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Great Expectations Left Unfulfilled
By training and avocation, I am/was a teacher and historian as well as a political scientists before I was/am a coach. If you read the blog regularly, you’ll note posts that crossover from one to the other or back again. To help…:
There are others, but you get the point. You can probably guess this is another like those. If you aren’t interested in history, history repeating, or coaching…this blog entry probably isn’t for you. If you want tons of specifics–you won’t find that here either…mainly because it’s not meant to be an argument. If you want to pick holes in this–there will be a ton of nitpicks you can do that with.
Before we hit history, let’s look at today. There’s a ton of unrest and resentment in the world. In the US, you see this politically with the irrational hate thrown from the extreme left and right–and woe to anyone who tries to stand in the middle for rational debate or discussion…you wind up belittled by both extremist groups. This is no different really with the growth in Europe of so-called ‘populist’ parties like the German AfD or Italy’s Five-Star Movement. You have upheaval in England with the imminent Brexit. In Asia, you have protests and near-violence in Hong Kong, Japan’s Shinzo Abe maneuvering for the elimination of limits on Japan’s military forces, and all of this while North Korea is testing ballistic missiles. Oh, did I mention Modi’s complete takeover of Kashmir/Jammu on behalf of the Indian national government? The pressure on the ANC because of corruption and crime in South Africa…what about the corruption and cronyism of Benjamin Netinyahu in Israel? …I haven’t forgotten Russia, by the way.
Why the massive increase in social tension? Most should be obvious, certainly if you aren’t a Baby Boomer. If you’re a following generation (and I freely admit I’m a later generation), you will inherit a world worse than the previous generation did. Economically, it’s the first time this will be the case since things like the Black Plague were ravaging Europe or the Khans were working their way across Eurasia. This isn’t the way it is supposed to be–each generation is meant to make the world better for the children, to be responsible stewards of society and the planet. The current generation of political leaders (*cough* Bolsonaro *cough*…can’t forget him) has done nothing in that regard; instead, they continue to exploit the system for their own selfish benefit.
Young people resent that. Everyone is taught that when they grow up, they will have an opportunity to prosper–to do things like hold a job, live somewhere other than the bedroom they grew up in, own a car, not have to pray to avoid sickness because a doctor-visit could cause bankruptcy. And yet–those in charge blame youth today for being lazy, not being independent, etc. What a load of crap.
The problem is–the expectations of those under 50 are higher than what has happened or is in the process of happening. Big expectations–unmet. That’s dangerous.
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Enough history for a moment. For fall sports, the season is now underway. Coaches are done with preseason practices and teams have set goals. Some programs like Alabama in football expect a national title. The Chicago Bears are aiming to reach the Super Bowl. Heck, as baseball reaches the final stretch, at least one team in the NL Central will wind up with angry fans–in a year where it was believed three teams there would reach the playoffs, it’s looking more like only one will.
As a coach, you want to set solid expectations and goals. Athletes want those, too. With top programs, you’ll have higher expectations than a team that went 5-28 the year before. New coaches will have their own expectations/ideas. But what happens when performance doesn’t move the team towards those ultimate end-of-season benchmarks? What happens to the coaching staff’s attitude? What happens to the players’? …ever notice playing time disputes are almost always prevalent when teams are struggling towards their goals rather than when they are being met.
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Back to history. Russia had a botched revolution in 1905 in the aftermath of a shocking (that isn’t shocking if you know all the details…but the public didn’t) loss in the Russo-Japanese War. It forced the Czar to make some changes to the government.
That’s the thing with Russia–always has been. There’s a tug between total control and liberalization, to the point of schizophrenia sometimes. From Sergei Witte up through the outbreak of World War One, Russia went on a modernizing kick. Railroads were built connecting European Russia with its Asian lands, factories and industry expanded; Russia was beginning to look like a modern, industrialized nation, one placed well to dominate politics based on economic and military power because of its location. Income was rising for all of its peoples and though the czar backslid a bit on those 1905 reforms, some changes in attitude did stick. Yup–expectations were rising in lockstep with the success of Russian reforms and increased prosperity.
