Is coaching high school really for the kids? Or is it to fuel our egos?

Love the name. They do share a vocal quality!

I think your proving my point. Not sure why you're so angry, but the problem seems t be you.

Any coach who believes their training program is the sole reason for an athlete's ability and improvement is delusional. As a high school coach I really believe that a coach can only take credit for maybe 30% or 40% of the success of a high school athlete, the other 70% or 60% is the natural ability of the athlete. I think most high school coaches subconsciously understand this, but some absolutely refuse to accept it. Those are the ego-driven coaches. And to echo what a couple of other posters have mentioned I believe that team culture is very important as well, especially when it comes to the athlete taking their natural ability and putting it to the test in meets and races.

Very skillful deflection. Nicely done. Nicely done!

My take is that those who are doing for some ego boost will not last long and will find something else.

One thing I stress with a coach is to develop a coaching philosophy/mission statement. This is not that you are going to be a Lydiard or Igloi type coach, but what you want from coaching and what you want your athletes to get.

I would encourage everyone coaching to look at Jean Cote's Transformational Coaching ideas. John O'Sullivan has written about this at Changing the Game Project as well. If you are familiar with servant-leadership or transformational leadership you will recognize a lot of similarities.

There is quote attributed to Teddy Roosevelt that goes something like "Nobody cares what you know until they know you care". To me it applies to teaching and coaching. I also heard one today that I like but it is a little more obscure in terms of reference: We need Maslow before Bloom. (You can read Issac Scroggins at Medium.com essay).

in my humble opinion... wrote:

Some clues to ego driven coaches:

- do they seek the spotlight?

- do they claim responsibility for success?

- do they talk about their own accomplishments?

- do they talk about technical aspects of training, making it sound like success is because of their plans?

Some clues to those in it for the kids:

- do they stay in the background when their teams and athletes succeed?

- do they give the praise to their athletes for success?

- do they talk about athletes characteristics that aren’t related to performance, such as leadership ?

- do they talk about culture more than training details?

That is a very good list!

CoachB, from what you wrote I do not think you are doing the "don'ts". You accept the compliment with a shift to a focus on the runners.

I will talk training concepts and such long into the night, but my takeaway from that point was more that it is MY plan that is making you good when it may be a part of it but also people will improve especially in high school on just about any halfway organized plan. I took it to mean more of "I am the reason for your success".

Sometimes coaches luck into getting a kid that has the physiology and drive to be good.

runkeller wrote:

Hey Coach B,

When you say you spend most your time on building culture, what do you mean? What are specific things that you do to build culture?

Thanks,

runkeller

OK. Trying to answer this without using "I" ;)

It's been said many times, for good reason, that ANY thoughtful training program will cause high school kids to improve. They are adaptation machines at that age in their lives. So, getting kids to buy into whatever training is going on and give it their best shot is of utmost importance. So, at Hughson, here are some of the things we do (in order of what I feel is most important to least). I'm confident that the program that I've built is something the kids really buy into. There are 72 kids on our team (almost exactly 10% of the student body) and we had 0 kids quit this year.

#1. Reward effort over performance. We do this in a lot of ways. The primary way is that the coaching staff (most often me) picks a kid to lead the team break at the end of every practice. The kid that gets to lead the break is recognized for the way in which s/he showed great effort on the day. We have a little mantra that one of our athletes came up with a couple of years ago, so the kid that takes us out leads us in the mantra. We do this while holding hands in a circle then we gather for our break.

I try to make the rewarding of effort pervasive throughout my program. During warm up drills, I try to point out the kids who are paying attention and doing the drills well (yes, once again the dreaded "I". I'd love it if my assistants got more involved in this and encourage them to do so, but it's mostly me). So, rather than just pick out the kids who aren't doing drills right and correcting them, I make sure to point out kids that are doing them well and be specific. It seems silly actually, "Amanda, that's how A skips are supposed to look, thigh's parallel to the ground". If I do that, Bobby, who isn't getting his thighs parallel to the ground will probably start doing so. There are countless opportunities to point out things that are going right throughout the day.

Whenever something goes right, try to tie it back into the reason it went right. "You guys had a great workout today! You paid attention to your splits and didn't run too hard early on. I liked the way the JV girls worked together as a group today, you really pushed eachother to be better". Stuff like that is gold. It's great for your program and it's great for getting kids to learn the lesson that they are responsible for their own success.

Don't lie to the kids. Don't say "good job" when they didn't do a good job. Just find someone else to say good job to. If they have a bad race, try and analyze why without throwing anyone under the bus. My athletes tend to be harder on themselves than I would be on them, so there is almost never a need for me to come down hard on anyone. If I do, I make it well known what action is being admonished.

