A Philosophy of Coaching
As a coach you should develop a philosophy – a set of principles and truths on which to base your coaching. You must be yourself, but you should build on the experiences of others.
1. MANAGEMENT:
• Coaching is man management – getting players to do what you want them to do.
• Coaching is the ability to transfer information.
• A coach’s first duty is to coach minds.
• The philosophy of a coach should contain room for developing the abilities of all players, not only the few that have proven their talents.
• The art of listening is often harder to learn than the art of speaking
• A sense of humour and the ability to laugh at yourself is a great asset for a coach.
• Don’t do a lot of coaching before the game. If you haven’t coached them, then 10 minutes before the game is too late.
2. TEACHING:
• They call it coaching, but it is teaching. You do not just tell them it is so. You show them the reasons why it is so, and then you repeat and repeat until they are convinced, until they know.
• If you enjoy your sport, then you will enjoy teaching it to others.
• If you hear you forget, If you see you remember, If you do you understand.
• “My best feature as a coach is that I can analyse why things happen. I can see the cause of things not just the results”. You have to have a keen eye for cause.
• You have to brainwash players, hurling is not a pastime, it is a meaning.
3. CHARACTER:
• A player who is capable of being loyal to his family….has the capacity to give loyalty to his club.
• Hurling doesn’t build character, it eliminates the weak ones.
• The player with good character will assess, be critical of and learn from his own performance.
• The role models set by the most senior and highest profile players in the team have a huge influence on the team’s performance.
• The lesson that Hurling teaches is that when you get knocked down, you get up and move again.
• In a team sport every time you help somebody else, you help yourself.
4. CARE AND INTEREST:
• The coach must have an intense and continuing interest in the welfare and all round development of each player.
• You should provide a direction in life for them as well as sport.
• You can’t ask a player to be something special if you don’t treat him that way.
• A Player needs security. A greeting or a smile when a player walks into a dressing room tells him he is in a good friendly environment where he knows what to expect.
5. LEADERSHIP:
• Leadership is the influence a coach has on his players.
• Athletes prefer enthusiastic coaches with positive attitude. The coach should be an emotionally stable, mature individual. A moody coach with emotional highs and lows is bewildering to young players. Such a person creates an atmosphere of worry, fear anxiety and resentment. In teammanship sport these personal qualities are disastrous.
• A coach’s leadership qualities particularly those of continued optimism, persistence and enthusiasm will come to the fore in times of adversity. These qualities provide a role model for young players when things are tough.
• Be yourself, not who tells you to be a coach.
6. PLANNING:
• Winning is a science of being totally prepared.
• Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
• If you don’t plan, you plan to fail.
• “I’d rather have preparation than motivation”. The game is not won by a pep talk on Saturday. It’s won by preparation from Monday until the game.
• The battle’s result is already known before it is fought.
7. TRAINING:
• Perfect practise makes perfect.
• “If you quit now during these workouts, you will quit in the middle of the season, during a game”.
• Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.
• Fatigue makes cowards of us all. The harder you work the harder it is to surrender.
• Repeated actions are stored as habits and if repeated actions aren’t sound, then what comes out in a game can’t be sound. What comes out will be bad habits.
• Confidence comes from preparation and the only way to be fully prepared is to practise something until you have it down so well you’re pretty sure it will work.
• Training drills should simulate game situations. Many drills are a waste of time and are not relevant to what actually happens in a game.
• Teams hold practise for 2 reasons: to improve their skill and to prepare for the next opponents.
8. LEARNING AND INNOVATION:
• If you think you know it all not only are you feeling old, you have become old too.
• All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.
• Seeking new ways to improve are essential to progress – individual and team progress.
• The reason why world records are broken is through improvements in knowledge and training.
9.TACTICS:
• The aim of a game plan and team rules is to increase predictability amongst teammates.
• You work to strengthen your strongest link, not to worry about your weakest one.
• You are foolish if you don’t go at a team’s weakness.
• Paralyse their resistance with your persistence
• On the defence you have to accept the fact that if you are going to give the other guy the first shot, the initial advantage is his.
• When two great teams meet, defence tends to dominate.
• Championships are won on defence.
• If you keep busy learning the tricks of the trade, you may never learn the trade. Keep it simple, but look for an edge that will help you.
10. SUCCESS:
• There are many successful philosophies because there are many successful coaches.
• The ability to do the right thing at the right time at the right place the greatest possible number of times under the stress of the game.
• To do the basic things well over and over again is a key to success.
• Hurling is the elimination of errors.
• Success is not a “sometimes” thing. You don’t do what’s right once in a while, but all the time. Success is a habit.
• Individual players don’t win or lose matches. Teams do.
• Players make a coach, but a coach makes a team.
• You cannot as a coach guarantee you will win any game, but you can prepare your players to give them every chance.
11. FAILURE:
• If you look for perfection you will be disappointed.
• Excuses are no good. Your friends don’t need them and your enemies won’t believe them, so why make them.
• If you could of won, you should have won.
• A single player or play doesn’t lose a game. If this were true a game would only last for a couple of second’s
• When you make a mistake: admit it, learn from it and don’t repeat it.
• I can’t wait for Monday to see if we can overcome our troubles. ( Vince Lombardi )
• A failure is not always a mistake; it may be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
12. CRITICISM:
• The critic’s team never gets selected and never plays and therefore never loses (and never wins!).
• Critics sometimes don’t understand that the other team turns and plays as well.
• Don’t argue with drunks and idiots. You may be mistaken for one.
• It is hard for a person from the outside to know what is going on in a team.
• No matter how successful he may be, every coach eventually reaches a point where a lot of people want somebody else.
13. COACHING STAFF:
• “I want people who would be enthusiastic and inquisitive and would thrive on hard work and not be disappointed if the coach doesn’t take up an idea”. (Neale Daniher – Melbourne football club).
• Give your staff recognition, both privately and publicly.
• COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO GOOD COACHING: No matter how much knowledge a coach has, no matter how great his understanding of the physical and emotional needs of his players, his success or failure boils down to one thing…….COMMUNICATION.
THE ESSENTIALS OF GOOD COACHING:
• Be a good people manager.
• Be a good teacher.
• Be a good communicator.
• Have a philosophy.
Adapted from
The General Manager,
Melbourne Football Club.
Paraic Mc Donald
Kilmacud Crokes GAA Club.