Winning and Losing Advice for Parents.

Winning and Losing Advice for Parents.

I started reading a new book titled “The Art of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin. The movie "Searching for Bobby Fisher" is based on the author’s life. In the book he writes about his rise through the chess ranks and about the growth of people and especially about the need to lose, and how to deal with it. Realistically it could be anyone growing up through sport. 

This past weekend I attended the Art of Coaching volleyball conference in Calgary. Laurie Eisler (University of Alberta Head Coach) used a line I thought was brilliant. "Be engaged emotionally in the wins and be engaged intellectually in the losses." This was directed at coaches at the time but I think it is applicable to parents as well.

In the book “Art of Learning” Josh writes about the role a parent plays in this process. He suggests that the parent’s everyday conversation should be about effort and lessons rather than results. Be happy with young athlete’s successes. This does not mean parents should trivialize winning and losing. Telling a young athlete that wins and losses don't matter makes no sense. They know it matters. They put their heart on the line and have it crushed when there is a loss. Josh suggests that a parent should start with a hug. Let the youth know they are there for them. Then tell them how proud they are of them because simply getting up on the stage or on the court is a triumph. "Disappointment is a road to greatness," Josh Wrote. This is one of the most important lessons an athlete can learn.  It is important for an athlete to understand how they bounce back determines their character. When the athlete seems ready to talk about the match parents should ask their son or daughter to focus on improvement by asking them to explain the game.  Not necessarily specific skills and tactics but general things.  This leads to an understanding of reviewing the game. 

Examples might be: Were they overconfident entering the match? Were they "psyched out" before the match began? Did a big trash talker get them angry? Did a reaction from a player or coach distract them?  This is healthy reflection. Parents need to leave technical and tactical training to the coaches.Trusting the coach is important part of the learning process and this process can be eroded quickly with mixed messages. This helps athletes learn that from every loss there is a lesson that can help move them forward in a positive direction

Another powerful concept that I recommend for parents is to determine what is a successful experience. On my university team a successful experience differs for many players.  The starting left side should have a difference definition of success than the 15th player.  If they both determined simply seeing playing time on the floor as success, one will be very disappointed. The reserve player will determine success in developing their skills, getting a better understanding of systems, helping make players better and bringing positive energy to the team.

On our U-14 club team we determine success as athletes falling in love with the game. We want the athletes to enjoy coming to practice and develop their skills and tactics.  We play everyone evenly. Sometimes this means losses, but our success isn't based on a win-loss record.  We talk to parents about discovering other success criteria. Hopefully we are all on the same page by the end of the year.

Research shows that athletes who base their experience on personal achievement in terms of wins

 and losses drop out of sports at an earlier age.  This is because as they move up levels they can't 

maintain their records.  They come across other athletes who will challenge them and this affects 

their mental state.  Since they are no longer receiving the accolades they once did they decide to 

withdraw.  On the other hand athletes who focus on effort and improvements remain in their sport 

longer.  Often reaching higher levels in their overall career

http://t.co/fzAwFeXQOU  is another good blog from Sport IQ.

A Quick Study and Pet Peeve.

As season ends a person  would think things would slow down for coaches, but really recruiting heats up.  As a by product of recruiting  I have the opportunity to watch a lot of matches. I like to use this time to do more than evaluate players often I will do a little study of my own.  This year the study came up from last summer.  Last summer as a mentor coach I spent a lot of time with Dan Gilbert and we discussed lots of different parts of the game. (See Gilberts 7 things). http://coachingbobcats.blogspot.ca/2012/08/gilberts-and-his-7-things-first-guest.html

  In particular we discussed warm-ups.  We often discussed what is important in the hitting portion of the warm-up, number of contacts or quality of contacts.

I have a pet peeve of coaches tossing balls to attackers during their 5 minutes of attacking.  Yes I realize almost every coach does this during their warm-up. I have to admit I used to do it as well.  But as I start to analyze different things about the game it has made me dislike this part of warm-up.

Supporters of tossing balls to attacker say it is because they get more contacts.  I wondered if this was really true.  I decided to count contacts during matches I watch.  I just used the U-17 provincials in Manitoba to do a quick study. In the 10 matches I watched the average player had 7 contacts.  I would pick the first middle player and then count how many time she had an opportunity to swing on the ball.  I chose middles because I think this is important part of timing.

 The range of tossing to attackers was extreme.  The one coach who tossed to every player in all three front row positions had 7 contacts. But only four then were from the setter to the attacker.  Another coach who toss directly to her setter and then had her set the attacker  had 7 contacts,  but all 7 were from a setter. A team had two coaches tossing in two lines and had the players hit 2 balls each before they changed to the setter controlled drill.  They had one more attempt than the other teams. This makes me wonder if getting 1 more artificial contact is better or not?

I personally believe that coming from a setter directly is way better.  We are teaching the athletes that their timing is always in relation to when the ball is in the setters hands.  With this explanation a toss ball from the coach doesn’t give the visual cue we ask the attacker to look for.

With our team we start with both  setters on the same side of the net for 1.5 mins.  One will set left side and the middles will hit their shots infront of her.  The other will set rightsides and middle attacks behind her.  They do this for 45 seconds each and then they switch.  Our players serve  to  passers and liberos who pass to the setters.  Leftsides will pass and attack out of the leftside of the court, the libero passes out of rightside. After 1.5 minutes our second setters sets alone for 1 minute. We move to 3 passers with the libs passing out of the rightside still.  Then we have our starting setter then finishes off the last 1.5 minutes.

This type of warm-up moves us closer to the actual game plus we still get 8 or 9 attempts. The number varies on if many serves are missed.  We have coaches standing on side if a serve is missed they will toss a ball in to keep the movement going.