Leadership in Coaching: Change in the Weather

Why not start this with something different? Typing ‘change in the weather’ made me immediately think of this…:

So, while you’re listening to that, the quote that provoked this blog:

“You and only you are responsible for the weather over your head and the grid square where you rest your feet.” –LTC Joseph Shusko, USMC (Ret.)

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In many instances, I have had young assistant coaches helping my program or else, as a club director, I’ve been supervising inexperienced coaches. In all cases, they are people who shared a desire to make the teams better and most importantly–to help the young people on the teams grow. So I have always offered a key piece of advice:

Don’t get involved in drama.

It is inevitable within a team that there WILL be ‘drama’–it’s impossible to have 10-15 kids all get along perfectly, especially with school teams where they are either in the halls together everyday or at college, living with one another as roommates. You have no control over dating, when (or ‘if’) they do homework, etc. Drama is out of your control as a coach–other than when it shows up in your gym on ‘company time’. If you try and fix it, you get drug into it and it’s hard to get back out because the athletes will decide you were playing favorites, making wrong decisions, or just being a busy-body interfering where you didn’t belong.

So?

So…drama, combined with Colonel Shusko’s quote got me thinking, especially after considering General Powell’s belief in positive thinking. Powell talks about your ability to be positive rubbing off on your team–that a coach’s optimism can be infectious. This fits with Shusko noting you are responsible for your own weather. (By the way, isn’t the Fogerty song great?)

I think it works in reverse, too. I think the attitude of players can shape the attitude of a coach. I think if a team comes into the gym determined to work, that rubs off on the coach. We had a stretch at LLCC from 2014-2017 where athletes were showing up early, putting in extra time in the fitness center–those were successful years and the time *flew* past. I know Iowa State’s football success took off when the players organized their own weightlifting and scouting sessions for Friday nights–to take away the temptation to go out to the bars or parties. After destroying Texas, one of those players flat stated, “Five-star culture beats five-star athletes.”

The problem is, I think negative attitudes can rub off on you as a coach. If the players won’t give 100%, if they don’t want to implement the skills, tactics, whatever, you want them to, that’s tiring and wears on your patience as a coach. You can only use punishment so often, yell so often, before those are all tuned out. And what then?

I dunno.

I think I’m guilty a few times of letting my mood be soured by poor attitudes of the groups I’ve coached. Looking back, I recall I started thinking beyond the season at hand to the future, counting down to when I wouldn’t have to deal with the drama. That’s happened at each step of my career. I see that.

*As a HS coach, there were two classes of kids back-to-back who frankly weren’t really great human beings. I gave up on pushing them and focused on the JV athletes (small school, only coach). The following grades were ABSOLUTELY successful (best two teams that school’s ever had)–but I failed as a coach. I 100% gave up on kids, gave up on the ‘now’. I’m sure those kids knew I did that, too…so where’s their motivation since it’s clear the coach was thinking past them?

*At my first college stop, my arrival was unexpected when the previous coach quit a week into the season. I didn’t know the players’ names when we first took the court. Oof. Things got better as the season progressed but then the former coach came to watch, told them they should be doing stuff differently and then…poof…(all but two of) the returning players quit working, always prefacing words with “But Coach ____ always said….” I got tired of hearing that excuse/justification, so I gave up on them. The only bright side to it was that this proved to me the importance of recruiting beyond athletic ability–and also the importance of game-like practice…even though I didn’t really switch my practice philosophy until six years later.

*It happened a couple times at LLCC. One example was a group of sophomores where I STILL don’t get the dynamic more than a decade later. Individually, they were good kids, but put together in a gym and…yikes. It was bad enough in the spring I tossed six kids out of the gym at a practice–the only time I’ve ever chucked a group out. In terms of the scoreboard/volleyball, I failed them…but I’ve stayed in touch with them and a couple talk about that day–and have used it for their own personal growth (one in her career as a VB coach)…so I failed, but at least with the failure, it led to learning.

Clearly this is something I need to work on–“imposing” optimism on the team. I’m sitting here thinking about it and–doing that is something beyond my comfort zone…I hate going outside of that. I hate vegetables, too, but I know those are also good for me.