Source: www.guardian.co.tt
This week I was asked to do a 30-minute session with some young footballers between the ages of six and 12. It was truly an eye-opening experience on many levels and it made me appreciate even more, just how important the role of the coach is in an athlete’s life, particularly during these very early developmental years. The plan for the 30-minutes was to take the group through a warm up session and then basically do a little bit of cross-training with them. It all came together on short-notice but in the sports industry you have to be able to land on your feet, no matter what the situation. So, I took up the opportunity and designed a simple program I figured I could execute easily, the purpose of which was to give me a general idea of the coordination and natural athleticism of the boys and girls. Coming from a professional environment where I am accustomed to working with athletes the average age of about 23, you can only imagine the roller coaster ride these kids took me on!
Don’t misunderstand, I love children. Their innocence, something I wish could be bottled and preserved (much like the athleticism of youth), is what makes working with them such a joy but by the end of the session, I had a new-found respect for the head coach. My plan for the 30-minute portion of the training session was to have them do things that came off more like games rather than drills: To target their core, we did wheelbarrow; To get a sense of their special awareness and coordination, they ran races back-peddling; and so on. We didn’t do much stretching because intense, sustained stretching should actually be done at the end of a training session, otherwise you risk injury but that is a topic for another column. I accomplished my objectives and was amazed at some of my findings. Some kids who did not look as athletic as others turned out to be amongst the most athletic of the group. The need to improve proprioception and core function was evident across the board. It reinforced the importance of screening a group to be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to set clear and concise goals.
All of them however, thrived on the adrenaline and fun of it all.
As the person coordinating the session, which apparently earned me the title of “coach,” I had to balance their excitement with discipline and here was where I realized I was more at their mercy and had to rely on the more experienced coaches to assist with maintaining control and focus of the group. At this particular football club, discipline, sportsmanship and respect for authority are character traits that are not treated lightly. The children know it too for it takes little effort on the part of the head coach before they realise that they have been unmannerly or spoken out of turn, for instance, or unkind to a teammate. Always, a firm tone and solid posture supersedes an iron-fist style of management with the children, instilling a sense of responsibility for actions displayed, which in the long run will hopefully lead to well-rounded young adults. Michael J. Fox once said, “Discipline is just doing the same thing, the right way whether anyone’s watching or not.” It is very difficult for some parents to watch their child be disciplined by another authority-figure as I witnessed that day when coach had to remove a child from the session for a while due to conduct.
According to James Stenson, while it involves punishment and corrective action, “Discipline really means confident, effective leadership,” so that coaches should always remember their obligations to their athletes in areas of character development. It will affect who they will become and the choices they will make both on and off the field. The most profound lesson for me that day was the realization of how much you do not know when you step out of your comfort zone and how impossible it is to know everything. It was not that I did not know what to do during the 30-minute session with these little footballers, but rather, knowing how to manage them to make the session efficient and effective and in that setting that knowledge only comes with experience. We should always be willing to push our boundaries and expose ourselves to new experiences for the purpose of self betterment, fighting the urge to stay within the confines of what we know we know. At the very least it will keep us humble and more appreciative of those around us. Coaching is truly an art as well as it is a skill and any coach taking his/her role lightly, has lost the essence of their purpose and should probably take some refresher coaching courses to reignite their energy. Vince Lombardi said, “Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The coaches who win are the ones who can motivate their players.”
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Asha De Freitas-Moseley is a certified athletic trainer with a Masters in Sports & Fitness Administration. She has worked with several of our top athletes and continues to seek out ways to promote the industry of sports as a science in T&T.