#2. Encourage kids to point out what other kids are doing well. After hard practices or meets, we get in a circle and allow our athletes to point out what they saw going right at practice. The seniors get a chance to speak first, then the juniors, etc... They've seen me model how to give compliments 2 hours a day every day so they get pretty good at doing it themselves.

#3. Reward improvement over performance. The kids who are winning races are getting plenty of accolades already. Pointing out the JV girl who dropped her 2 mile time from 15:30 to 14:45 in 2 weeks goes a long way to helping her continue to work. A girl like that can often find her way onto our varsity squad after a couple of years if she keeps improving. I have a boy right now that is in a good position to make our varsity squad as a junior despite running his initial 2 mile time trial as a freshman in 22:30. On those early time trials, I give awards for the kid who improves the most (usually an ice cold gatorade). He got one after going from 22:30 to 18:00 a few weeks later. For him, that was enough to buy into the program. He ended up running just under 5:40 as a freshman in track, then after a 550 mile summer won our league JV title for cross (2 miles) in 11:17. He was in about 5 minute shape when we shut our season down this year.

#4. When rewarding a good performance, make sure to tie it back into the work that went into acheiving that performance. My #1 guy for much of the season this year was a senior that didn't come out until last year as a junior. He started running because he was about 40 pounds over weight. At the beginning of the shool year, his mom suggested that he come out for our team. As a junior, he never made the varsity top 7, but he improved a ton and he was very happy seeing his progress. He ran just under 5:00 on the track as a junior then put in an 800 mile summer. I probably talked about his summer more than just about any other single thing this season.

#5 Incentives for high level training and racing. I take my top 7 boys and top 7 girls to the Lake Tahoe area for a week every summer. The family of one of our former athletes bought a building which used to be a boutique hotel near Echo Summit. They let us stay there for free. My kids know that I'll take the kids that are at the top of our summer mileage list, so that incentivizes them to put in a good summer. For the last couple of years, we've traveled to the Woodbridge meet in Southern California. Kids know that getting selected for the travel roster is something that requires work. Last year, our boys took 5th out of 34 teams in our race. The year before that our girls took 5th. I made sure to publicize that around the school and sent press releases to the local paper. If the meet happens this year, the boys will be aiming to win our race there. I purchased special "top 7" uniforms a couple of years ago. These only come out for: Woodbridge, Sub Section, Section, and State. Getting one of those is coveted by the kids.

Sometimes, the parents will put together a team dinner or we'll do game day (especially early season when the weather is in the triple digits). But those are pretty rare. Stuff like that helps, but I don't think it's super important to building a program where kids will buy into the work.

otter wrote:

However, in contrast to some of what is being said here, in order to be an effective coach I do believe you need to come across confident and knowledgeable. If not, your athletes will likely go elsewhere for training advice or worse they will not believe in yours. I noticed this to be increasingly true as kids rely more on information from the internet now than they did just 15 years ago.

Discussing training theory with athletes can come across as being ego driven but most of the coaches that I have met that seek knowledge are not trying to impress anyone, it's more that they do not want to let their athletes down. So, I disagree that a defining trait of the ego driven coach is someone that discusses training and applied science.

I missed this the first time around, but agree 100%. Why shouldn't I explain WHY kids are doing a specific workout and use my hard earned knowledge of physiology as part of that explanation.

I've heard it said that people will go through almost any HOW if they first know the WHY.

Wouldn't you want your kids to know that you are compotent and well versed in training theory? Wouldn't that give them more reason to buy into your program?

I completely agree. I was more focused on outward communication. The way the following question would be answered if the coach was interviewed should demonstrate my point.

Q - Coach, your team (or athlete crushed it today with that course record. Why do you think they ran so well?

A - Egocentric coach - well, they followed the race plan I gave them and have been executing the workouts I’ve given them. They ran X workout in Y time, so I knew they were ready.

A - in it for the kid coach - well, he’s such a great kid and hard worker. He’s motivated every day in practice to do whatever he can to be successful. Not only did he run great, but he’s also a great example to his teammates on how to work hard and be humble.

Teaching your runners the why’s of your training plans is much more focused on the kids than saying, my training is great because I know more than other coaches.

I agree completely with Coach B here

There are comments here that you have to be lucky with talent, etc...

But, the teams that are good every year have something special.

For us we create an environment that is fun . Most of the time I don’t even need to take attendance because the kids don’t want to miss anything.

Our athletes train hard because they know why. The kids that have taken AP bio to my observation like my PowerPoint presentations. They appreciate that I spent time to learn and care enough in order to give them the best opportunity to improve. It was my fear of letting them down that I went through all I had.

