Maintaining Your Poise

The hardest thing about coaching is to know what the potential of your team is and to watch them fall short of that potential in a game. You’ve seen your players on their best day and you’ve seen your team do amazing things when the players are performing at or near their best. It can be frustrating to watch your team underperform when you’ve watched them do great things.

But that is the challenge of being a youth sports coach. Just as you teach the kids to adapt and overcome their game circumstances, you will have to adapt and overcome your player circumstances, because – Kids have bad days too.

When you see your team underperforming, take a moment to consider why:

As a coach, we have to fill the emotional tanks of our players in a positive way regardless of how they are performing. That’s easy when things are going well. Even if the team is underperforming, sometimes winning is enough to carry the day. As John Madden once said, “Winning is a great deodorant” and league commissioners seldom hear complaints or concerns from the winning team for that very reason.

So when your team or players have got you frustrated because they are underperforming, take inventory of what you can do for them to fill their emotional tanks. Maybe there comes a point in the game that the scoreboard is no longer the motivation to perform, maybe there comes a time when you say to your team – “Let’s run a crazy play and have ridiculous fun doing it”.

Remember that the goal for youth sports is to have our players leave the playing court (or field) happy, healthy and wanting to come back. So when your team has you frustrated, maintain your poise. A good leader exudes positive energy in good times and in bad.

There are no scholarships at stake.