The Coach-Athlete Value Proposition
I believe that coaching in any capacity, especially in sports, is a 60/40 value proposition. As in, 40% is on me as the coach to provide proper education, environment, energy and enlightenment for you to be successful and 60% is on you to want to be successful.
I believe that coaching in any capacity, especially in sports, is a 60/40 value proposition. As in, 40% is on me as the coach to provide proper education, environment, energy and enlightenment for you to be successful and 60% is on you to want to be successful. #DailyMight
Looking back over my coaching career, my education of sports has improved dramatically since the beginning nearly 15 years ago. I remember starting the journey knowledgeable about the game and with fairly natural leadership skills – communication, demonstration, expectations. Two years into it, back then, I was confused as to why athletes were hesitant to accept my coaching. I thought it was me. I was only 40% right.
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22
Having spent thousands of hours at this point investigating, learning, and performing as a coach has given me insight into the delicate relationship between a coach and player coming to this conclusion: Coaching in any capacity, especially in sports, is a 60/40 value proposition. What does that mean? That each party (the coach and athlete) has a percentage of accountability for improvement. And it leans more heavily to the athlete.
The Coach’s 40%.
There is a responsibility of the youth coach to provide proper education, environment, energy, and enlightenment to grow and improve athletes. They must be prepared, knowledgeable, and charismatic enough to pass information to the athlete in a digestible way. In the end, a coach must be trained to give athletes or teams special teaching in a particular sport aimed at succeeding (no matter what success looks like). They are the subject matter experts, willing and able to pass along success tools.
The Player’s 60%.
60% is on you the athlete to WANT to be successful. Do you possess the desire and worth ethic required to excel? Are you engaged and willing to step out of your comfort zone as a thoroughfare to growth and improvement? More importantly, at 60%, the majority of the reason for success (and possibly failure) is on you the athlete. That is on purpose as the athlete controls the effort, the main ingredient in improvement.
There are several books in Proverbs that deal with wisdom and foolishness in the Bible. For good reason too. As coaches, we have an invested interest in the support and improvement of those we lead. It’s in the very description of the term coach as well as the job description. But it is important that we understand, coaching is much harder to administer to those who don’t want to be coached (not yet anyhow). Be on the lookout for them, as you’ll need to develop a different way to connect and grow them in comparison to those that buy into the 60% above. You got this.
Give everything your everything. And then some.
If you’d like, connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, where I’ll share near daily insight on helping you navigate youth sports.
Terry
March 8, 2022 at 7:58 am
How can you figure out if the athlete does not want to be coached even thou he says all the right things? How do we now if he just needs a different voice or approach to the subject that is being taught?
Jason Witt
March 9, 2022 at 9:13 pm
Typically in this scenario, I vocally encourage/compliment the players on the team that are exhibiting traits you want to see – such as work ethic and coachability. If the athlete that isn’t responding wants to be coached, he will hear the encouragement and natural tendency will either trigger them to want to do better to receive the same encouragement, or it will re-emphasize their non-commitment. Certainly a difficult situation. Praying for you and encouraging you to want to continue to pour into the athlete in a positive way, regardless.
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