Lies Your Coaches Told You…
And You Tell Yourself And Others
Rick Albrecht, Ph.D.
Department of Movement Science
Grand Valley State University
These Slides Are Available at:
http://faculty.gvsu.edu/albrechr/
You Are “Advanced” Level Coaches:
So Always Remember This...
"In the beginner's mind there are
many possibilities, but in the
expert's mind there are few."
--Shunryu Suzuki
Lies Your Coaches Told You…
And You Tell Yourself and Others
“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”
--Franklin D. Roosevelt
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
--George Bernard Shaw
Lie #1:
“Pattern Your Coaching
After A Successful Coach ...”
Rethink The Way You Coach…
• Make Deliberate And Conscious Decisions
• Fight Against The Natural Tendency To
Coach Out Of Habit
• Fight Against The Natural Tendency To
Coach Like Others
• Don’t Just Be ‘As Good’ … Be BETTER!
Lie #2:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“Motivations Come From Within -- If My
Players Are Not ‘Self-Motivated’ There’s
Very Little I Can Do”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
Okay, This One’s a Half Truth… Motivation is
a Combination of a Player’s “Personality”
AND the “Situation” in Which They Find
Themselves
Personality
Situation
Motivation
So What Should You Do As A Coach?
If Motivation Can Be Changed By
Altering Either A Player’s Personality or
The Situation…
Which Should You Spend Your Time
Trying To Change?
THE SITUATION!
It’s All About What
You Can Control...
“When You Blame Others, You Give Up
Your Power to Change”
-- Anonymous
Lie #3:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“If You Want To Be An Effective
Hockey Coach, Your Main Job
Is To Motivate Your Athletes”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
Your MAIN Job is to Motivate YOU!
• You Need to Develop a TGIM Attitude
• How Do You Expect to Motivate Others
If You Can’t Motivate Yourself First?
• Motivation is Contagious
• You Have to Control The Things YOU
Have Control Over -- Nothing Else
The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity to accept the
things I cannot change…
Courage to change the things I can…
And wisdom to know the difference
Lie #4:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“If I ‘Light a Fire’ Under My
Team, They’ll Perform Better”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
Performance
What We ONCE Thought…
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
Performance
THEN What We Thought Was …
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
What National-Level Hockey
Players Started Telling Us Was . . .
Performance
What Did We Say About An “Expert’s Mind?
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
There’s More To The Story That
You, As A Coach Need To Know…
Importance of “FUN”!!
•Fun
Performance
•Challenge
•Opportunity
•Threat
•Chance to Fail
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
Lie #5:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“The Following Are Excellent Goals For Young
Hockey Players To Set For Themselves...”
“Winning the Game”
“Making the Team”
“Scoring A Goal in Tonight’s Game”
“Winning The League Championship”
“Winning The Gold Medal”
“Competing to the Best of My Ability”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
• To Be Effective, Goals Need To Be:
– Based on performance -- NOT OUTCOME!
– UNDER YOUR CONTROL
– Specific and Measurable Realistic but
Challenging
– Focused on the PROCESS (How not What)
– Set for every PRACTICE!
Lie #6:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“There’s No ‘I’ In Team -Setting Team Goals is an Great Way to
Promote Good Hockey Team Performance”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
• There is nothing but “I”s in Team
• “Teams” Don’t Really Perform Skills -Only Individuals Do
• Having “Team Goals” Can Often Be
Counterproductive
– Nobody (no human being) is Actually
Responsible for Accomplishing Team Goals
• Your Job is to be the Conductor
Lie #7:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“The Following Punishments Are Generally
Effective in Correcting Performance
Errors…”
Yelling/Screaming/Criticizing/Ridiculing
Removal of Playing Time
Running/Skating Laps
Running/Skating Sprints
Push Ups, Sit Ups, etc.
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
• As Physical Educators, One of Our Main
Goals is to Promote Lifelong Physical
Activity
• Why Do We Use What You Want To
Promote As Punishment?
Other Reasons Punishment, in
General, Doesn’t Work
• It Only Works When You’re There, You See
the Mistake, and Are Willing To Punish
• Waste of Valuable Practice Time
• Makes the Game Unpleasant
• Increases the “Fear of Failure” and Thus
Decreases “Risk Taking”
Lie #8:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“A Bad Performance Can Hurt a
Hockey Player’s Confidence Level”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
• By Believing This, We Give Ourselves A
Convenient Excuse For Future Failure
• It’s Not The Performance -- It’s What You
Think About The Performance
• Your Players Spend Countless Hours
Training and Perfecting Their Performance
-- What Makes You (or Them) Think That
One Bad Performance Will Destroy All
That Hard Work?
Lie #9:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“Practice Makes Perfect and
There’s Almost Never Enough
Practice or Ice Time”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
• Only “Perfect” Practice Makes Perfect
• Most Practices Last Far Too Long -- You
Just Risk Mental and Physical Fatigue and
Injuries (80/20 rule)
– Place More emphasis on Practice of
Mental Skills -- Less on Physical Skills
– Use of “Mental Practice”
Lie #10:
What They’ve Told You Is . . .
“Injuries Are An Athlete’s (and a
Coach’s) Worst Nightmare” -- There
Are Few Things Worse Than An Injury
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
• “Benefits of Injury”
“Failure is only the opportunity to begin
again, this time more wisely”
“You learn very little from winning -- losing is
the great teacher”
Reconsider The Opening Quotations
“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”
--Franklin D. Roosevelt
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
--George Bernard Shaw
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities,
but in the expert's mind there are few."
--Shunryu Suzuki