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Decision-making in Sport
Julia Walsh
University College Cork
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Developing Excellence
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‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not a act
but a habit.’
(Stephen Covey, The 7 habits of highly effective people)
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“I learnt to fail better”
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Players need to practice decision-making in an environment
where they are also allowed to fail so that each time they fail
they fail better.
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As a coach are you comfortable with allowing players to
learn from failure or do you prefer to tightly control the
training and game environment.
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Creating Space
 Decision-making
 Limited
 It
takes up space.
capacity for storing information
takes time to locate information
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No thinking required
 Automatic
response to some parts of the
game. For example, in basketball the
following aspects of the game can be
practiced to habituate reaction
 Fast break
 Defensive traps
 Press Breakers
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Scenario Work
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Game simulation – not scrimmage
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Progress to this type of training as soon as ready.
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40 – 60% of training session
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Conditioning – in pre-season (don’t blow whistle)
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Learning plays and testing them in a game-like environment
(information for player and coach)
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Mental preparation – correcting responses (e.g. to bad calls)
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Making decisions under pressure
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Understanding ‘TIME’ and recognizing options
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The Game
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Simulation experience prepares them for problem solving in real time.
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There is a greater self-awareness of themselves and the rest of the team
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They learn to become more plastic with their team plays. We want them
to look for opportunity not to be captured by the offense.
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They develop patience – they have been there before
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They understand time, how to use it, and what options they have under
different conditions.
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They have fun being challenged by the different scenario
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Provides opportunity for athletes to be creative
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In a junior sport context
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Introduce small game decision making
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Provide principles for them to work with rather than strict structures
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Use questions to coach and explore player understanding
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Introduce simulation to see if skills are robust
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Let them make mistakes and solve problems (get them to ask questions)
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In the early stages of teaching decision making look for game opportunity
for them to solve a problem. For example, if the team is winning by a large
margin, allow them to experiment and make decisions.
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TGfU – Teaching games for understanding/game sense approach is a sound
framework for teaching decision making in sport.
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Thanks for listening
Good
coaches matter most!