7 traits of highly effective youth sports coaches

Coaching youth sports, whether as a parent, volunteer or paid professional, is a daunting task—but also a wonderful opportunity to influence the lives of young people in such a positive and lasting manner.

While seeking to constantly upgrade one’s skills and experiences is certainly crucial, being a “certified” coach in and of itself is not a guarantee of quality.  Some outstanding youth coaches have no certification at all, but do possess invaluable life experience, intuition and sensitivity.  They are somehow instinctively able to connect with young people to help them achieve their best.

Some “qualified” coaches bring only that to the table:  levels of certification and courses that they “passed”, but seem to bring little else in the way of, say, communication skills or the ability to actually demonstrate what they want from their players.  They too often lack the ability to connect, motivate and inspire.

So here is a short primer of traits, qualities and characteristics that players and parents (or Clubs looking to hire a coach) can look for:

• Do the coach’s players look forward to the next practice/training session?  Generally speaking, a coach who makes practices and training sessions a great experience engenders in his or her players a desire to want to improve and work hard while training.  They make practice a real challenge but fun at the same time. If your son or daughter jumps out of the car to get to the playing field to train, that’s usually a good sign.

• Does the coach really know how to communicate with young people?  The ability to listen—really listen—is often the first step in being an effective communicator.  The youth coach who spends at least as much time listening as talking themselves knows they don’t have all the answers. As a result, they are always trying to be better at their job—and better at developing the skills and strengths of their players while also ensuring those players improve in the areas that they might struggle in.

• The coach who focuses on and rewards behaviour, effort and attitude over outcomes sets themselves apart from the crowd. Too many youth coaches reward an isolated play that helps their team “win” a game, as opposed to a player or players who consistently support teammates or show leadership and team spirit in a variety of subtle ways—ways that only a truly perceptive coach will notice.

• A good youth coach does not have to yell constantly or berate players during games.  A coach may be a yeller, and that is acceptable if it is understood by all that yelling is their method of instruction—and not intended as heavy-handed public criticism.  But a really good coach prepares their teams thoroughly and, as a result, the players themselves are able to make decisions on their own on the field of play.

• A really good youth coach not only allows “mistakes”, he/she actually encourages their players to try things in order to improve their skills and become more comfortable on the field/ice/court. A player with a great attitude, spirit and work ethic does not deserve to be put down for a mistake—mental or physical.  Young players with the right attitude will grow through trial and error.  The good coach allows for creativity and experimentation.  The coach who creates fear in their players kills development.

• The wise youth coach remembers what it was like to be young themselves.  They know that a young boy or girl can’t enjoy a sport (or grow and develop and improve their skills) if they feel as though they have a piano on their back all the time when they are playing in a game—that is, adults who constantly tell them what to do, when to do it, or that they are always somehow doing it “wrong”.

• If, as a parent, you have identified a youth coach who knows how to inspire youngsters, you have found gold. The youth coach that knows how to connect with and make youngsters not only feel better about themselves but can push and challenge young people in a healthy way will have a lasting—and positive—impact on your child.

There are many more things that could be added to this “list”.  But it’s a start. (When Stephen Covey famously authored a book about the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” in the late 1980s, he would no doubt have acknowledged he was only scratching the surface. There are many other traits he could have added.) Everyone reading this has had their own experiences as a player, parent, coach, volunteer or Club administrator and can add to the list. 

I’ll close with something I often say in the seminars that my wife and business partner Mary-Louise and I conduct for youth sports Clubs: if nothing else, a youth sports coach should never, ever kill the love a youngster has for their chosen sport.

That some coaches do, sadly, is one of the central reasons that so many youngsters leave sport as an activity by the age of 13. And it shouldn’t have to be that way.

Some media folks are missing the real value behind Long-Term Player Development

Reading a column in the Toronto Sun recently was eye-opening. It demonstrated that there remains a lot of resistance to the Long-Term Player Development (LTPD) initiative in the soccer world in Canada. 

It is understandable that if those commenting on LTPD only do a cursory overview of what this initiative is really about, they might come to the conclusion that “competition is being destroyed” and the sport is just trying to make kids “feel good” as we forget about keeping scores and winning or losing.