Am I looking for credit for this? Certainly not from anyone outside of our team. For me, I am trying to show my athletes that I care about them. That I value them. If that ties into my ego somehow than I say so what.

For me when a reporter is around I send the kids to them. I duck and dodge. I honestly don’t even want anyone besides the parents and the athletes to know I coach the team.

Not about ego, it’s about learning a new skill set. I am attorney who started coaching in my 50’s. Got started because I discovered that I enjoyed watching my daughter’s track and field meets and after she graduated the school started an Indoor Track program and didn’t have a coach. I could never coach a team sport, but track and field is a good fit, and I signed up. The sport attracts a wide array of kids and it gives them something to do because there is not a lot of sports to choose from during the winter – hoops and wrestling. We are a small school and winning championships is out of the question. But everyone has goals and that is what we focus on. There are about 50 kids, most of the time I’ve had no assistants, so my role is more akin to being a cruise ship social director. Make practices fun, make it interesting, do different things, all while doing fitness and conditioning. I wish I knew more about the mechanics of the various sports, but that is why God invented You Tube. It is a privilege to be a high school track and field coach.

runneraccountant wrote:

My son’s coach does it for himself. He uses the kids to help him train for the marathons he runs. That’s what their workouts and mileage is based on. If the kids have a big meet he often times isn’t there because he’s running his own races. If he needs a recovery day or day off, the kids run on their own. During the short track season, he was training for a marathon. My kid who runs the 1600 was putting in 16 mile runs. He’s a worthless coach who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

And yet you allow your offspring to be coached by him and probably encourage or even demand it. Why are you coaching him? You seem to know what to do better than the clown you describe. And I'm not being sarcastic in the least; I believe you really do know more and would be better for the kid.

I think parents should give their children a better education than they have. Therefore, enhanced education is useful for children, especially during this period. I advise students who have difficulty writing academic papers to work harder on mistakes and train. Especially since there is more time for this now. By the way, read the article on how to choose professional assistance in education https://www.thebraggingmommy.com/how-to-choose-paper-writing-service/

Coaching young athletes is tough! I started doing it for free about 12 year ago and had some early success with a few national medalist in the sport of triathlon. At the time it was about the athletes as I knew from my background how difficult endurance sports can be. In 2014 when my son went overseas on a scholarship to America I started charging athletes. There are no high school coaches here in Australia so it was just a side gig I started. As soon as I started charging the more athletes came to train with me. One of my girls placed top 50 at World Junior XC after only taking up the sport for 6 months and things really took off.

Is it about me or the athletes? Well it has to be about the athletes. I help them try to achieve their potential. I have been lucky with one of my runners running at Princeton and a few others achieving national medals in a mid sized city in Australia. I grew up in VA so I know all about coaches who make it about them. As a private coach you let the athletes make the decisions and set their goals as they are (or their parents) are paying me an income. It really makes you realise it is about them.

I am lucky I get to work with athletes for a number of years but I have to keep helping them improve and if they don't then they have to move on. I love that about our system here. Good luck!

yellow_mushroom wrote:

Any coach who believes their training program is the sole reason for an athlete's ability and improvement is delusional. As a high school coach I really believe that a coach can only take credit for maybe 30% or 40% of the success of a high school athlete, the other 70% or 60% is the natural ability of the athlete. I think most high school coaches subconsciously understand this, but some absolutely refuse to accept it. Those are the ego-driven coaches. And to echo what a couple of other posters have mentioned I believe that team culture is very important as well, especially when it comes to the athlete taking their natural ability and putting it to the test in meets and races.

Boys and Girls coaches at local public school are like that. One requires complete silence as he approaches the group. Captains whisper scoldingly, demanding it. Then he dix around looking at various papers for the next 20-30 min. He is known as King S. We have good runners in the school who will not run because he is the coach.

The other coach, walks up to the group, jokes around (penchant for Hans and Franz routines). When he has the whole group laughing hardest and out of breath, he starts talking. He is building a strong team because kids want to run for him. Captains are not tools.

Parents received an email from school principal decrying the lack of interest in HS sports. Apparently, King S is not the only King at the HS.

The differences between the two coaches above is that one is an enabler and draw to the sport whereas the other trades quotes in the school paper for complete subordination. His captains play the roles of high priests, the Allison Mack types.

So what happens to all the other kids who do not participate in HS sports? They go to club teams coached by people such as the Lawyer poster above who started coaching in his 50's. He might have a lot of life lessons he could teach but he understands that kids come to the team for the sport itself rather than hear yet another arrogant adult force upon them dressed-up, questionable morals that are only intended to build the coach's personality cult.