about that. A recent Sports Illustrated article details some disturbing stats about how collegiate athletes are treated by their coaches. (This podcast echos the article and is worth the listen). In one study cited in the article:

“39% of women’s basketball players strongly agreed that “my head coach can be trusted.” 61% of these athletes do not trust the person who is suposed to be their biggest ally and advocate? The article also goes on to say:

“Even more alarming, athletes have never been more psychologically vulnerable, reflecting a trend among all college students. The ACHA assessment found that 41% of athletes had “felt so depressed that it was difficult to function” and 52% had “felt overwhelming anxiety,” with the figures for women jumping to 45% and 59%, respectively. Further, 14% of athletes said they had “seriously considered suicide,” with 6% having attempted it.”

A similar article was written 5 years ago, but it doesn’t seem like much has changed, despite the assertion that: “That shift has forced coaches to adjust. Abuse simply won’t be tolerated.” But it still happens. Within those 5 years we’ve seen Illinois football coach fired, video of Rutgers basketball coach throwing balls at a player while berating him, Florida football coach Jim McElwain curse out a player on national tv, and a high school football coach order his players to assault a referee during a game.

What is going on here? Have times changed? Are the athletes of today simply a product of the self-esteem generation, where everyone gets a trophy and helicopter parents control their lives? I think there may be some truth to that, but it’s on a case by case basis. In the Jim McElwain case, he apologized and publicly stated that his 94-year old mother admonished him on the phone, while the player on the receiving end of the outburst, Kelvin Taylor, said: “I understand exactly what Coach Mac was doing,” Taylor said this week. “He was just in the moment. He was fed up. He’s just trying to discipline us. That’s what the whole team needed. That’s going to make the team better.”

But many other cases are very real, and coaches take the negative motivational tactics too far. College coaches are playing for their jobs, and under tons of stress. Many of them are simply coaching the way they were coached back in their day as athletes. And some are just power hungry people who like to use their position to intimidate and get their way. In consulting with athletes over the years, I’ve had multiple collegiate female athletes tell me their coach called them “fat” in a very derogatory manner, in a pathetic attempt to motivate them – how they think this is going to be effective, I’m not sure. I have had more youth athletes than I care to count come into my office where the coaching or the overall team environment is so bad that they don’t even want to go to practice. The very activity that is supposed to be an escape from the stressors of life, where you can lose yourself in the moment, work out and be physically healthy, bond with teammates, and learn valuable life lessons, can become stressful and overwhelming obligations.

So, what can be done about these abusive coaches? There is a fine line between tough love coaching and abuse. And whereas in the past, that line was determined by the coach, more recently that line is being defined by the athletes, for better or worse. While there can be some debate about what is abuse, there is no debate that things need to get better. No matter what position you are in, there is a role for you to enact change. SPINw can help your school or program make sure that coaching abuse doesn’t happen for your athletes. Here are some ideas:

Athletic Directors – ADs and administrators can help by making sure their program has a clearly defined culture, complete with a Vision Statement, Mission Statement, and Core Values. Provide continuing education for coaches a couple times a year – after all, the best coaches are striving to learn, grow and improve, just like they expect their players to. Finally, consider having a sport psychology consultant or mental game coach on staff, or at the very least develop a relationship so that your athletes have access to this service.

Coaches – Follow your program’s aforementioned Vision, Mission, and Core Values – that is the “process” to follow in order to achieve the results you want. When the goal is winning, you can motivate your players just as well through positive tactics as negative ones. Set clearly defined goals, standards and expectations for your players, and include rewards/punishments for adhering to them or not. And finally, communicate, communicate, communicate with your athletes!

sport psychology portland oregon lacrosse

Parents – As your athletes grow, make sure to empower them in their relationships with their coaches. Don’t jump in and save them at any sign of trouble, but be there to support and problem-solve. There are sure to be ups and downs in sports, and the best parents help their kids to understand that they aren’t entitled to much in life, and earning something is the best way to build confidence, character, and self-esteem. As athletes begin to get older, it’s also fair to let them know that the potential exists for overbearing coaches, but they have some control over the situation. Finally, consider having your athlete work with a sport psychology consultant to bolster their mental game.

Athletes – Athletes can work on recognizing the difference between tough love coaching, criticism, and negativity vs. out right abuse. In working with athletes I teach them to listen from a different perspective, to be able to handle criticism to help make changes and improve performance, not to take everything personally. For example, a young athlete may feel like the coach is singling them out for negative attention. But on further examination, that coach treats most athletes the same way, that’s just his or her style, which they have been doing for years. In this case, the coach isn’t going to change, but how you choose to listen and take the information is in your control, and therefore changeable.

Interested in having an athlete work with a sport psychology professional?

The mental game is just as important to success as the tactical, technical and physical elements. But ask most athletes and they will tell you they put the least amount of work into the confidence, focus, and emotional control. To work on technique, put in extra time with a coach or supplement training with private lessons. For tactics, you can read books, watch game film, and ask coaches. Physically athletes can train with a strength and conditioning coach or see a nutritionist. But how do athletes, coaches and teams go about deliberately improving the mental game? That’s where sport psychology comes in. It’s not just a reactive measure for athletes who are struggling, either. See the spectrum below.

Mental side of Coaching

by Glen Coblens, MA

Most coaches agree that sports are more mental than physical. Yet most athletes focus more on their physical skills. Coaching is the same. In addition to working on game strategy and skill development, coaches should focus more on proper breathing techniques, communication, preparation and goal setting. How do successful coaches stay in the moment, be calm during tense competitions, make strategic decisions and clearly communicate to their teams? The time and effort they put in way before working with their athletes will provide them with a strong base to rely on.

Just like athletes, learning proper breathing techniques can help coaches. Circle breathing, where you take deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth can lower your heart rate, help you think clearly and focus on the task at hand.
How coaches communicate with their athletes is just as important as what they communicate. Athletes want to feel validated in their thoughts and feelings. The goal is for each athlete to reach his/her potential and if it is a team sport for the team to reach its full potential. Coaches who make the effort to value athlete’s comments and provide clear and constructive instructions in return have greater success in achieving this goal. In addition, coaching is about developing relationships and helping athletes grow and develop as people. When an athlete feels validated, they are more likely to increase their effort, “buy into the game-plan,” feel better about themselves and perform at a higher level.
Sports provides lessons for life and preparation is the key to anything in life. Successful coaches are good at focusing on what is needed and preparing a plan to accomplish it. Plans can include a slogan such as “Win the Day” (former University of Oregon and current Philadelphia Eagles football coach Chip Kelly) to motivate athletes and teams. Knowing your athlete’s strengths and weaknesses is vital to preparing a successful game-plan. “Work on your weaknesses but play to your strengths” is a saying that may help coaches improve their preparation.
How does your physical body know what your mind expects from it if you do not set a goal? We instruct athletes to set goals all the time, but coaches need goals as well. Whether it is a season, practice, competition, individual athlete or overall team goal; document your goals, read them aloud and refer back to them often. Use trigger words to remind you of your goals and help you stay relaxed and focused throughout the season, practice or competition.

Mental training is not just for athletes. For the same reasons why athletes benefit from mental strength, coaches will benefit as well. If you want to help athletes improve, have more success in competitions, improve your self-esteem and self-confidence take time to practice the skills outlined above. After all, coaches are developing tomorrow’s leaders. The better we lead today, the better they can lead tomorrow.

SPINw consultants work with coaches individually and in groups. Contact us for more information.
Additionally, check out our Psychology of Coaching Workshop coming on May 4th, 2014.