From the Evansville Courier Press, April 17, 2010
EVANSVILLE — We use the word humility in our University of Evansville soccer locker room quite a bit. The connotation most commonly references being modest or in viewing one's own importance in the team.
An easy way to view a player or coach's humility is how they interact with their teammates, opposition, or with the officials.
In relation to being humble with teammates, there are certainly times where you see a player not show a certain level of appreciation. There are certainly cases when you have a player who takes him or herself too seriously, and thinks they are more important than other players on the team because of their role or responsibilities on the playing field.
Here are some ways to be humble for teammates:
— Recognize what part that they play in your own success on the field or court. Former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith used to encourage his players to point at the teammate who had the assist on a made basket. By doing so, it placed as much importance on creating a scoring chance as it did on who scored.
— Acknowledge teammates as they come off. We ask UE players to acknowledge each teammate before they go on the field — be it with a hug or a handshake. We want our players to have proprietorship, to take ownership and to know who they are playing for. We also ask players on the sideline to stand when a teammate comes off the field, making sure that player knows that you appreciate the effort.
— Salute those that support. Understand that your team is not only the players in uniform, but those who support you in the stands. After each home match, we clap for our fans and thank them for supporting us. It's an appropriate and reciprocal gesture to those who clapped and support you during your match.
We do that both in victory or defeat. Whether it is being gracious and humble toward your supporters or speaking to media or fans after a match, you can't take yourself so seriously that you think you are bigger than your game. We stress to our players that if you want to have fans and media coverage, you have to be as humble toward them in defeat as you are in victory.
— Be humble toward opponents. Always shake hands with the opposing team following the game no matter how excited or disappointed you are. A player or coach needs to have enough respect for themselves, their team and their game to show good sportsmanship. Recognizing your opponent after a match also tends to bring opposition back down to earth — in the end, you are both competitors trying to gain the same result.
— Be humble toward officials. Don't point the blame on them, be it during the game or afterward — nothing gets me more frustrated than listening to a postgame interview and hearing a coach talk about how "the official lost the game for us." That diminishes the role of that coach or team — how can you be that poor of a coach that a referee can take the game away from your team?
In most cases, a team has several chances to win or lose and rather than blame the official, a coach needs to look at why they didn't make more of their chances. Your players will respect you more if you worry more about them and about how to make them better than about whose fault it was that your team lost.
A lot of these thoughts came to head last week as I watched Sir Alex Ferguson — the manager of Manchester United — blame everyone but his own team or himself after getting eliminated from the UEFA Champions League. I am a big Manchester United supporter, but was disappointed when I heard about three different games over the course of a week where Manchester United was wronged by an official. At some point, you hoped that Ferguson would have been as gracious in defeat as he normally is in victory. Sometimes, when you win as much as Ferguson has over the past 25 years, you lose sight of your humility — which can let down everyone around you.
No comments:
Post a Comment