From the Evansville Courier Press, SoccerSunday, May 3, 2009
I was on the sideline at a field during a recruiting event last weekend and I was taken aback by the way some coaches chose to communicate with their players.
The need to be sarcastic and obnoxious about mistakes happened quite a bit, and I was trying to think what would possess a coach to belittle and distract their players — surely they couldn't have thought that the players would respond to that. I came to the assumption that the coaches were justifying that it was the players who were making mistakes — not them.
It all reminded me of a blog I read a couple of months ago by Emily Cohen, a freelance writer (and soccer mom).
While driving her daughter and some friends home from a game, she was able to eavesdrop on what was really happening in their kid's soccer experiences.
All but two of the 15 kids — ages 7 to 17 — said that coach's instructions yelled at them during the game didn't help at all. In fact, it made it difficult to focus on what they were doing — playing soccer. For the two who said that shouted instructions helped them perform better, they qualified their answers — saying that they initially thought the coaches were trying to help, but when they thought about it, they felt that what the coach was trying to explain to them would have been better communicated off the field, during a substitution or at halftime or, better yet, at a practice.
Cohen wondered if the coaches actually realized that their yelling was completely counterproductive. In fact, she wondered if most coaches really think about how their bellows and screeches from the sideline are perceived by players.
These were some of the comments from that group of kids themselves:
— One girl said to the others about a past coach, "One minute, she yelled, 'Go to the right!' The next minute, she yelled, 'Go to the left!' I was so confused, I didn't do anything. I stopped to figure out what she was telling me to do, and the girl dribbled right by me."
— "Getting yelled at by my coach isn't helpful at all because it makes it harder to concentrate. It's more difficult to control the ball when someone's yelling at me."
— "When the coach yells at me to mark someone or run somewhere else, I can't focus on the game. I think I make more mistakes because I was listening and not playing."
— "Both the coaches were screaming instructions. I tried to do what one of the coaches said, but it was hard to figure out, because the coaches were saying different things."
— "I hate it when the coach screams at me to 'play better' or 'run harder.' I mean, really, I'm trying my best already and that just makes me feel worse."
— "Most of the time, when the coach yells something to me, I saw it already and I'm trying to get there. But I can't yell that to them because I'm too busy running!"
I wonder how many of those screaming coaches the kids described could play an hour of soccer themselves with someone yelling at them to "run harder" or "play better." Most would likely lose their patience and yell back at the offender.
This is a big reason why I have always prescribed to the '2-second rule', which stresses that any interaction between player and coach during a game never lasts more than 2 seconds; usually the player is able to acknowledge with a nod of the head or a thumbs up.
My hope is that before one of the coaches I watched last weekend coaches again, they will think twice about yelling at the players and decide to just let them play.
I was on the sideline at a field during a recruiting event last weekend and I was taken aback by the way some coaches chose to communicate with their players.
The need to be sarcastic and obnoxious about mistakes happened quite a bit, and I was trying to think what would possess a coach to belittle and distract their players — surely they couldn't have thought that the players would respond to that. I came to the assumption that the coaches were justifying that it was the players who were making mistakes — not them.
It all reminded me of a blog I read a couple of months ago by Emily Cohen, a freelance writer (and soccer mom).
While driving her daughter and some friends home from a game, she was able to eavesdrop on what was really happening in their kid's soccer experiences.
All but two of the 15 kids — ages 7 to 17 — said that coach's instructions yelled at them during the game didn't help at all. In fact, it made it difficult to focus on what they were doing — playing soccer. For the two who said that shouted instructions helped them perform better, they qualified their answers — saying that they initially thought the coaches were trying to help, but when they thought about it, they felt that what the coach was trying to explain to them would have been better communicated off the field, during a substitution or at halftime or, better yet, at a practice.
Cohen wondered if the coaches actually realized that their yelling was completely counterproductive. In fact, she wondered if most coaches really think about how their bellows and screeches from the sideline are perceived by players.
These were some of the comments from that group of kids themselves:
— One girl said to the others about a past coach, "One minute, she yelled, 'Go to the right!' The next minute, she yelled, 'Go to the left!' I was so confused, I didn't do anything. I stopped to figure out what she was telling me to do, and the girl dribbled right by me."
— "Getting yelled at by my coach isn't helpful at all because it makes it harder to concentrate. It's more difficult to control the ball when someone's yelling at me."
— "When the coach yells at me to mark someone or run somewhere else, I can't focus on the game. I think I make more mistakes because I was listening and not playing."
— "Both the coaches were screaming instructions. I tried to do what one of the coaches said, but it was hard to figure out, because the coaches were saying different things."
— "I hate it when the coach screams at me to 'play better' or 'run harder.' I mean, really, I'm trying my best already and that just makes me feel worse."
— "Most of the time, when the coach yells something to me, I saw it already and I'm trying to get there. But I can't yell that to them because I'm too busy running!"
I wonder how many of those screaming coaches the kids described could play an hour of soccer themselves with someone yelling at them to "run harder" or "play better." Most would likely lose their patience and yell back at the offender.
This is a big reason why I have always prescribed to the '2-second rule', which stresses that any interaction between player and coach during a game never lasts more than 2 seconds; usually the player is able to acknowledge with a nod of the head or a thumbs up.
My hope is that before one of the coaches I watched last weekend coaches again, they will think twice about yelling at the players and decide to just let them play.
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