Often when I speak with athletes after errors or a “terrible play” I hear that they “freeze” and “forget” what they were doing or what they were about to do, and explain that “they know” what they are supposed to be doing instead. This tells me that they have a voice in their head telling them to be doing something different or that they did a (insert adjective about quality here) job. Somehow amidst their thought process someone’s influence is in the way of how they respond to the play unfolding. As in, instead of following their most basic instincts, to feel what they know to be right and true, they stop to consider what someone (likely a coach) had been saying to them. It is in that moment where they are trying to retreat from their most basic instincts in favor of something they were told to do they are freezing instead of playing-on.
Recognizing Ego
This got me thinking about how the ego of the coach plays into the connection between themselves and their players. The more the coach exerts an amount of control over their players’ play, and/or how they think and feel about their play, the more they run the risk of impeding the players’ natural ability to…play. I see this with coaches who preach, “Good is the enemy of great,” as if to say that, if I attach a certain quality to your play, I am influencing your hunger to strive for an even higher quality of play. Often coaches will chastise players for not doing something they were told to do so many times before, be audibly and visibly upset on their benches, and laud themselves in their ability to evaluate athletes and for how their team reaches a desirable outcome.
But this is all… “my stuff” as a Coach. My pride, my sense of accomplishment, what I attribute to be good, just, and “great”. Potentially the entirety of the helping relationship is a function of the ego, and there may be benefits to recognizing when we are putting too much of “our stuff” onto the athletes, exerting too much control over the athlete’s environment, claiming too much of our athlete’s and team successes as our own, when we are engaging in ego-faux-pau’s that impede our athlete’s agency and independence, and how being keenly aware of our ego at-play can benefit the coach-athlete relationship in a way that promotes athlete performance.
Evaluating Coaching Effectiveness
How much success can a coach claim from how their team performs in both process and outcome? Are there other ways to evaluate how effective a coach can be outside of traditional factors like player retention, player accolades, and win/loss record? Where does the coaching context and the coach’s knowledge fit into their perceived effectiveness? One of the beautiful moments for me as a counselor was recognizing that ultimately the choice to change was on the side of my client. I was here to merely hold the vessel for them to fill all their “stuff” with and be a passive guide in helping them sort it all out in a way that served them. Of course there are times in which I want to yell out, “NO! DON’T DO THAT!” “YOU ARE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE”, and sometimes my intellect is warranted in helping clients recognize their patterns for the safety of themselves and others around them.
All change is ultimately self-change, and in large part through a relationship that I (as coach) have formed with that athlete… not because I set them up with the latest intervention strategies and worksheets, but because I provided a safe space for them to explore the depths of themselves. Consequently, despite the looming time constraint of a season schedule, my teams always seemed to get the most out of practices that focused less on crafting the perfect drill and more on how the players were interacting with each drill. Theories of Motor Learning will tell us that a constraints-led approach to teaching/coaching is the way to maximize learning as it challenges environments to be the primary driver for skill development, and while I have managed (and believe that we can manage) the training environment in ways to highlight certain moments that will be beneficial for the athlete’s skill development, I find that athletes come out with deeper understandings of themselves when paired with a style of coaching that involves curiosity around their experience rather than control of their experience. It is in this way I can judge my own success around more of the athlete’s perceived outcomes rather than solely on an objective outcome like a trophy or award.
My Ego
Where can our Ego lead us, how do we recognize it, and what do I do if I feel like my Ego is at play? There are plenty of ways to describe the ego. One of the ways I have found succinct and helpful is to describe our Rescuer, Persecutor, and Victim (Power of TED) ego states. These ego states can be seen in all areas of life, and get especially poignant within the sport context.
The Rescuer wants to jump in and fix things as problems and/or challenges arise. This ego state is born from an uncomfortableness that feels like it can only be alleviated if what is causing that uncomfortableness is…not causing it anymore. What starts off as an empathetic encounter where we recognize the struggles in our athletes can quickly turn into our own attempts to quell our inner angst instead of helping the athlete move through their challenges. A dis-compassionate encounter to an otherwise ample teachable moment.
The Persecutor demands an expectation from within, throughout the team, and with the world. It is an ego state that places increasingly high demands on situations, often stating things like, “They need to have known this by now,” or “We can’t be playing like this.” Demands are tough to place on anything, because if it, “Ought to, should, could, has to, or needs to” and “it ain’t” then what we are also saying is the opposite is true. If we need to score points, and we don’t, then that must say something about us as a team and/or worse, me as a coach.
The Victim feels as if the world is against them, that everything is out to get them, and that everything is happening to me. “Every year I get stuck with…” “If we just had (insert position/specific player here) instead of them getting shuffled around, we would have…” “We aren’t practicing good/well, or it’s been bad practices all week!” The victim is never satiated and always looks for something to blame. It isn’t just the “victim” that can never be satiated, it is all of them.
Often we like to look at ego states and ask, “What might this be protecting me from” or “What might this be teaching me?” As if, there aren’t going to be right answers to all of the different aspects of my “self” but if I recognize that I am masking underlying vulnerabilities, I may be able to address them for myself instead of projecting them onto my athletes, my team, and/or other coaches.
Lastly, I recognize that we all may fall prey to our own Biases. The Coaching Expectancy Cycle describes how we may provide more frequent and quality instruction, feedback and praise to athletes who we believe have more potential. We have all picked favorites. We are all naturally drawn to athletes who seem to make changes and are “more coachable” than our other players. Sometimes, we spend less time on our athletes who play the best in favor of spending more time on athletes who need the extra TLC (that’s Tender Love and Care or a gem of an R&B group from the 90’s for all you non-Millennial out there).
This bias is about recognizing that our first breaths as coaches is informed by our personal ethics and morals, followed by what we have learned and our experiences, and that is what our athletes are going to learn to evaluate their performances by. In turn, how they perceive their growth, amidst your performance standards, is going to be how they determine whether or not their season was a success and you were a “good” coach. Read that again. Their objective performance metrics and subjective skill development in all areas other than the ones you told them to consider, may not even factor into how well they thought they did this season and whether you were a “good” coach or did them “wrong”. Our only hope then, is to make sure that we are consistently working on ourselves, learning more about the sport as it evolves, and helping the athlete recognize the totality of their growth as both player and human. Ultimately what will determine how “well” you did is how you left your athlete feeling about themselves when they leave your gyms.
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About the Author
Rob Samp is the Mental Performance Coach for MOD Volleyball, a JVA member club in Chicago, Illinois. He currently holds the title of LPC within the State of Illinois, utilizing EMDR and Brainspotting to work with complex PTSD, Depression, and Anxiety around Cook County, IL. He is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant”, CMPC through AASP.
Samp has nearly a decade of coaching experience at the junior and collegiate level. He is grateful to be continuing his pursuit for facilitating performance excellence within MOD, as well as the universities around the Chicagoland area. Click here for Samp’s contact information and website.
