I'm often baffled by the lack of collaborative effort within youth sport. So much so that I decided to write a short blog about it!
Regardless of 'playing level' and/or 'perceived ability' all coaches engaging with young people should be operating within a development world. Here the primary focus should be on helping learners to learn and get better, and sustaining a love for the sport (or better still a love of sport).
We know that every individual looks at the world at least marginally different from everyone else. Perspective is shaped by experiences and interactions that have gone before.
"The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see." ~ Barry Neil Kaufman
In a previous article we explored how viewing a match day as 'an experience' rather than as 'an event' could open up so many new opportunities for learning, positively shape behaviour and help with coach wellbeing. The purpose of this article is to again challenge tradition by asking whether we are missing opportunities to better develop players and coaches by arriving at games with an 'Us-vs-Them' mindset.
All too often adults fixating on the scoreboard can be a major barrier to progress. Worse still, because children often model adult behaviour they too can become obsessed by the scoreline. With a win-lose mindset we risk winning games at the expense of missed learning opportunities and can often overlook potential learning moments just because the end result says we have lost.
I attended a junior football game recently and observed the emotional rollercoaster ride experienced by some parents, followed by intense satisfaction or absolute despair come the final whistle. I was left asking myself whether it was the competition that caused this adult behaviour or the obsession to compare their child to others. Perhaps it was both and perhaps one fuels the other. Maybe the following is true:
Imagine a world where coaches were to redefine winning as learning or see enjoyment as a sign of winning. Imagine how that might change behaviour for the better. Just imagine how that environment might feel to play, coach or support within. Imagine the flexible lens we'd be able to view the game through.
Now, this is not me saying that "competition is bad" or making any suggestion that there should be no scores kept. Indeed one of the exciting elements surrounding sport is that it is competitive and we play to an outcome. What I would encourage people to do however, is pause and consider what is competition? whose competition is it? and what characterises a game as competitive?
We live in a world where junior games are seen as competitive simply because the word league or cup is attached to it and because points are up for grabs. Yet when you observe the game it is anything but competitive. Other games are often viewed as 'non-competitive' because they are labelled friendlies and no one gets any points for winning.
My stance would be to promote more competitive games across sport, but to characterise them differently to the traditionalist view that Competition = Points = Prizes. Sorry Brucie!
Top coach and a good friend of mine, John Fletcher, would define competition as follows:
Now imagine a world where more games played out this way. Wouldn't that be a fun environment to be involved? I'd suggest this type of environment would be more stretching for the players and would challenge a broader range of player skills game-to-game. Is this not what we want for young developing players?
What if coaches arrived at match days with the intention of making games fairer from the off and more competitive for the players sake.
What if the first action of every coach on a match day was to invest themselves in a conversation with coaches from other teams to agree upon the very best way to make this a positive learning experience for all.
What if there was no us vs them on match day. What if all coaches were in it together with the shared commitment towards helping everyone get a little better. Imagine what could be possible with this kind of joined up thinking and a collective approach.
Often when we talk about learning and development in sport we focus on the player and the experiences they are having. What about the coaches? Shouldn't every match day and training session be an opportunity for them to get better as well? The coach who is willing and able to evolve and continually improve their practice will be a lasting resource to the players under their care.
By operating in isolation or confining our thoughts and feelings to only a small pack of likeminded colleagues (both of which are very common) we risk missing insights that might be valuable to the learner. Because every one of us views the world through a marginally different lens we come to perceive information in our own unique way. Something that is glaringly obvious to one person might have been completely missed by the next. Yet the information gathered could be valuable to all.
Not only will the set of eyes dictate what is seen, so too will the whereabouts of those eyes. Someone standing in a different location has the opportunity to see things invisible from another. The coach who is willing to work collectively with others opens up many new doors that would not have been open to them before. In doing so they are better placed to accelerate their own learning as well as the players.
Here are four ways coaches might choose to work together and step away from the us vs them culture. Choose your level of spice and give it a go:
In our quest to develop young people for the future one of our key roles must remain, to open the minds of children and young people by creating an environment where there are no limits to their ambition. By coaching in isolation from others are we simply increasing the likelihood that the limiting factor will be us?
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