Interview with Dr. Bill Steffen - Part 2

This is the second part in my interview with Dr. Bill Steffen (former collegiate and professional goalkeeper who also has a Ph.D in Sports Psychology) who coached alongside Anson Dorrance at North Carolina, started the University of Oregon women’s program, and has coached and taught at multiple universities. The first part can be found here.

What’s your take on goalkeeping time for youth players? If you have two goalkeepers, do you split halves or give them each an entire game?

When I was at University of North Carolina we alternated who started and then switched at halftime. So Tracy would start one game, then Shelley would start the second half. And at the next game Shelley would start and Tracy would play the second half.

I can understand giving goalkeepers a full game, but the next game might not be as tough. They could be really busy in one game but not have anything to do in the next game. If you have the goalkeeper play for a half, they’re usually not physically shattered, so they’re more than happy to play on the field.

If players are between 12 and 15, I think splitting halves is appropriate. Some parents feel like “Well I want my kid to develop as best as possible to be a goalkeeper so if you split their time with another goalkeeper we’ll find another team.” And I think ultimately you’re doing that kid a disservice. If you’re in a league, and if you want to win the league and advance into playoffs, then they’ll alternate halves or games. But when we get to the state playoffs, we’re only going to go with one goalkeeper. We won’t alternate starts or halves and then they’ll have to compete for the spot, which is a good challenge for them.

A large part of your formal education and work at United Soccer Coaches is based around sports psychology. What’s one easy sports psychology practice that youth coaches could start implementing that would have the biggest impact?

Well I think the first thing I would do is tell coaches not to think of it as sports psychology. Think of it as mental skills. Coaches understand that there are certain technical skills we need to strike the ball, receive the ball, dribble the ball, these kinds of things. So I would want youth coaches to view these traits and behaviors as skills that can be practiced. I think that would be an important change in the perception of youth coaches to “Oh, these are skills... so I can train them.”

Now what would I want youth coaches to do? One of the most important mental traits to develop is confidence. I read a lot of research papers when I was doing my doctorate work, and one of the first pieces of theory that made sense to me was from a guy named Albert Bandura who looked at what actually develops confidence. He said that the biggest thing that contributes to confidence is mastery of experiences. And I thought “Okay. That means repetitions. The more reps you have, the better. That makes sense. But they need to be good repetitions.”

For example, if I’m practicing free throws and take 100,000 that doesn’t necessarily make me confident. Because what if I only make 1,000 out of all those shots? Well I won’t be very confident. But if I make 90,000, then I’ll feel good. So we don’t just want them doing reps. We want them to master that experience through the activities we run, and hopefully we can provide the right coaching to make them more successful.

The second thing is vicarious experiences. And again, that’s not really a term that coaches use often, but all it means is demonstration. Can players get a picture of what this thing should look like? This is when coaches demonstrate to the team how to strike the ball or whatever it is they’re teaching. And if they can’t demonstrate it, if they’re injured or weren’t much of a player, can they find a player who can? Can they find a quick video? These days you can find a YouTube video of someone striking the ball really well and take it out on the field. Kids love tech, and you can tell they’re really watching step-by-step and pointing at what’s happening. So seeing it being done is the second leading factor when it comes to developing confidence.

And third is verbal persuasion, which is just your coaching points. That’s you being able to tell the kid “We’re striking the ball so lock your ankle. Strike it with the laces. Your support foot should be wide of the ball and slightly behind it.” So if you want to be a good coach there is a burden. You can’t just roll out of bed and be a good coach. You need to know the technical information. You need to know how to provide those coaching points, that verbal persuasion, to give the kid instruction on how to do whatever action we’re trying to do. If I say “You shot the ball over the crossbar. What’d you do? What should you have done?” And you say “I don’t know” and I say “I don’t know either.” then I’m not much help. Coaches need to have that technical information. (this mirrors very closely to what Tim Bradbury said as well.)

Those are the two biggest contributors to confidence. If kids want to be confident they need to have a lot of reps and be successful at it. And they have to have a picture of what the action should look like.

If I’m going to strike a ball I need to have a picture in my mind of what this looks like and be able to execute it.

Imagery would be the next psychological skill I would youth coaches to develop in players. If you want your kids to be good at imaging, then spend a lot of time with them not just seeing a visual picture but hearing it.

I go back to being a goalkeeper. When the goalkeeper catches the ball you can hear the squeak of the ball on the latex of the gloves. So when I image, I see the ball and I hear that squeak. I hear the sound of the ball being struck before I catch it, I can smell the grass, I can feel myself landing when I jump. Bringing in all the different senses and be as detailed as possible. What kind of ball is it? Who struck it? What field are we at? Is it rainy or clear? How many details can you think of?

