Lasting Structures Have Strong Foundations

Lasting structures have strong foundations. The Great Pyramids or Giza, the Roman Coliseum, the Great Wall of China, the Parthenon; all these ancient structures have stood the test of time and remain standing after thousands of years because of the foundation in which they were constructed. Strong foundations allow our creations to stand the test of time and the influence of forces from the outside.

It is the foundational principles of a team culture or developmental process that allows us to remain consistent in our efforts to move forward. We faced with a difficult question or problem, or when venturing into the many grey areas that we face as coaches, we can rely on certain principals and ideals to help guide us to the best answer of course of actions.

In every sport, the importance of being able to execute the fundamentals is stressed. Nearly every day, we push our athletes to focus and build the fundamental skills and movements of their sport. The same is true for coaching and more specifically, how we build our developmental process. Before I dive into specific aspects answering the questions, “how do we develop young athletes better” and “what is the culture I’m looking to build”, I need to establish some fundamentals.

So here are the foundations principles I work with when building my teams, my culture, or while implementing my developmental process.

Foundation 1: Love

The most important foundation of my actions while working with youth in sports is Love. You most love your athletes. All actions and words that you say need to come from a place of caring. Caring about the individual and caring about their development. When athletes know you care about them as people and want them to be successful, they will have a strong foundation in which to strive. Over the years while talking with people about their experiences in sports and growing up, I started to notice the same type of coach described over and over again. A tough coach, who maybe yelled a lot, who was definitely demanding, and who was described as being hard on their players. But while talking about these types of coaches and the athletes experience with them two very different opinions came up about how the coaches effected them. It all boiled down to that coach is the reason I stopped playing or the reason I stopped loving to play the sport, or that coach was the reason I thrived and made me what I am today.

I was baffled at first by this. How can the same type of coach have such a drastic difference in the effect they had on players and their development? As I talked with people more about these situations, and as I thought more about my own impression of coaches matching this description, I came to realize, the difference came down to whether the athlete felt the coach liked them and wanted them to be successful or whether they felt like the coach didn’t believe in them or care for them. I knew then that the most important part of any philosophy I have as a coach will be to care about my players and their own personal growth.

I soon realized that in some cases, the player that learned to stop loving the sport, and the player that felt they were made into what they became, sometimes had the same person as a coach. This lead to my second foundational principle.

Foundation 2: Athletes are in complete control of their own journey

The old saying is you can lead a horse to water, but you can not make them drink. This concept is true in so many aspects of our lives. But there are 2 important words in that saying that become important when thinking about developing young athletes.

LEAD a horse to water. As the coach you have to lead athletes to the right path, you have to take them to the water. As we must first and foremost, love our athletes, we have to be able to lead them where they need to go. And this is the core of culture that I will break down in later post. It is also central to my foundational beliefs. My job as the coach is to lead my athletes to success.

However, the second word becomes important, you can not MAKE them drink. I can not force my players to buy-in to my culture. I can not make them execute fundamentals. I can not make them care about their own development and progress. I can not make them do anything. I can only lead them in the right direction. I can help them, I can guide them, I can motivate them, but I can not make them do it. Athletes are in complete control of their own journey, only themselves can drink the water. I have become to believe whole heartedly, good coaches can help athletes develop, but bad coaches can not stop them from doing so. They are in control, it is their journey to take and they will follow the path they want.

This blog is about figuring out how we can develop young athletes better. How do we fundamentally do better in youth sports with helping kids reach their potential whatever that potential might be. Not just their potential as athletes, but their potential as people. Youth sports offer so many positive life lessons that can be applied to all aspects of life. That is why I’m interested in finding a better way and helping others find a better way as well. The start of the better way is for me, as the coach, to always operate with my 2 foundational principles; love my athletes and care for them as people, and to lead them along their own path and help them along their own journey. If I can do that, I will have established a strong foundation for my program, my culture, and my developmental process that will last through any adversity that arises.