Beyond Skill: Knowing Your Players
A good coach knows her players’ whys.
I love my job. I love my players. They are some of my most special relationships; we need each other in order to do the thing we love. On the good days, we enjoy being around each other and there is a synergy humming in the air – the sound of learning and leading and growing happening in real time. We are light-hearted and hard-working simultaneously. We know why we are there and we want to be there with each other. We listen to each other. They understand what I’m asking them to do and why, and I give them the space to try it. They are encouraged to mess up, be creative, and make their own choices. I learn about their ‘why’, and whatever that it is, I roll with it.
If you don’t know why your players want to play soccer, ask them. Have them write it down and send it to you in an email, or a survey, or on a piece of paper at practice. Understanding their goals and vision helps me align mine with theirs. Unless you’re a magician, you can’t turn a team that just wants to have fun with their friends into a U.S. U15 Women’s Youth National Team. You’ll lose them that way. And vice versa: a competitive team of players who want to play collegiate soccer has fun in a different way. Repetitive, predictable drills or mini-games that do not translate to The Game will lose them, too.
This year I coached a very different kind of team for three months. We call it “Trapped Team Season” and it happens for a single season in the U15 age group; half of each team are freshmen in high school and the other half are in 8th grade. A trapped team is made up of a mixture of 8th grade players from the first, second, and third-level teams. In the fall, their 9th grade teammates go away to play their first ever high school soccer season, leaving their younger teammates behind.
Enter: me.
I started the season with twenty-four players on my roster. On an average day I was coaching just shy of three dozen teenage girls at once. They had very different skill levels. They had very different why’s. They didn’t know each other. I only knew a handful of them. League rules required only 18 of them could be selected for the game roster each weekend, leaving me to decide which of them that would be every week. And they were thrown together for a few months as a temporary team with me as their coach. It felt like a recipe for disaster.
It ended up being the highlight of my year.
A team of different strengths and weaknesses and why’s meant they were diverse, interesting, and unpredictable. It did not always go smoothly, but this team felt robust, like a challenge would wake them up instead of break them down. They learned from each other. I made it clear to them from the jump that there were more important things than soccer to me: teamwork, kindness, ambition, positivity, and hard work. To some surprise, A-Team players were not guaranteed to start a game out on the field. I built rosters and chose lineups based on who showed up to practice, worked the hardest, had the best attitude, lifted their teammates up, and remained authentic throughout. I didn’t care which team they came from.
Ultimately, I learned:
A good coach considers more than just talent.
And:
A good coach looks for signs of success in unexpected places.
So much growth happened over that season. Players from the A-Team learned how to be more patient with each other (and themselves) when someone made a mistake. Players from the C-Team stepped up to a new challenge of playing with people better than them; instead of becoming small and intimidated, they showed up feisty and strong. Everyone got better as a result.
After our ten weeks together were up, I planned a farewell pizza party with the team manager. All the girls came and sat at one long table, chattering to each other and laughing. Halfway through dinner, I took a long look at them. I saw no sign of girls separated by teams of origin. They were completely intermixed. I wanted to cry. In a job where signs of success are far and few between, finally: a sign I had done my job well.
It's hard to know as a coach what you can take credit for. Think about it: the players are the ones who play in practices and games. The parents are the ones who actually get their kid to the places they have to be. A good coach shows up consistently and with specific strategies to teach, motivate, and inspire. But you don’t know that you’re good. You’re really just doing the best you can.
A win doesn’t mean you are a good coach, just like a loss doesn’t mean you are a bad one. You might spend four practices teaching a single concept until – hallelujah! Your players master it. Then comes game time, and they forget everything you just worked on. And then you lose 12-0.
In these moments, it’s easy to walk back to your car thinking, “God, I suck at this.” But a good coach has to be prepared to look for signs of success in unexpected places.
A player starts showing up early. A quiet girl starts to contribute her thoughts during half-time talks. Your team wins a game against a team they lost to previously. A player comes to you and cries in your arms after she messed up and everybody saw. Your parents come to a game and tell you the team has really developed since the last game they attended a few months ago.
Am I a good coach? I guess it depends on who you’re asking, and where you’re looking.
More to come tomorrow!