A few years ago I had a young coach I was mentoring. He was a former player of mine and was working with one high school player to help them improve their shooting. It was his introduction into coaching.
It was my introduction into coaching a coach.
Keep in mind this was a former player of mine. He had been on the other side of my workouts many, many times and had heard most of what I had to share at that point in my career. But we both learned there was a big difference between being coached and coaching someone else.
The day after his first workout with this high school player, we were chatting. He had told me about how the workout had gone, the habits that the player had, and the work they started to do to improve the habits. I listened and offered encouragement. Then I told him about a fun workout I had done early in the day and a funny experience I had. I have a workout I’ll do with a player where I’m not allowed to speak. I have to communicate with them non-verbally, with hand signals and pantomime. The players never know about the workout before we do it and I have to explain what is happening without speaking. From their perspective, they walk into the gym and all of a sudden I’m not speaking but I’m waving my hands around and motioning strangely. The reason I chose to do that workout that day was because the player I was working with had lost their voice. It seemed a natural time to do it. We had a great, productive workout that was a fun change of pace from the norm.
I told the young coach about the workout and how I like to do it when I’ve had player for a few months and they have heard me say the same things over and over again. The young coach replied with “That’s a great idea. I’m going to do that tomorrow. I had to keep repeating myself over and over again today.”
Here is the problem. I had been working my player for months, he had been working with his for hours. If you had asked my player to explain what they were trying to do and why, that player would be able to fully explain and understand. They’d probably be able to explain it a couple of different ways in fact, because they had heard me explain it countless different ways over the past 6 months. The young coaches player had heard his explanation once, and probably didn’t understand it yet.
When you start off working with a player, they need to hear your voice over and over again. That is how they understand how important the point is. You try phrasing it different ways to help them understand more clearly. You can’t assume because you’ve said it once, or even several times over a couple of days, that they have processed it.
I would encourage everyone to find countless different ways of explaining different aspects of the game to players. Don’t have just one way you explain things. Down the road you may even be able to remind them non-verbally. But in the beginning, they need to hear your voice, and they may need to hear it over and over again.
It’s great to add a new idea or tool to your tool belt, but when you are young coach (in particular), avoid the urge to run out and use that tool right away, before you fully understand the concepts and nuances of the situation.
