By Jody Langdon
(May 25, 2022)

A few months ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about sport coaching. Specifically, why he did not want to continue volunteering to coach a local team because he knew they would not win. In his words, “The talent pool isn’t that great.” To be fair, he coached previously because his son was on the team. Not having a child on the team was also a major influence on his decision. I appreciated his honesty, but it made me think of how many other volunteer coaches might feel this way: that they must start with innate talent first and develop what is already there. While this orientation certainly represents a type of coaching that those of us in coach development know is counter-productive, it’s also a true view of the people we work with. Many times we might be faced with coaching athletes that may not have the requisite skills to be successful already, perhaps because of a lack of sport participation or sub-par physical education experiences.

So, I thought more about this and tried to find ways to explain to my friend that it wasn’t about winning, but about athlete development and growth. I think he knew this, but he also still wanted them to feel quick success. He knows he was being judged by parents and athletes with the same propensity to win. There are certainly some deep-rooted perspectives on what is most important in youth sport, yet we can’t ignore the perceptions that both athletes and coaches come into sport with. In this article, I hope to provide some information we have learned in the research about how we can shift the conversation from winning to development, from extrinsic to intrinsic.

Recently, Jim Strode (2021) wrote a fantastic article on the basics of self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2019) and how it applies to sport coaching. In it, he describes how to foster autonomy, competence, and relatedness in your athletes. I’d like to take this a step further and specifically talk about a few coaching behaviors that could potentially shift the thinking of both athletes and coaches. Athletes that seemingly don’t have that innate talent can become integral participants of the sports they are interested in by understanding why certain skills are taught, why certain tactics are implemented, and how to make decisions that will enhance their performance in gameplay. The coaching behaviors, based on SDT, that help foster this are rationales, asking for athlete input, and using questioning as indirect instruction.

Rationales

When I think of rationales, it reminds me of when my children were around 3-4 years old. “Mommy, why do we have two feet? Why do I have to eat this food? Why is it sunny outside?” This perspective is exactly what we must encourage in our athletes because the answers to their why questions engage their intrinsic interest, self-regulation, and connection with the team. Rationales were first introduced as part of SDT in research in education (Reeve, 2006). Rationales in that context were used to describe why activities were chosen for students, why it might be important to learn certain content, and why certain rules were enacted in the classroom. In sport, these translate to explanations of why we use specific skills as a basis for gameplay. When we first start instruction, we rely heavily on basic skills like passing, dribbling, catching, etc. Then we move to more complex skills. Athletes may not readily know how the basic skills integrate into complex skills and then into game strategy. Remembering to always explain why gives your athletes a better ability to reason cognitively because they are actively associating a skill with a reason to learn it. We can’t assume that every athlete understands this inherently.

Asking for Athlete Input

Yes, this one is difficult, especially if you happen to be coaching a team of 6-year-olds that want you to know everything about their day and what they ate for dinner two weeks ago. But, when done selectively, asking athletes about how they feel they have performed on a certain skill or what strategy might be the best way to get past a defensive player engages them in the process. This gives them a sense of control over the situation, helps them to self-regulate (knowing when to push or when to stop), and allows them to see that you care enough about them to ask them their opinion. At first, your athletes might appear shocked by this gesture. Keep doing it. Clearly, it will look different depending on the age you coach, but I can guarantee that engaging them in all aspects of the process will help them understand the bigger picture.

Use Questioning

How often do you think about how you give skill instruction? Do you always tell your athletes exactly what to do and how to do it “correctly” each time? For specific skill instruction, this tends to be the process, yet we expect our athletes to adjust these skills on the fly during gameplay in addition to understanding tactics and strategy automatically. I would argue that providing a line of questioning, which aligns with non-linear pedagogy approaches (Chow et al., 2021), can be helpful to allow athletes to think of their own technical or tactical adjustments. When engaging in questioning, we can ask athletes: what would happen if…, can you explain how you did…, and why might that be important? These lines of questioning help to keep the athletes aware of their skill execution and how they can adjust later on. The adjustment is more important than the skill itself because the individual skills are rarely performed perfectly in action like they are in isolation. This translates to questioning tactical knowledge as well. I have seen great success in having athletes explain their position on the field and where they are supposed to go by using this technique.

Back to the Story…

Although my friend may have a bit of an “old-school” mentality, he agreed to try these suggestions and see what happens. It doesn’t hurt that another son will be on the team next year. Changing minds is difficult, but according to SDT, those of us in coach development must also support the needs of our coaches. Bridging the old mentality with new information in a supportive way might be more effective to enact change than just telling someone they are doing it wrong. Rationales, athlete input, and questioning are just a few simple ways to engage athletes that don’t have that innate talent. It also is incredibly helpful for those that do. Hopefully, these quick tips help you reflect on your coaching, either by updating or changing your ways of instructing or perhaps reinforcing the good work you are already doing.

References

Chow, J.Y., Komar, J., & Seifert, L. (2021). The role of nonlinear pedagogy in supporting the design of modified games in junior sports. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 744814.

Reeve, J. (2006). Teachers as facilitators: What autonomy-supportive teachers do and why their students benefit. The Elementary School Journal, 106(3), 225-236.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2019). Brick by Brick: The origins, development, and future of self-determination theory. Advances in Motivation Science, 6, 111–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.adms.2019.01.001

Strode, J. (2021, December 14). Using the whistle less: Fostering motivation with your athletes. Sport Coaching America. https://sportcoachamerica.org/using-the-whistle-less-fostering-motivation-with-your-athletes/