Coach Summer – Good or Bad Coach?

In this part of the blog, I will be assessing whether coach Summer is a good or bad coach, I will point out the positives and negatives and where she can improve in her coaching.

coach summer

You can view the video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTEKzocCt0o

Coach Summer coaching style comes across as quite intimidating. Coach Summer was coaching a children’s basketball game. This may be why she came across as intimidating as the way she was coaching the children wasn’t very pleasant to watch. Coach Summer chosen career is in strength & conditioning (S&C). Throughout the video it shows how coach Summer approach the children, because her chosen career was in S&C, Summer did the following;

  1. Shouting/screaming
  2. Intimidating
  3. Not approachable
  4. No patience
  5. No motivation

Because Summer is an S&C coach she isn’t used to this type of environment. In an journal is says that ” With players entering the NBA from nearly every continent, it is likely that a variety of strength and conditioning practices and programs have been followed, some similar and some quite different from NBA practices” (Simenz, Dugan and Ebben, 2005). This could indicate why coach Summer was coaching the children the way she did but personally I don’t think she went about it the right way. Here are some of the things I believe that let coach Summer down whilst she was coaching the children;

  • Used to shouting
  • Not used to coaching children
  • No experience coaching children
  • Too competitive
  • Different environment – Different than S&C
  • Under pressure/panicking – being watched by scouts?
  • Social background – how she was raised?
  • Morals, culture – winning over development?
  • Ethics –  not okay to swear in front of the children

Despite all of this, every coach can always improve, including myself and review themselves after every session their do. I picked out 3 things I believe she can improve on and be better at.

  1. Be more patient

When coaching children you have to be patient, because they are so young so they are most likely to make mistakes. The key for a coach is to development them and let children make mistakes they can learn from. “coaches should be able to accept bad calls by umpires, refs and other sports officials (remember, most of them are volunteers, too) and mistakes by players without a public display of emotion or of dissatisfaction” (Brooke De Lench).

2. Tone of voice

Coach Summer shouted and screamed at the children too much and this can affect a child’s life. They may be less confident, stop enjoying the sport they love or feel like they are even being bullied. So therefore when coaching children you have to have a gentle voice and this will encourage them more.

3. Motivate better

While at S&C coaching Summer may seem like a good motivator because in S&C shouting motivates people but when coaching children it’s totally different. Especially the young children, they seem to be scared, unwilling to do whats ask of them if you cannot motivate them better. Next time Summer needs to be more calm and just have like a one to one with the child, take the child away from everyone and just explain what she wants from them. This way it will make the child less afraid, more confident and feeling good about themselves. “It is the coach’s role to support the athlete and encourage them to unleash their “fire” in preparation and performance”, “It is the coach’s role to inspire athletes to feel confident in themselves and to feel empowered to let their “fire” free (Wayne Goldsmith, 2017).

What makes a good coach?

I’ve talked a lot about coach Summer and what shes done wrong and what she can improve on, but what actually makes a good coach?

“The most important quality you need to coach is enthusiasm. People respond brilliantly to an eager, hard working leader” (BBC sport). BBC mention that being enthusiastic is the most important trait as a coach, which you can say is true. Players feed off hunger and energy when it comes to coaches. Pep Guardiola is one of the best managers in the world and if you look at this particular training session you can see he’s hungry for success, to development players and to make his team as a whole better. His players feed off his energy in training and take it onto match-day and that’s why he has won so many trophies in his career and why players love playing under him. This video demonstrates everything as a coach you need to be successful.

Of course, there are other skills you need to be a good coach, for example:

  • Confident
  • Organised
  • Knowledge of sport
  • Professional
  • Role model
  • Adaptable

These 6 skills are my main skills I think are needed to be a good coach and what skills it can take to have a successful coaching career.

References

 

 

 

 

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