And then war came. War means rationing, war means death and destruction, and a great deal of fighting in the east took place on Russian territory. As more and more Russian men died, often commanded by incompetent members of the nobility (the exception being Alexsei Brusilov), restlessness grew at home. People used to a certain standard of living saw that slipping away with no sign of its return anytime soon.
Into the breach came the Bolsheviks who instigated the October Revolution of 1917 which over the course of the next year brought down the entire czarist regime. The Bolsheviks made promises–not all could be kept of course–and frankly, did a pretty decent job of keeping them. They got Russia out of the war, kept most of the empire (especially Asia) intact, created a government that initially had input from the various workers’ soviets, and gave people hope expectations could again resume upwards.
That held true (except during WW2) until the last decade of the Soviet Union when economic and political stagnation brought the fall of the USSR–expectations were not met.
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So, Jim, why the blog? Good question.
I’m struck by the similarity, the synchronicity, of current events, history, and coaching–that one of the greatest areas of danger is unmet expectations.
History cannot be changed. I can only observe current politics–I do not have the billions to shape events at the macro-level, and be aware we are at a point where we could have an entire world in the same situation relatively as Russia 1900-1917.
So that leaves coaching. How do you manage your goals? I think the first clue is my plural use of ‘goals’. Don’t put all your eggs in a single basket. Set multiple goals, make them sequential even.
That was something mentioned to coaches out at Quantico by the USMC officer training cadre with the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP). You can’t skip to the ultimate goal–you’ve got to take each incremental step to get there. Each of those ‘smaller’ goals achieved builds confidence. It’s an achievement.
You can do that with a team. Set goals at different levels. Easy ones, difficult ones, an ultimate goal…though sometimes with an established team, this can be challenging. Tradition can exert a powerful effect on things like this. Since I coach, it’s probably easiest to use my team as an example. From last year, I only return three players (a 15 person roster). Of the other 12, one missed 2018 completely due to injury and several others did not play club, so this past weekend was their first exposure to consistent higher-level volleyball. So what do I have as goals? …that’s secret team information…but these are good examples anyways!!:
EASY: Win at least 10 matches.(Bad choice)–>Lincoln Land has won at least 10 matches every season for 20 years. This is not something to truly strive for. EASY: Start off over .500, get playing time for as many people as possible before ‘crunch time’ comes with the schedule. (Good choice)–> There’s a results expectation (over .500) that a team with our current success streak should be able to reach–and something related to process…getting game-time experience for as many people as possible early-on.
CHALLENGING: Get each of our middles at least 400 kills.(Bad choice)–>Is this something that non-middles can buy into? A number of factors go into this. This goal ultimately comes across as something ‘selfish’ or designed to promote individual stats. CHALLENGING: We want OH hitting over .200, OPP/MH over .300. We want to limit sets so that no more than 40% go to outside hitters. We want our serve-receive passes to be rated at least a 4 (or a 2.00 for the old system). (Good choice)–>We’re setting some potentially difficult goals for individuals, but they are easily charted so we can measure progress over time. We don’t single out individuals for special attention, so we don’t risk damaging the ‘team’ vibe either.
ULTIMATE: Win a national title.(Bad choice)–>Are we capable of it? Sure. The problem is that this is not a 100% realistic goal given our current limited collegiate playing-time experience. ULTIMATE: Make Nationals then see how seeding goes, play hard. (Good choice)–>This is achievable. It doesn’t eliminate the possibility of reaching a title game, but notes the importance of seeding and match-ups–or the possibility of injuries getting in the way. In some ways, this is better than putting ‘national title’ as the goal…a lot of teams get tense when they come face to face with the ultimate goal…if you achieve it, there’s nothing but house money left to go…you can relax and play for fun then–and become very, very dangerous (the perfect description of our 2015 team).
So think about your expectations–think about your athletes’. Nothing says they are set in stone. Adjust them regularly. What I see as goals for our team were “X” in July, “Y” at the end of our first week of practice, and “Z” now that we’ve completed a weekend of play. The one big thing though–use the Marine advice…keep your goals incremental–sweat the details!
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