“Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.”
John Wooden

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

How to Make Coaching a True Profession


By John O'Sullivan
March 21, 2018
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USA volleyball coach Karch Kiraly (center) talks with the team during practice May 14, 2018 at the Devaney Sports Center. (Kayla Wolf/Lincoln Journal Star)
“It ain’t what you know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know that just ain’t true.” – Mark Twain
“What makes you a professional?”
That was the question Dr. Richard Bailey, Head of Research at the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education, posed to me and 250 PGA instructors in Orlando this past January at the PGA Youth and Global Summit.
“Does getting paid to do something make you a professional? I don’t think so,” he continued, as he displayed the image above.
“Does belonging to a professional association of coaches or instructors make you a professional?” he asked. “Can’t we do better than that? Don’t we expect more of our professional doctors and lawyers and accountants than to simply be paid for their work or belong to a trade association?”
“No, being a professional is much more. It means seeking a standard of excellence, constantly improving and incorporating the best knowledge and research in your field in order to get better at what you do every single day. That is what it means to be a professional.”
A lot of heads were nodding in the crowd.
“Then we better get to work,” said Bailey, “because when it comes to coaching across the globe, there are far too many coaches who want to be considered professionals in their field, but have no intention of improving themselves or seeking a standard of excellence. They want to be treated like professionals but have no intention of acting like one. This is what we need to change.”
Amen Dr. B! Amen! (click here to listen to our podcast with Dr. B!)
I am a coach. For the past twenty plus years, coaching has been my profession. Yet for far too long, I didn’t act professionally. I got paid. I joined associations. I took my certifications and licenses. But I didn’t look beyond those things. I didn’t seek out more. I blamed my players for not learning, instead of myself for not properly teaching. And then something remarkable happened.
I had my own children. I realized for the first time in my life that there was something more important than myself. I realized the tremendous trust and responsibility that was placed with me by parents who turned over the physical and emotional well-being of their children to me.
I realized I was letting too many of those kids down. It was time for me to become a true professional coach and not simply a coach who got paid. It changed me forever as a coach. It did not make me perfect – far from it – but every day I try and get better. How?
I think about what I missed at practice today.
When players do not learn something, I look first to where I failed as a teacher before I blame the students.
I look for more effective ways to teach.
I try and be a better listener.
I surround myself with coaches who challenge me and critique how I work.
I read books and research on a daily basis.
Do you?
Our goal at the Changing the Game Project is for all coaches to become more professional in our work. That does not mean we all will get paid, but it does mean they get trained and held to a higher standard. Our work is too important.
This article is for those of us who do get paid. This is for coaches who take a paycheck and work with kids and young adults, either on a full-time or part-time basis. Because I look around and I see a lot of non-professionals out there, and you are doing our profession a huge disservice. You are giving us a bad name. You refuse to attend certification or licensing, and never pick up a book or go watch a true master coach at work. Some of you are scaring families and children into accepting everything you say and do, a deity who controls their playing time, their participation, and their future, promising scholarships and “playing at the next level” without even understanding what that means, or caring how many eggs you break in order to find one that does not crack.
We need a higher standard. Parents must demand it. Good coaches must demand it. Athletes must demand it. And administrators must demand it. So what does that standard look like?
When Dr. Jerry Lynch and I work with college teams, we start with two basic questions:
  1.     What are we doing now that we need to KEEP doing if we want to be successful in the future?
  2.     What do we need to STOP doing that we are doing now if we want to be successful in the future?
These questions seem quite appropriate here. What do we need to keep doing, and what do we need to stop doing, if we want coaching to be a profession?
Click on the link below to read the rest of the article.

Friday, May 11, 2018

Rod Brind'Amour's mandate as Canes coach is simple: It's the culture, stupid



By Luke DeCock
May 9, 2018
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Carolina Hurricanes new head coach Rod Brind’Amour makes remarks during an NHL hockey introductory news conference in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, May 9, 2018. . (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
RALEIGH- At 6 a.m., 14 minutes before sunrise and six hours before the press conference where he was officially introduced as the next head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes, only the fifth person to hold that position in the two decades the team has been in North Carolina, Rod Brind'Amour arrived at PNC Arena for his morning workout. He spent the rest of Wednesday morning watching tape before putting on a black suit, white shirt and red tie and stepping into a job he never thought he wanted while a dozen of his former teammates watched from the back of the room.
That timeline says a lot about Brind'Amour, from the workouts that didn't stop when he stopped playing eight years ago to the work ethic he'll expect his players to match, to the long-delayed and surprising realization that coaching was the only thing that could sate his inner competitive fires the way playing once did, to the respect he commanded from the players he captained.
Tom Dundon saw all this when he bought the team, recognized Brind'Amour as someone who could bring the change he quickly saw the Hurricanes desperately needed. To him, as to many if not all fans, Brind'Amour represented the culture he wanted the franchise to have, just as he did as one of the great NHL captains of his generation.
And if Brind'Amour is the right man for the job, it won't take very long to figure out whether Dundon was right nor not. If this is going to work, if Brind'Amour is going to wring every drop of effort and commitment out of this roster, he won't need much time. There's nothing he can do about goaltending right now, but the rest of it, if he's going to get the most out of this team, it's going to happen right away.
This is about culture, not about Xs and Os. Which isn't to say the latter doesn't matter, but the Hurricanes were actually pretty good at both the Xs and the Os under Bill Peters – look no further than their consistently excellent shot totals, Corsi and other measures of possession. Beyond save percentage, they have been lacking in less quantifiable areas: grit, toughness, hustle, accountability, preparation, commitment and, above all, belief.
“My philosophy is much more about culture and leadership and I felt like we had a sure thing,” Dundon said of Brind'Amour. “For sure, we had someone that does it the right way. If we're going to change the culture here, we've got to have someone leading it. We know what he embodies in life is the culture we want for the team.”
That's why Brind'Amour got the job. And if he's going to get through to this group, scour out the complacency, demand accountability and build confidence, it may take him two months to do it, but it won't take two seasons.
Click on the link below to read the rest of the article:



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