How does a coach impact their athletes?

How does a coach impact their athletes?


By Daniel Ferguson

"You're rubbish, you can't string a pass together!" yelled coach Jim. Jim's team were 14-0 down at this point. "You don't know how to play rugby at all, do you guys!" yelled Jim again. The players heads were down: another try was conceded. "Why can't you help us rather than shout at us?" asked Pereira (one of the players on the pitch). The team ended up losing 37-5. 
Coach Jim

"It's okay you made a bad pass, let's go again!" coach Tom told Lewis. "I messed up though," said Lewis. "It happens, react, focus on the next action!" replied Tom. Lewis went onto make some very good passes throughout of the rest of the game, despite messing up a few times: he bounced back.









Which coach language is most effective? You would say Tom right? 



I coach football at my university and too many times I see coaches shout at their players,
but the language isn't even productive it's just getting at them, this will only cause players to  not want to be there and potentially play worse. I believe you must be productive in your language as that feeds into the players. Help them focus on the next action: guide them in the right direction. It's been found that coach's expressions of pride and happiness benefit a players performance (Moll and Davies, 2021). 

To further this, if a coach is anxious about a match, especially if it's a tough fixture and it's evident in the coach's body language and voice, this can make the players more anxious themselves (Mottaghi et al, 2013).

Essentially, what I'm saying is, the way a coach communicates: body language, language, tone of voice and their behaviours, makes a significant impact on the players. When Pep Guardiola was going through a tough time with Manchester City (November 24/25) he labelled it as being his responsibility. Now there's a danger here to adding too much pressure onto yourself as a coach, however, it's about having an awareness that what you do and how you do it will impact your players. So focus on being productive: too many coaches create difficult cultures to be in by not building connections with players and getting at them all the time.

As a player, can you think of a coach you enjoyed playing under and why? Likewise, can you think of a coach you didn't enjoy playing under and why?

I hope this blog has highlighted the importance of how a coach's behaviours and communications impact their athletes. If you want to reach out, find my details below. Take care.



Find Daniel Ferguson on:
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Instagram: @danferguson_sp
Twitter: @DanFergusonSP

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