Of course, youngsters eventually need to learn about competition and winning and losing.  But is this necessary at the age of 9?  Or is it indeed more important to ensure that kids learn the game,  really develop their skills and are allowed to play in a relatively stress-free environment so they can actually enjoy the soccer experience and, yes, have fun while learning?

The truth is the new LTPD model is not about killing competition—not at all.  In fact, there will be plenty of competition, especially as the players go through the system.  The Ontario Soccer Association (OSA) will be launching (in 2014) a new league for elite players called the Ontario Player Development League.  But rather than a focus on promotion and relegation—which enables too many coaches to forget about developing their players and instead look to “poach” the biggest, oldest, fastest players from other Clubs that they can lure to their teams—coaches now will have to have high-level certification. They will need to understand how to run effective practices (not just “scrimmage” constantly) and how to teach, train and develop all of their players.  Instead of worrying about promotion and relegation, local Clubs can instead work toward ensuring they meet high standards in coaching and player development—and not just building up their “trophy case”.

Importantly, LTPD will work for those youngsters who simply want to have fun and stay in the game because they love it and also for those who aspire to a future in the game. Sometimes the same commentators who complain that Canada is “not good enough” at the international level also criticize LTPD, which, ironically, is in fact whole-heartedly supported by a host of top players and soccer coaches from some of the best soccer-playing countries in the world.  These supporters are not simply “academics” or, as the critics would like to suggest, “do-gooders”.  These are the sharpest minds in the sport, individuals who know the game  and who have simply come to realize that the way we have done things in Canada for too long is, simply, backwards.

Most of the top soccer countries in the world have been doing this for so long they don’t even have a name for it.  It's just the way they develop their players.  Check out the current literature in the United States.  The Americans, who have jumped far ahead of Canada on the soccer field in terms of “winning” when it actually matters, are big believers in LTPD.

Throw in the fact that some of Canada’s current and recent former stars, like Jason DeVos, Dwayne De Rosario, Kara Lang and Diana Matheson have all said publicly they wish this approach had been in place when they were young, and maybe we should listen to those who have been there and are still in the game now—and can see first hand what Canada lacks.

And what we lack is time on the ball.  Touches.   The ability to play calmly under pressure. 

You don’t learn to play under pressure when parents and coaches scream at 10 and 12 year olds for “making mistakes” in a game, when the only barometer for success is not if your players and your team played smart, technical soccer, but whether you managed to win a game.

You learn to handle pressure when you are allowed to to master the ball and can get comfortable with the ball at your feet when pressured on the field.  That can’t happen when parents and coaches are yelling at young players to “get rid of the ball” and “just kick it” down the field with no purpose.

Parents and coaches yell that kind of thing constantly because they don’t want to see their team lose.  Forget whether the youngster is learning anything.  Just get rid of the ball and we may not give up a goal and God forbid, lose this important game—at the age of 11, or whatever.

Kids have to learn to make “mistakes”—and be allowed to make mistakes.  They need to be allowed to be creative and take what they learned and tried out in practice on to the soccer pitch.

If we train our coaches better (and that’s a big element of LTPD), we will make soccer (and hopefully all youth sports who are also following this path) more enjoyable for all the kids out there, while also creating an even better “elite” player who can compete well at the international level.

And just maybe we will finally begin to give even more aspiring youngsters a shot at a future in the sport, whether that is playing at the collegiate level in Canada or the United States, playing professionally in North America or elsewhere, or playing for their country. For too long in Ontario, a “select few” were chosen at an early age for extra training and provincial or national teams, and many “late-bloomers” were ignored and missed.

Is winning and losing important?  Of course—but all in good time.

LTPD will provide lots of competition.  But in the short term, it may also help parents (and many coaches) begin to understand that winning games at the age of 8, 9 and 10 doesn’t really matter a whole lot.

So let's save the winning and losing and the valuable life lessons that "losing" hopefully teaches us (though you’d never know from watching some parents on the sidelines) for when wins and losses will really matter.  For  now, the really important "outcome" is making sure our kids enjoy- and get better.