Utah Amateur Hockey

The following is an excerpt from the book “POSITIVE COACHING, Building Character and Self-Esteem Through Sports”
by JIM THOMPSON 

      Sooner or later, no matter how relentlessly positive you are as a coach, there will be times when bad things are going on and you simply need to intervene. For example, often-older players will pick on or make fun of younger players. Or a player will just lose it and throw a fit when a call goes against him/her. Or someone will be careless about swinging a bat when another player is too close. I’ve seen players square off against other players on the basketball floor when they felt they were being manhandled. At times like these it is the coach’s responsibility to intervene, and the sooner the better.

            One of the wonderful things about drilling into your players that it is okay to make a mistake is that when you need to intervene to stop something harmful, it is easier than it otherwise would be. Once Eric, my best pitcher and a wonderful boy who is usually well mannered and polite, got frustrated with an umpire’s call and threw his glove down in disgust. I was embarrassed an angry. I called him over to the sidelines and told him that if he ever did anything like that again, I would pull him right out of the game.

            I am glad I intervened immediately but I wish I hadn’t threatened to embarrass him in front of his teammates and parents. What he did was unusual for him and I could have conveyed that it was unacceptable (and unclassy) behavior without coming down on him so hard. Nonetheless, he accepted it and went back to his business of pitching without a complaint. I am confident that he was able to take my uncharacteristically harsh response to him because of the context of it being okay to make a mistake on our team. He had made a mistake and he shrugged it off because people were always making mistakes and out team it was okay. As it turned out I had also made a mistake (for which I apologized to Eric), which leads me to what happens when the coach makes a mistake.

It is easy to forget that adults are usually just bigger kids. Adults make mistakes. But usually we try to cover up our mistakes, especially to keep them from the awareness of our children.

            Last baseball season we lost a crucial game because the umpire called the infield fly rule on a pop-up that bounced foul before any of the fielders could touch it. This was a clear mistake by the umpire, as my assistant coach and I discovered after the game. We probably would have won the game had we had the wits to successfully challenge the call. But we didn’t, and we lost.

            We began our next practice, as we usually do, by going over the good things that each of the players had done in the last game. We also acknowledged that the reason we had lost the game was because of an error on the coaches. By owning up publicly to our own errors, we helped to reinforce that it truly is okay to make a mistake on this team, even if you’re the coach.

            A few years ago a parent of one of my players lost his cool in response to a particularly bad call by the umpire. The call, in my opinion, was flagrant and in favor of the other team, but my player’s parent’s behavior in charging the umpire and yelling at him in from of the kids also was uncalled for.

            He realized it and almost immediately came to me to apologize. All I had to say was “it’s okay for adults to make mistakes too.” He gave me the trademark whooshing sigh of relief and that closed the situation. For the remainder of the season he never again lost his cool. He also didn’t have to spend energy justifying his inappropriate behavior by talking about how bad the umpire’s behavior was. Since it was okay for adults to make mistakes, neither of us had to dwell on it.

Fear of making a mistake is a paralyzing force that robs athletes of spontaneity, love of the game, and a willingness to try new things. It is the no-buts approach to mistakes that gives the sense of psychological and emotional freedom that can unlock the learning process and occasionally release truly inspired athletic performance.

The Coaches Association of the Utah Amateur Hockey Association is now accepting applications for board members. This is a great way to get involved with other coaches in the state and help grow the game in Utah. You can apply for yourself or nominate someone that you think would do a great job. We are looking for energetic coaches that can bring new ideas to our organization.

A coach is a politician, a judge, a public speaker, a teacher, a trainer, a financier, a laborer, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a Chaplin. He must be an optimist and yet at times appear to be a pessimist, seem humble and yet be very proud, strong but at times weak, confident yet not overconfident, enthusiastic but not too enthusiastic.

He must have the hide of an elephant, the fierceness of a lion, the pep of a young pup, the guts of an ox, the stamina of an antelope, the wisdom of an owl, the cunning of a fox, and the heart of a kitten.

He must be willing to give freely of his time, his money, his energy, his youth, his family life, and his health. In return he must expect little if any financial reward, little comfort on earth, little praise but plenty of criticism.

However, a good coach is respected and is a leader in his community, is loved by his team, and makes lasting friends wherever he goes.

He has the satisfaction of seeing young people develop and improve in ability. He learns the thrill of victory and how to accept defeat with grace. His association with athletes, help keep him young in mind and spirit, and he too must grow and improve in ability with his team.

In his heart he knows that, in spite of the inconvenience, the criticism, and the demands on his time, he loves his work, for he is the coach.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson