As was discussed in the Feature article of this issue, your athletes
enter sports expecting to learn skills, develop fitness, participate in competition, and,
most importantly, have fun doing it. What motivates you, their coach? Hopefully, your
motivation is based on helping your athletes reach their expectations. That is, their
goals are your goals. As you plan practice sessions, consider how each activity will
contribute to developing skills, developing fitness, or otherwise prepare them for
competition. Some activities may accomplish all of these goals at the same time. Other
activities will be more limited. Although we often think of practice sessions as work and
the game days as fun, it doesn't have to be that way. Practices should be fun too! This is
not meant to trivialize the importance of practice; actually it is just the opposite. You
want your athletes to look forward to coming to practice and to work hard throughout
practice. How do you do this? It is not always easy. VARIETY is one way. Use different
drills; there is usually more than one way to teach and learn any particular skill. Create
a POSITIVE practice environment, one that focuses on what the athletes are doing right
rather than what they are doing wrong. The athletes should not be afraid to make mistakes.
Help them to understand that people who don't make mistakes are people who are not trying
very hard and who don't care about becoming a better athlete. Even the very best athletes
make mistakes. If your athletes are having fun and becoming better athletes in the
process, chances are good that you will be having fun too. |
Coaching Youth Sports Home Page
This article was written by Dr. Richard K. Stratton
Health and Physical Education Program
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0313
540-231-5617 (o) 540-231-9075 (fax)
e-mail address - rstratto@vt.edu
This article is copyrighted by the author and may
be reprinted for personal use. Any other use, including use for commercial purposes,
requires the permission of the author. We sincerely appreciate Dr. Stratton allowing us to
use his articles on our website. Please stop by his website Coaching Youth Sports Home Page and let him know
you appreciate it. He also has a great question and answer area on his website where you
can leave coaching and sports related questions and have them answered by experts. |