Being able to image successfully is huge. When I went from college to professional, the biggest difference was that I got very good at imaging and it really helped – especially with crosses and controlling the box with lots of traffic. So the two most important mental skills I would like youth coaches to develop are confidence in their players and the ability to image properly.

How should a coach teach their players to “image” correctly? Should they just lead an “imaging” session on the field?

Well the coach should provide some instruction during the training session and say “Everyone needs to be seated and relaxed. Close your eyes and think of us playing on this very field. We’re wearing our blue uniforms. We’re doing this kind of warm-up, you can hear the parents on the sidelines,” et cetera. All those kinds of things. (This is very similar to what Coach Ben does with his players at the start of training.)

The coach should do that for a few sessions, maybe three practices or so, then say “Okay, you guys gotta practice that at home. Before you go to bed at night, take 10 minutes and go through this.” It’s important that players are relaxed and calm when they image. As the skill develops it becomes easier to do in different places; a team van, in the locker room, while I’m waiting on the field. It seems simple, but it’s difficult to do at first and it’s built up through practice.

Anyway, there’s going be some kids who say “Yeah, I want to try that,” and then there will be some kids who are like “Eh, whatever.”

And what you hope is that the kids who do the imagery will start to get better. And those other kids who were a little less enthusiastic will go “Damn, how’d he get better than me?” Then they’ll find out why, and that’s how a coach gets the ball rolling, so to speak, with imagery.

We tend to think of mental skills training as relating only to individual players and we isolate the experience of the coach. It seems like you’ve done some research into the mental resilience of coaches, what suggestions do you have for a coach to maximize their own coaching potential and well being?

Well one of the things is that coaches need to constantly learn. Once a coach stops and thinks “Yeah, I know soccer,” they probably won’t continue for much longer. We have to keep learning. “How do we create this? How could I train this? How could I demonstrate this?”

Coaches need to appreciate life-long learning – and you’re always going to tweak things to get better. That goes a long way toward a coaches success, a coach’s happiness, a coach’s persistence.

This was vividly illustrated when I was at the University of North Carolina. I’m working with Anson Dorrance – the Anson Dorrance, okay? – and if I had a question or thought about something and said “You know, we should do this instead.” He’s not going to go “Uh, no. I’m Anson Dorrance. I don’t do that.” He would listen. And if he disagreed, he would disagree but he would tell me why. But he would also be able to say “Yeah, that would be good.” He’s open. Anybody can tell Anson any idea and he’ll listen. He may not do it, but he’ll listen and consider it, and if he thinks it will help him win he’s going to use it.

I remember being at a United Soccer Coaches course with Anson Dorrance and we wanted to watch everybody. There was one coach teaching how to play with three at the back, and I know three at the back, but maybe there’s something in the way he does it, or says it, or trains his players that I can pick up on.

If coaches continually strive to listen and consider something new – and I’m not saying you need to automatically do it – but reflect on other ideas. Maybe you can tweak is and use it with your kids, or if it’s not going to work that’s fine, but you need to consider it. Being open minded about that leads to a lot more success and a lot more happiness as a coach. It’s not easy though. It’s a burden. If you want to be a good coach, you have to continue to learn.

Have a peer who can come watch one of your sessions and then you go watch theirs. It’s easy to go watch a session because you’ll learn and pick up on what the coach is doing in terms of organization and teaching. But if you can get someone to come watch you coach and then they say “I like this, I like that. Why’d you do this?” That leads to a good conversation because if you can’t justify it or you think you got something out of it but in reality it didn’t look that way, then you need to tweak it.

Because coaches, just like every other profession, get into a rut. You start thinking “Ah, but this is the way I do it!” but you have to understand that every coaching session is different. Even if it’s the same topic, even if it’s the same exercises with the same players, it’s a different moment in time, the team is in a different position. So it’s never the same and having someone watch and give you some honest questions afterwards is really important.

There’s a guy named Carl Jung who talked about reflection in action. In other words, while a drill is going on I know if it’s going great or if it’s going bad.

And then there’s reflection on action which is as soon as that drill is done I go “Oh, that went well,” or “Oh it didn’t go well. That part was good but this part wasn’t.”

Then there’s retrospective reflection on action. That’s where coaches get together at the end of the day and they’re sitting around in the dining hall sliding glasses around like they’re defenders and attackers. “Oh here’s how I set up my group.” They’ve got 4 glasses set up backs. “Okay, so I moved this guy here,” and that sort of thing. These kinds of conversations are really helpful.

If you’re coaching in a vacuum it’s really difficult. It’s much better if you’ve got somebody that you can talk to and reflect with and rationalize why you were doing what you were doing. And somebody who can question that and tell you whether that’s viable or not. That’s invaluable.

And I understand that coaches are pressed for time – usually coaching is not their primary occupation. They’re doing this on their extra hours and now they need extra hours after that to talk to coaches about their coaching. But if you want to be good, if you want to be successful, somehow you find those hours.