Justin Kline touches on a subject covered at the Saturday, Feb. 11, Durant-Plant City coaches’ clinic.
I believe that, no matter your profession, there’s always something someone can teach you that you don’t already know. It’s as true for me as it is for the Plant City Little League coaches who attended the Saturday, Feb. 11, clinic hosted by Durant and Plant City coaches and players.
The PCLL coaches that attended the clinic got plenty of good advice, and I would encourage all coaches in the program to try and make it out to the next one. Whether you’re a lifelong student of the game or a parent who signed up to coach because of your kid(s), making the on-field product better now could make a big difference in a player’s future.
There was one thing mentioned near the end of the clinic that had me thinking afterward: the importance of not only winning, but caring about winning. To paraphrase what Donnie Scolaro told the PCLL coaches, you can’t address a team and parents before the season and say you don’t care whether the team wins or loses. If you don’t care, then the kids won’t care as much down the road, when competition gets harder, stakes get higher and coaches need players as passionate about the outcomes as they are.
And it’s true: even if you know a team’s probably not capable of winning more than three or four games that season, an attitude of, “We’re just going to go out there and have fun, the final score doesn’t matter,” isn’t going to motivate anyone to get better at the game.
But I’m not suggesting that Little League coaches build a culture overly focused on winning, nor were the high school coaches. Burnout is a real thing that affects many talented athletes and, in my experience, it almost always comes from a parent or other authority figure pushing way too hard without a sense of fun. As the high school coaches repeatedly said, spicing up drills by adding game elements to them is a great way to keep kids engaged and teach them valuable on-field lessons. The best coaches, like the best schoolteachers, connect with their players as people rather than treat them as several means to an end each year.
Of course, you’re going to hit bumps in the road no matter how your coaching style handles the balance. The biggest thing I can think of, as a sportswriter who regularly talks to coaches in many different sports, is the classic “helicopter parent.” I don’t think there’s a youth or prep sports coach alive who hasn’t dealt with someone who says their kid deserves more playing time than another, or someone with little experience who doesn’t think the coaches are doing a good enough job and offers their own advice. But I do know that finding the balance between winning and fun is probably the best way to keep those parents happy. It’s hard to argue against a strong, successful program that the athletes visibly enjoy being a part of, and it’s a lot easier to work with all kids on a roster when the parents feel good about your philosophies and style.
You probably won’t win every game you ever coach, and that’s normal. But the first step to building a great program is having the right attitude, and that’s achieved through balance.
