Since I do not coach at the college or professional level, I never view my success in the short-sighted view of wins and losses. Although, I always want my players to compete to try to win, as a youth coach, I do not promote myself through the success of my players. Instead, my success is measured heavily by whether or not the players want to come back and play again, have improved over the season, and developed a stronger passion for the game. If just ONE player does not want to play again because I put my goals above the player's, I have failed to follow through on my most important responsibility as a youth coach. It is my responsibility to make sure that kids want to continue to play the game.
Yes, kids will make a choice when they want to stop playing, and no player should continue to play if it is decided playing soccer is something that is no longer desirable. But if a player makes that choice, it should be because of other interests or by a personal choice. It should not be because I took away the experience the player should have had on my team due to making choices that were in my best interest and not the player’s. It is my responsibility to help kids learn how to play the game and develop the skills required to have success on the field. Over the course of a year, everything I do, everything I say, needs to be aligned with helping reach that goal.
As a coach, I firmly believe that it is my job to serve each and every player. It is not the player’s job to serve me. I adapt my coaching style and approach to each player to try to find a way to positively impact each player over the course of a season. It is the players’ team, it is their experience, and it is their season, and my job is to help each player, and the group as a whole, make the most of each second on the field. The quality of my coaching needs to impact each player to help them become a better player and a better person.
If a coach is serving the best interest of the players and trying to teach them the soccer and life skills required to be better players and people, the results on the field will take care of themselves over time. But when coaches take the fun and learning out of the game, instills unnecessary pressure and fear on the players, and do only what is necessary to ensure the team gets wins, the only person that benefits is the coach (perhaps the parents too) and there is no longer lasting or meaningful benefit to the players. Yes, most people feel good after a win, but it is more important that all the players have grown and learned from the experience. After the initial inertia of a win wears off, what are the players left with? What did they gain that they can use the next day on and off the soccer field?
At the end of each season, I want each player to want to play soccer again. Not because they won more games than they lost or have a lot of trophies on the shelf, but because they learned a lot, had fun, and love the game more than they did at the beginning of the year. I know not all players will continue, but even those who choose not to continue to play, should still look back on their experience and feel it was meaningful because it impacted their lives in a positive way. I do not want them to look back and feel it was a waste of their time because nothing was gained.
A player-first approach to any sport makes the experience better for the players and the coach. A coach-first approach only makes the experience better for the coach. It is a simple philosophy to follow throughout the season. Before anything is said or done, the coach can ask, “Is this best for my players.” If the answer is yes, than it is probably something the coach should move forward with. If the answer is no, then it is probably needs to be reconsidered.
To be clear, this is not an “everyone gets a trophy” and “everyone is a champion” approach to coaching. In fact, I think it is very much the opposite. When you coach in a way to try to do what is best for the players, you give the players the opportunity to face adversity, work hard to achieve success (it is not given), and help each player understand the process of getting from point A to B over the course of a season. When coaches make decisions to just secure results, it actually makes winning easier on the players. The success is not earned nearly as much as when a coach expects players to do things that are in the best interest of their growth and development, and are normally much harder and require more from the players to earn success on the field.
As an example, if a coach only allows one player to play forward because that player is the team’s best goal scorer, and the other players are told to just get the ball to the forward when they get it, winning will actually be easier for all the players and not really earned. The coach has actually given the players the “path of least resistance” to have success versus making the players earn that end result through all players developing their skills and working together as a team.
As a youth coach, my primary responsibility is to teach and help each player learn to love and play a game. It is not about wins and losses. It is about helping each player grow their understanding and skills of the game and making the game enjoyable. This is what all youth coaches should be evaluated on and use to determine their effectiveness with the players. If at the end of the season, my players are better, have enjoyed the experience playing the game, and like the game more than when the season started, I have stayed true to what my responsibility and goal is as a coach of kids learning how to play a game.
How do you measure your success as a youth coach? What is your responsibility when you step on the field? Are you prepared and willing to give each player your best effort to teach the game?
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