The Best Advice A Coach Can Give… That Is Too Often Dismissed
COMMIT TO TRULY WORKING WITH YOUR COACH (swimmers and parents)
The title states that it is dismissed because I think it is too often that swimmers and parents commit to working with the coach as long as they share the same opinion or things are “going well” in their opinion. This isn’t actually working with them and trusting them, but rather just looking for someone that will do what you believe to be best. Your coach is a professional and while I am sure every profession has people that will fight things rather than trust them, I can tell you, without fail, that the best long term results I have seen come from those swimmers and families that are willing to truly commit to working with and following a coach’s direction.
So, I like to start with the arguments to this idea first. Yes, I am a coach and in attempting to deliver this message could be seen as being self-serving to make things easier for me. In truth, it is self-serving for every coach, as it will allow us to perform our job to the best of our ability and get the most out of these student-athletes, both in and out of the water. We want the exact same for the swimmer as anyone else (swimmer or parent) and when that’s continually questioned (yes, there is a difference between asking a question (to learn process) and being questioning(to argue process)) or challenged, it makes it very hard to continue the process that worked well enough to get you excited about the sport in the first place.
Every decision made by your coach is done with the best of your swimmer in mind. For our program we focus on the TEAM approach, but that doesn’t mean that we sacrifice anything for an individual. The goal is to develop that athlete, within the TEAM, to be the best they possibly can be both now and in the future. The “now” is too often that focus, rather than the overall development (a whole different blog).
The other resistance I’ve heard in the past is “I’m not going to blindly follow.” That’s fair enough and I 100% agree. A large part of a coach’s job is communication, and this should be able to take care of it. I try to live by (and ask our coaches to as well) the idea that we should be able to answer any question asked of us and feel stronger about the answer after we talk through it than we did before we started talking about it. If we can do this, then this policy/plan is exactly what it should be; if not, then maybe we need to reevaluate things. That doesn’t mean the parent or swimmer will agree, but the best we can do is live by what we believe is best for the swimmer and those that are willing, will see the results (this blog just explained in a couple lines).
So, here’s my advice if you don’t want to “blindly” follow someone:
- Most important idea: understand the program philosophy and developmental plan. This “system” will be the most important factor over any individual coach, as this can stay consistent even if individual interactions with a coach changes for whatever reason (change of groups, coach leaves, etc, etc)
- Understand the success, as an overall program, on developing athletes throughout the program. Does the program work in truly developing athletes on a larger scale or just the individual scale, that will not lead to the overall development of the swimmer at some point.
- Take responsibility in following expectations that are there to ensure swimmers development. If you fight the process, it’s hard for the process to work like it should.
If you do believe in the things above and are willing to do what is asked (within reason of what we are talking about here of course), then you will see the best results possible. Anything other than that will take away from the swimmers enjoyment of the sport, overall development and in the end impact their performances in the water. Yes, I say, “in the end” because it may not happen right away, but trust me it will happen at some point.
Trust that your coach is there for the best of the swimmer, period. Be willing to work with them to achieve the best results possible (in and out of the water), and you’ll see big things. I know that not every coach is perfect, but if the system is in place, then the coach will be able to fit in and benefit from that as well. Sometimes I hear about favorites of coaches, and sometimes that is truly an issue. Most of the time though, it’s no hidden fact that a coach will have favorites, and those favorites are going to be those that listen, are willing to make changes, ask questions to understand rather than fight and have a great process in and out of the water. In the end, they perform the best, and this is where the “favorites” perception comes in because they are the fastest in the group. Imagine that, those that do what the coach asks (more often than not) end up performing the best. Then all of the sudden you have swimmers/parents complaining that they get the most attention because they are the fastest.
This job isn’t perfect, there will be times that as much as the coach may want things to come for a swimmer they will not have the “perfect” season, but rest assured, what those swimmers get from this sport will be equally as valuable when they have long since “dried off” and can take the process they learned in this sport into their profession.
I ask all swimmers and parents to work WITH your coach and not against them. Since you’ve read this far, hopefully you understand my ask, so I am going to give some hints to parents and swimmers and hope that you won’t take this the wrong way.
- If you think this is you and need to work on it, my guess is it isn’t, but you are already on an improved path anyway.
- If you are worried it may be you at times, that very well may be the case, but since you admit and see it, you are doing great. There is no “perfect” process, it’s about improving, just like the swimmers in the water.
- If you disagree with this and/or don’t see this as you at all (or stopped reading already :-), please re-read and highly consider changing your process for the long term development of the swimmer.
This blog was attempted to be directed at both swimmers and parents, and I hope that I can help at least a few change/improve their process. Here’s my short and sweet goals from this blog:
- Swimmers - take ownership of your swimming and work WITH your coach to learn to achieve great things
- Parents - be heavily involved in supporting your children (this is a true family commitment sport), but leave the coaching, swimming development and “push” to the coach. Your other “helping” will eventually impact your swimmer in one way or another. We know you want the best for them, but trust that we do as well.
Work with your coaches, “help us, help you” and the best results will come, I can promise you that. I’ve seen it over and over, and just wanted to share those thoughts for anyone willing to listen.
One last thing, this blog isn’t even being written in a negative manner at all, even though it may seem like I am addressing specific issues. I see this as our “next step” on my own program, in order to help all of our swimmers reach new levels, and just thought I would share my thoughts.
Thanks all for reading, I hope it helps (selfishly and altruistically).
