Mental Focus
This is one aspect of the game many coaches ignore.
It is one aspect they feel the player either has or she
does not.
True, some girls do not have the dedication or love for
the sport other girls do, some just do not know how to train their minds.
You hear coaches yelling "Get your Head in the Game"
and they expect the girl to waive a magic wand and play perfectly.
Mental preparation and focus begins on the practice field
and must be taken home with the girl, nurtured and brought back to the
field with her.
Different girls have different way of reacting to the
pressures and stresses of the game and a truly observant coach will recognize
this.
The coach will also learn the player's individual needs
and ways to combat this stress.
For example one girl will want to do things so well she
may pace back and forth like a caged animal.
Yes, she is very much into the game---Too Much
She will try so hard that she forgets to do things one
step at a time.
(She could be throwing the ball before she catches it,
thus dropping it)
The coach looks at her saying, "You don't do this in
practice I play you and you mess up"
"You better straighten up or you won't play much any
more"
All the coach is doing is adding to the problem.
This girl is relaxed during practices, because nothing
is riding on it.
During the game she allows her adrenaline to flow and
she loses all aspects of proper mechanics.
A good coach will try to find a way to relieve this player's
anxieties and calm her down, by telling her a joke or giving her a key
to calm her down.
There is no set way of doing this as every person has
a different way to relax her.
We have a player on our team who plays incredible ball
for us, but when she goes to her High School Team with a not very skilled
coach that insists she change her style, the player becomes frustrated
and tries to make the changes to satisfy the coach. This girl then at games
becomes a caged animal and makes several errors and hits poorly.
She has us go with her on the off days to work on her
mechanics and she does great, then game time she falters again.
We have talked with the coach privately, but as stated
before he is very inexperienced and stubborn as well, feeling he is always
right and will not discuss problems.
We have given this girl a braided wrist band and told
her first to do what comes naturally and every time she feels tense to
pull on the wrist band and think something happy.
We can change this girls attitude on our field, but we
cannot say anything to her when she is on her High School field, so we
use the wrist band as her reminder and it works well.
The above is just one example of a person most coaches
would give up on and there are other player reactions that would cause
a player to lose that competitive edge.
1. Fear of Failing
2. Lack of Confidence
3. Personality conflicts with coaches and other players.
4. Parental Pressure
5. Other Personal Problems
There are more, but we have these listed as examples.
Most coaches feel they do not want to become involved
in a player's personal problems and will usually tell their players to
leave their personal problems outside the fence. They feel that by saying
this the problem is solved, but this usually does not always work out to
be true.
As a coach, the welfare of the team must come first and
if they see a player not playing up to par they should note this.
Sometimes the player might have a problem that is not
so big, but is very big to her. The problem could even be with you and
you don't even know it.
You must for the good of the team approach the girl off
the field and talk with her, not down to her, and ask her what the problem
is.
You must allow her to speak her entire piece and let
her get it off her chest. What she says might not be exactly what she thinks
it is, but to her it is the absolute truth.
You must then think of a way to handle the problem to
her satisfaction, your satisfaction and the good of the team.
You must also always assure your players that they can
discuss any problem with you, even if it is about you, without any fear
of reprisal.
And you thought coaching was easy.
A good coach will always try to find a way to motivate
his/her team where they will always be striving to improve and work together.
Many coaches will use the discipline approach, mess up
and you will do sprints.
This can work in some instances, but not all.
Each player should be involved with the team where they
feel a sense of responsibility to the team, on and off the field.
Again, different teams have different personalities and
age groups and require the coach to be very imaginative.
We've even watched college coaches start yelling at their
players for mistakes and watched the team completely fall apart after that
and blow a game wide open in the other team's favor.
We will even go as far as saying, a team with low moral
is the fault of the coach, not the players.
More to come soon
