Principles of Good Coaching: Part 1

First Principle of Good Coaching: Have Fun

This is the first in a 4 part series. Follow the links to read the Second Principle, Third Principle and Fourth Principle.

Originally I was going to write about designing good practice plans. I wrote the introduction and the outline, but when it came to actually write the piece… I faltered. I found that I couldn’t describe the planning process until I addressed the factors behind my decisions – like the weather, the number of players, which players those were, the field space available, the status of team morale, where we are in the season, which (or if) assistant coaches are available, etc. While I could explain my decisions through an example lesson plan, it wouldn’t really help unless you happened to be coaching a team in similar circumstances. So instead I wrote about the four principles of good coaching I use to guide my decisions. This is the first part in a short series.

Principle #1: Have Fun

This should came as no surprise to anyone. Regardless of competitive level, each player wants to go out and enjoy themselves. What’s fun for players will differ by age and skill level – Sharks & Minnows is more fun for U10 players than U17 players for instance – but in broad strokes everyone wants to have a good time. If players don’t enjoy coming to training, participating in games, or being part of the team then they’re more likely to play poorly, play somewhere else, or quit altogether.

FUN MAPS

While “fun” is subjective to each person’s preferences, there are some common threads that unite their experiences. A researcher named Amanda Visek conducted a study that looked at what children enjoy most and codified their responses. The result of her work was the FUN MAPS; a collection of 11 themes that united all of the players answers.

It’s worth noting that the list is ranked from most to least important

During her research she learned that what players found fun did not differentiate between ages, genders, or skill levels. She had player parents fill out the same prompt (“One thing that makes playing sports fun for players is…”) and guess what? Both the parents and players largely agreed on what was most fun. The largest discrepancy came between what players and coaches thought was fun. While it wasn’t drastic – they agreed on about 77% – it does highlight a disconnect between players and coaches. That is, we often attribute more influence to our actions as coaches when players actually care more about what they do as individuals and what they do with their teammates.

This piece of information should shift how we think. Instead of starting from “I think the players should play this game because...” we should begin with “The players would enjoy playing this game because...” The challenge is for coaches to operate within the constraints laid out by the FUN MAPS while still shaping the practice environment to help players improve – both as people and as athletes.

Fun vs Respect

This challenge is best exemplified (and oversimplified) by younger teams. Younger players love to kick balls wildly and squirt each other with water bottles. (But who are we really kidding? All ages love it.) Most often these situations are handled in two different ways: coaches either let the kids be unruly in the spirit of fun or coaches lay down the law and rule with an iron fist.

The key to striking the right balance between these two extremes, is differentiating between what is fun and what is disrespectful. Players should be allowed, and even encouraged, to express themselves in relation to their teammates and to their coaches. But players, especially young ones, are still learning what is acceptable to say and do and when it’s appropriate to do it. Creating a positive environment where players can have fun requires clear boundaries and consistent reinforcement.

This gets at the heart of everything that coaching is: Your job as a coach is to enforce your will upon the players – which includes setting boundaries and enforcing rules. This sounds harsh, and it may very well be harsh, but only if you don’t use the information that Visek has shared and/or fail to abide by good coaching principles. Coaches need to draw a line in the sand, clearly delineating between what is allowable and what is harmful. This balance depends on coach personality, social profile of team, club/team culture, regional influence, etc., and it’s up to the coach to decide it. Once your foundational expectations have been set though, they must be communicated to your players ahead of time and be fair in their application.

Teaching Games...

Outside of teaching players the basic tenets of respect, coaches must also be patient in creating a fun atmosphere that contributes to athletic and personal development. As a metaphor, if you lay out a Monopoly board, young kids will move pieces wherever, go out of turn, and otherwise ignore the rules in their pursuit of fun. But if children learn how to play Monopoly the way it was designed, they will still have fun while simultaneously building other skills – especially if the other coaching principles are used in conjunction.

In short, coaches need to teach players how to play the game. The game may need to be packaged differently – using more or less players, changing field shape, altering rules, etc. – but as long as the coach has a good understanding of what their players think is fun then they’ll be able to meet their objectives.

And it’s worth noting that when I say “game” I don’t just mean the game of soccer. It can be whatever game/exercise you choose based on what is appropriate for your team. Older teams can handle more complexity without being cognitively overloaded; there can be multiple ways to score, they can have stricter tactical roles, they can play quicker transition games, etc. (And you want to rely on games to do most of the teaching work because it keeps players active, which is actually Principle #4 and deserves its own piece)

But whatever the exercise, the coach is still responsible for linking the developmental goals to the real game. A U7 player playing Sharks & Minnows needs to know what happens if they dribble out of bounds and that idea should then be connected to when the ball goes out during a scrimmage. When a U12 player learns how to hit a chipped pass, they then need to be taught what situations to apply it in during a real game.

… for Understanding

This idea overlaps significantly with the Teaching Games for Understanding (TgfU) approach. This framework puts a higher emphasis on player-decision making and situational awareness by relying on modified versions of the actual game.

Here’s an example: I wanted my team to get better at crossing the ball into the box. I laid down cones to mark the wide channels of the field and said that if a goal was assisted from these wide areas then it would be worth double – besides that the rest of the scrimmage was played normally. It was then on the players to figure out how to assist from wide spaces and I could tailor my coaching points to whatever was needed: different types of crosses, the technique behind them, timing runs into the box, making runs to different areas, how to unmark yourself, etc.

Although coaches must be aware that this can cause secondary side-effects. Continuing the example above, teams may end up defending heavily in these wide areas to keep their opposition from amassing points. Then the attacking coaching focus could become how to recognize open space in the center of the field and how to exploit it. Or, defensively, how to give up wide areas and focus on defending balls that are hit into dangerous center positions. It’s important to consider what these secondary effects may be and have coaching points planned to address them. This frees up cognitive space to observe what players are doing instead of deciding what to say.

Timing of Fun Exercises

At some point, players will want to do something silly that has nothing to do with soccer. This is good and it can solve a multitude of purposes: team bonding, stress release, sprint work, etc. Choosing when to do these exercises may be difficult, as it relies on player and team preferences, so make sure you’re communicating with your team about how they’re feeling.

Another example: I had a team of U15 players who lost two games in a row and were feeling down. To raise their moral levels, we had a session where we just played handball and finishing games. The session didn’t address any underlying issues they were struggling with, but before we could correct anything they needed to just enjoy being back on the field again.

Conversely, I coached another team who also lost two games in a row, but they had the opposite response. They didn’t want to do something fun, they wanted to buckle down and work on improving themselves. It wasn’t the right time to do a “fun” session with them.

Now there were other factors at play here too. The first team was returning from a losing spring season. The second team had more athletes who wanted to play after high school. But the point here is that there’s no process to determine when a team needs a playful practice to decompress. It comes down to the coach understanding what the players want and being able to put that in the context of athlete development.

Wrapping Up

Visek’s FUN MAPS is a great tool for checking-in on your coaching actions. Setting and communicating clear boundaries is crucial to developing a healthy team atmosphere. Using games to teach conceptual understandings and skill mastery is necessary to ensure athletes enjoy the development process. Recognizing when teams need to depressurize and relax is key to keeping teams fresh and joyful. But knowing and application are two separate things. Even if we create an environment where players enjoy themselves, it’s only a microcosm of what good coaching actually is. To maximize player, team, and coaching potential then we must rely on the other principles of good coaching to get us there.

“There are always constraints on creativity in the real world. The most creative people are those who can be very original and yet work within the constraints of the construct.”

- The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity

This is the first in a 4 part series. Follow the links to read the Second Principle, Third Principle and Fourth Principle.