Lies Your Coaches Told You…
And You Tell Yourself And Others
Rick Albrecht, Ph.D.
Department of Movement Science
Grand Valley State University
Copyright  Dr. Rick Albrecht., 2003
As Coaches, 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
Your Players Are Not ‘Self-Motivated’
There’s Very Little You 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!
• 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
• You Need to Develop a TGIF Attitude
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 You ‘Light a Fire’ Under Your
Team, They’ll Perform Better”
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
What We ONCE Thought…
Performance
Good
Poor
Low
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
High
What The Research Tells Us Is . . .
THEN What We Thought Was …
Performance
Good
Poor
Low
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
High
What National-Level Hockey
Players Started Telling Us Was . . .
What Did We Say About An “Expert’s Mind?
Performance
Good
Poor
Low
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
High
There’s More To The Story That
You, As A Coach, Need To Know…
Importance of “FUN”!!
•Fun
Good
Performance
•Challenge
•Opportunity
•Threat
•Chance to Fail
Poor
Low
Arousal (Fired-Up) Level
High
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 competition and 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”
The Law of the Jungle
(Rudyard Kipling)
Now this is the Law of the Jungle -as old and as true as the sky
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the Creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back...
The Law of the Jungle
(Rudyard Kipling)
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
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 Your
Main Goals is to Promote Lifelong
Physical Activity
• Why Would You Ever Want To Use The
Very Thing 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