The Challenges to the Working Ability of a Coach
In almost all team sports, the role of a coach is possibly one of the most crucial factors in determining a team’s success. More often than not, if a coach is effective in motivating and inspiring his or her players, the team usually enjoys a huge amount of success.
Although the word coach has various definitions, in the concept of a team, it basically refers to the person whose role is to train or instruct his or her team members in order to accomplish a certain goal or task. When a person is designated as a coach of a team, he or she is not only given the task of overseeing the welfare and affairs of his or her team, but is also placed in a position of leadership.
The term coach is usually applied in competitive sports, wherein he or she devises strategies and tactics for the team to use to win a game. In most team sports, a coach is usually awarded at the end of a season if he or she excelled among all the other coaches. In addition, players of the team look to the coach for leadership, guidance, and advise during games or even outside games.
Although the coach is usually one of the persons who receive a lot of credit and recognition for the accomplishment of a team, behind all the success and glory are also certain factors that may hinder the coach’s ability to work with his or her team. These factors may either be work-related or personal problems.
However, most of the situations that affect or challenge a coach’s ability to work usually come from his experiences with his or her team. These may include the inefficiency of his or her players, lack of chemistry among his or her team, and sometimes, issues with the team’s management.
In basketball, for example, one major challenge for any coach is to make his or her team a winning team, and possibly a championship contender team in the future. If the coach fails to accomplish the task, he or she may receive criticism from the media, sports analysts, and even the team’s management which could add more pressure for the coach to deliver. Ultimately, the coach may lose his or her job. This pressure alone is enough for the coach to be stressed or be discouraged in doing his or her job.
Moreover, in most cases, the sources of a coach’s problems are the team players themselves. One common example is the ego of the players. In almost any team, there is always a superstar or a player who contributes the most to the team’s success and is also the player who is well-known around the world. However, there are a number of times that due to the popularity and high regard for a certain superstar, he or she is ends up believing that his or her abilities alone are enough to make the team successful and as a result, he or she refuses to follow the coach’s orders.
More often than not, the excessive ego and selfishness of a player usually results in the lack of chemistry and cohesiveness among the team. In addition, most of the time, the perceived “superstar” usually gets involved in issues and arguments with the team management. However, even though it is the superstar who is at fault, it is the coach, being the person directly involved in guiding the players, who is held accountable for the player. This is basically one of the major headaches of any coach and it usually makes him or her lose faith in the egotistic player.
In short, the attitude of all the team’s players is also a factor in the coach’s decision making and thinking. In every game, the coach always has a battle plan for the team. However, the effectiveness and the success of this plan heavily depend on how well the players believe in it and how well they execute it. If a player believes in the coach’s vision or goal, then he or she would not hesitate in following the battle plan. On the other hand, selfish and egotistic players follow their own plan. In this case, the coach will be forced to adjust his or her strategy and in effect, his or her focus would also change since the team is not executing the way their supposed to do so.
Furthermore, another concrete situation that negatively affects a coach’s working ability is when he is assigned to a team which ranks last in the standings or lost a lot of games during the previous season and it is his or her task to rebuild the team and improve.
In addition, aside from reversing the fortunes of a losing team, it is also the coach’s job to maintain the winning streak and success of the team. So basically, from the viewpoint of a coach, a winning a single game is important, however, winning the next games and possibly all future games is the vital key to ensuring the team’s success.
Moreover, player injuries also make a significant impact on the thinking of a coach especially if the injury happens to a star player whom the coach bases his strategies or tactics. As a result, the coach will be forced to make a sudden change of plans in the game as he would have to rely on other players to step up to fill in the void left by the injured player.
However, among all the challenges a coach faces, it is stress that greatly affect his or her mental ability. If a coach is stressed, he or she may not be able to think clearly and this could result in poor judgment and poor decision-making.
One of the most common sources of a coach’s stress is losing a game. Losing basically makes a coach feel inadequate or incompetent since he or she is accountable for the team during games. In addition, losing a game, especially if it happened due to lapses in the coach’s plan, may haunt the coach even at home, significantly affecting his thinking.
During the game, a usual source of stress for a coach is when a referee makes a call or penalty, such as a foul in basketball, which the coach thinks is highly unjustifiable. This usually leads to an argument between the coach and the referee, and in worst case scenarios, the coach is penalized and even asked to be removed from the game.
Moreover, criticisms and negative feedbacks from the media, sports analysts, and even fans, can also cause a lot of stress for the coach. This feedback he or she receives basically pressures the coach to meet and even surpass the expectations from him or her.
Although, most of the time, coaches are faced with daunting and seemingly impossible tasks that usually affects his over-all performance, there are a lot of ways to hurdle these challenges without being stressed at all.
In order for a coach to perform consistently well, he or she must first maintain focus. During training, games, or even pep talks, it is vital that the coach knows his or her goals which he or she will impart to his or her team and motivate the players to accomplish these goals. A coach, especially during actual games, should never be distracted by any unnecessary things and set his mind on ensuring that his or her team improves and attain a certain level of success.
Moreover, the coach, being a leader and a mentor, should always serve as a good example to his or her players, so that they will be more inspired to achieve whatever the team’s dreams are. During training, a coach should see to it that he or she is serious about everything he or she wants the players to do and show a sense of professionalism.
On the other hand, during stressful moments, a coach should always stay calm and again, maintain his focus on the task at hand. A simple error in decision or lack of discernment on the part of the coach can sometimes lead to disastrous moments that would ultimately cost him or her team the game.
However, aside from maintaining focus, there are various ways for a coach to manage stress, especially during the games. One example is preventing his or tempers from flaring up. The highly emotional and sometime, derogatory words said by a coach could dramatically change the outcome of a game and even the motivation of his or her players.
Moreover, to prevent stress from affecting his or her work, a coach should always focus on the positive side of things even if the current situation is bad since this evokes strong emotions from both the coach and the players. For example, if a soccer team loses a game but the players still see that the coach shows that he or she is still optimistic about everything, the players will also have positive views on things and used this as a motivation to perform better.
In addition, eating a healthy diet is also a must for a coach, especially the ones who are easily stressed, as it lessens the certain substances found in a human body, such as cholesterol, which could result in certain illnesses that could worsen stress levels such as high blood.
Furthermore, during stressful moments, it is also necessary for a coach to take some to briefly assess himself or herself, pinpoint the problems he or she may have and come up with solutions to those problems.
Another good stress management technique is meditation and relaxation. A stressed coach should devote some time to relax his or her mind and body by engaging in several activities such as simply lying down, reading a book, and listening to soothing music, among others.
More importantly, the best thing any coach can do when he or she is stressed is to not dwell too much on the past or the sources of the stress and instead focus on moving forward. In other words, setbacks such as losing streaks and player injuries may cause stress to any coach, however, he or she should use those problems as a springboard for him or her to improve his or her team and turn a negative situation into a positive situation.
