By Alli O’Harra & Eric M. Martin
(July 22, 2022)

As coaches, you can define success in an infinite number of ways. How you define success is the foundation behind how you teach and provide feedback to your athletes and can directly relate to the climate you create and the goals you set (both for yourself and your athletes). Obviously, every coach wants to win, but there is much more to consider outside of the results of a game or the time achieved in a race to truly define success in sport. 

One theory that helps clarify how coaches define success is the Achievement Goal Theory. Achievement Goal Theory focuses on how a coach creates their climate which can directly influence a number of athlete outcomes including athlete’s levels of motivation. For example, a coach with a mastery/task goal orientation would focus on their athlete’s attaining personal, task-based goals and would emphasize individual-level improvements. Conversely, a coach with an ego/performance goal orientation would focus on their athlete’s outperforming others and judge athlete’s success depending on whether or not they won or lost, regardless of their individual level of performance. Currently, there is enough evidence to suggest that mastery goal orientation is associated with positive motivational and behavior patterns for athletes compared to an ego goal orientation and coaches should strive to create a climate focused on mastery and individual improvement.

As a collegiate athlete, I have experienced these two goal orientations created by two different coaches and these experiences provide me with a valuable perspective on which of these climates is most beneficial for athletes in those situations. I hope by expanding on these aspects and detailing the coach behaviors and athlete consequences, coaches can have a better understanding of how important their definition of success is to their athletes and the effect that it can have on athlete’s competence, confidence, burnout, and overall enjoyment of the sport.

Mastery Orientation – Coach A

Coach A had an open-door policy which in turn created an enormous amount of trust and involvement between the coaching staff and the team. This policy could be utilized for conversations not only about sport but anything that could be relevant in the lives of the athletes. Because of the trust, constant communication, and mutual respect this policy built, individual relationships were created and strongly held throughout practice and competition. This in turn made competing under that coach much more predictable, enjoyable, and worthwhile. Athletes responded better to distresses that occurred during competition season, there was a greater sense of accomplishment when the team achieved something great, there was far less burnout among athletes, and consistent effort was a common theme among the team. During my time playing under this coach, our program was extremely successful. We had winning records, placed among the top 3 teams in the conference consistently, and made numerous NCAA appearances. In addition, we had many standout athletes that were regionally and nationally recognized. I believe the success of this program is largely due to the mastery orientation that the coach embodied.

In summary, this coach:

• Highlighted failures as opportunities to improve and did not give punishments, especially when an athlete was trying something new
• Prioritized the coach-athlete relationship by enacting an open-door policy
• Recognized and rewarded for hard work and effort
• Did not favor and give certain athletes special attention

Ego/Performance Orientation – Coach B

Coach B had a textbook case of an ego-orientated perspective and was extremely unpredictable and short-fused. An example of this was how the coach created a sense of fear when an athlete made a mistake. This fear surrounding mistakes was there because any mistake was immediately followed by either physical or psychological punishment. Running lines, being pulled from a game, being consistently reprimanded, and being singled out were all very common examples of the punishments that created the fear and lack of competence in the athletes playing under this coach. In turn, I felt a lack of self-confidence, had overwhelming feelings of being unmotivated, and never felt truly satisfied by athletic (or personal) accomplishments during this time. In addition, there was also more evidence of burnout and dropout among players as I witnessed several athletes transfer from the program or drop out of sport completely because of how the coach acted. Ironically, even though performance and winning were emphasized by this coach, the exact opposite occurred. The team did not perform at its potential and was inconsistent throughout the season. There was less regional and national recognition for individual players even though the team had many talented athletes. I believe the lack of success in the program and increase in burnout and dropout on this team is primarily due to the ego goal-orientation definition of success the coaching staff embodied.

In summary, this coach:

• Punished mistakes made during games and practice with physical or psychological punishments
• Was very statistics reliant and publicly discussed and compared the statistics of teammates
• Chose and treated a select few on the team as favorites and made it very evident to the team
• Never had a consistent and stable temper which led to uncertainty and fear in the program
• Poor communication which caused unclear expectations and standards

Similar to my experiences between the two coaching climates, a 2016 achievement goal theory study looked at the impacts of coach climate on athlete burnout and found that players who perceived their coach as more ego-based reported lower levels of competence and maladaptive responses which were directly correlated to athlete burnout (Isoard Gautheur et al., 2016). Conversely, players who perceived their coach as setting more of a mastery-based climate perceived higher levels of confidence which led to more personal growth and improvement as well as increased performance. If my coach who projected the ego orientation climate were to adopt more of a mastery coach climate, I believe the current athletes in their program would begin to feel more competent and decrease the levels of burnout they were feeling.

It is important to note that typically, a climate will not be solely mastery- or ego-based, but rather a combination of the two depending on the situation. Regardless, I encourage you as a coach to take a step back and reflect on your own coaching practices and think about where it falls as either primarily mastery or performance-based.  If you recognize there are times when you are solely giving recognition and praise to a few players on your team, deciding whether your season was a success or failure solely on your team’s final record, punishing athletes when they make mistakes, and consistently comparing the success of individuals within your team to each other, there might be some aspects to modify in order to help build athlete competence, confidence, and motivation.

How a coach structures their climate can influence their athletes’ effort, persistence, response to failure, and intrinsic motivation. Most athletes want to continue to grow and improve but if they are debilitated by the coaching climate, they are being set up for disappointment and failure. In order to get the most out of the athletes on a team, one needs to find the proper balance of the definition of success within a specific coaching climate and focus on creating a more mastery-based sport climate.