Imagine this scenario. Your assistant coach pulls a player out of the game, and upon getting to the sidelines, the player angrily lashes out at the coach and flings their equipment on the sideline. As the head coach, you certainly don’t want to condone that behavior, but how do you acknowledge your athlete’s emotions when you don’t agree with their actions?
Sports can bring out the highest highs and the lowest lows, so it is a fertile ground for young athletes to experience emotion, understand their feelings, manage relationships, and practice emotional regulation.
How you show up as a coach during highly emotional moments in sport carries a lot of weight and can tip the balance for young athletes learning to navigate this space.
In this five-part course – Elevating Your Coaching IQ – accessible on the USA Lacrosse e-Learning portal, we explore ways that coaches can most effectively communicate and connect with athletes to bring out the best in each of them.
“Acknowledging does not equal agreeing,” says course moderator and coach Betsy Butterick. “One strategy to use, perhaps after the undesired behavior has passed, is to simply ask your athlete ‘help me understand’ why you had such an emotional reaction, or why you were so upset with that last play.”
To be the your most effective as a coach, you need to recognize and comprehend your own emotions as well as the emotions of your players. Higher emotional intelligence in athletes has been repeatedly linked to higher sports performance.
Butterick explains that there is one common denominator among all high performing teams.
“Chemistry is formed through connection, and at the heart of connection is communication,” she says. “When we, as coaches, get really good at acknowledging and validating the experience of our athletes, we stand a much better chance of generating the connection we know we need to fuel the chemistry that drives high performance.”
This course is just one of many USA Lacrosse online coaching resources available to members. Join today or if you’re already a member, access the e-learning portal for a list of available courses.
