Lessons from the Best Coach

LESSON I

THE IMPORTANCE OF A PHILOSOPHY

"Soccer players from the street are more important than ones trained by coaches."
-Johan Cruyff

THE FOUNDATION

The foundation of my philosophy is very simple, but it makes colleagues and peers shake their heads in disbelief. I do not believe that coaches develop players. You simply cannot make someone else better. Only players can make players better. Most coaches want to believe they make players better. In fact, I know a coach that has on his business card, ". . . the high school coach who developed (an MLS Player.)" Sorry, coach, that is not true!

And it is the same in business; managers cannot make employees better-only employees can do that! Coaches and managers don't have this magic wand that they wave over players and employees to make them better! It is not that simple.

Every player that comes to Ohio Wesleyan must change the way he plays to make the team. This is not a negative thing. Every time a player moves "up" to a higher level, he or she must change the way they play. If a player continues to play the way he did in high school or club, he will not play at OWU. And that is the case with most college teams, at least most good college teams.

An OWU player must increase his fitness, play the ball quicker, and increase his strength. That is just a start. That is to get one foot on the practice field. To play and be successful, players must continue to get better. But the coach cannot make the player better! The player must do it!

Every year we have players who tell me they cannot get better. They say they are "set in their ways." The truth is, they don't want to get better because it is hard. And if they don't get better, they don't play!

The best and worst example is from the championship game in San Antonio in 2011. There were four seniors sitting on the bench next to me who did not play! Can you believe that? Senior year! National Championship game! But they did not play a minute. It was good that we won easily on Friday in the semi-final. That gave all these players a chance to see some action that weekend. But not in the final! They simply did not change the way they played from freshman to senior year.

Convincing players that the coach cannot make them better is difficult. It is hard for several reasons, but the biggest reason is our sporting culture in this country. Our system is "coach-centric." It must change to be "player centric".

American players are reactive not proactive. Players show up for practice and wait for the coach to tell them what to do. Players then react to what the coach says, and most often, players go through the motions. Players cannot get better doing this. But it is what happens in the United States. We must teach our players and employees the concept of deliberate practice or, as Daniel Coyle calls it in the "Talent Code," deep practice.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRACTICE

"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect."

-Vince Lombardi

To learn any new skill or gain expertise in a skill you need to practice, practice, and practice some more! No one will debate that. In fact, practice is the only place where players get better. The games are a "test" to see if the players did improve in practice. After watching a game, the coaching staff can assess where the team is in relation to the practice plans. So, the players get better in practice and not in the game. Which means they all must take practice seriously. After over forty years of observing top-level soccer in many countries, I can say this happens in every traditional soccer playing country. It does not happen in this country.

But it is how you practice that makes the difference. It is the quality of your practice that is more important than the quantity. Practice does not make players perfect; it makes the players' habits permanent. So, high-level practice makes high-level players. Talent does not make a big difference. Hard work and attitude make the difference.

This concept is known as deliberate or deep practice, and it's incredibly powerful.

"Daydreaming defeats practice; those of us who browse TV while working out will never reach the top ranks. Paying full attention seems to boost the mind's processing speed, strengthen synaptic connections, and expand or create neural networks for what we are practicing."

-Daniel Goleman, Focus

The common view held, until recently, was that expert-level performance was simply the result of talent and "natural abilities." This view has held back scientific progress toward learning. From a psychological perspective, what really makes experts so talented?

Experts in sport are not people with freakish natural abilities in a particular domain. Experts are experts at maintaining high levels of practice and improving performance. It's not about what you're born with. It's about how consistently and deliberately you can work to improve your performance.

So, what is deliberate or deep practice? Deliberate/Deep practice is a highly structured activity engaged in with the specific goal of improving performance. It requires effort, it has no monetary reward, and it is not inherently or always enjoyable. Deliberate practice takes time to improve performance, but it will improve performance! There are four steps to deliberate practice. When these conditions are met, practice improves accuracy and speed of performance in cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks.

First, the athlete must be motivated to attend to the task and exert effort to improve performance.

Second, the design of the task should consider the pre-existing knowledge of the athletes so that the task can be correctly understood after a brief period of instruction.

Third, the coach should provide immediate informative feedback and knowledge of results of your performance.

And finally, the athlete should repeatedly perform the same or similar tasks.

It's important to note that, without adequate feedback about performance during practice, efficient learning is impossible, and improvement is minimal. How do you, as a coach or manager, provide feedback?

Simple practice isn't enough to rapidly gain skills. Mere repetition of an activity won't lead to improved performance. The practice must be intentional, aimed at improving performance, designed for your current skill level, and combined with immediate feedback and repetition. The player is responsible for the intentional aspect of practice. The coach is responsible for the immediate feedback!

Becoming an expert is a marathon and not a sprint. You cannot reach peak performance in just a few weeks. The practices must be deliberate and intense.

We start every practice by telling the players what we will do, how we will do it, and (most importantly) why we will do it. Players will be motivated if they know the why! But, in addition to that, players must come to practice with the goal of getting better. Each player must have his/her own goal for the practice session. The coaching staff have a goal for the team, but real improvement comes from players having their own goal. For example, a soccer player may go to practice with a personal goal of playing two-touch. So, for everything that happens in practice, the player plays two-touch. The player will improve technique and field vision by doing this! The player will get better. And the player will be motivated because he/she set the goal!

FEEDBACK

"I can't be a hypocrite as a coach because as a player that's what I wanted. I wanted feedback, I wanted communication from the boss. I showed up for work, you can yell at me if you want, but I want input. So that's the kind of coach I want to be."

-Adam Oates, NHL Player

In 1974, two PhD candidates in educational psychology-Ronald Gallimore and Roland Tharp-wanted to define the perfect teacher for their doctoral dissertation. They decided to use basketball coach John Wooden as the subject. Coach Wooden was very successful and still holds the record for the most NCAA Tournament Championships in basketball.

The researchers watched every practice that season and coded every comment that coach Wooden used during practice, for example, positive comment, negative comment, business comment, informational comment, etc. When asked which types of comments were used most, most respondents said, "positive comment." After all, we are told repeatedly that positive comments are very valuable for learning and self-esteem! You may be surprised to know that positive feedback was not the most often used. Here is a quick breakdown:

Positive comments

about 6%

Negative comments

about 6%

Informational comments

about 74%

To get better, athletes need information not just positive reinforcement. A few years ago, I observed an academy session of an MLS club. The session lasted...