Part 1 My Experiences and Thoughts on Motivating Athletes to Be Their Best Everyday

Part 1 of this post will introduce this topic. It is long so I wanted to break it up into smaller, digestible pieces. I do not declare, nor do I believe myself to be an expert on this topic. I consider myself as a "learner" and hope that through sharing my experiences and writing about topics like this one, I will learn more and become a better coach myself. Please feel free to leave a comment if you wish to share your thoughts. Thank you.

Introduction

When I was hired for my first full time head club coaching position I was hired by a club of about 100 team members whose abilities ranged anywhere from the little 6 and under swimmers to the Junior National and State qualifying level. I was hired to replace a very strong coach who was hired by a larger club which had Olympic Trial qualifiers, and even one Olympian who was also a World Record holder. My new club was located in a small town where the swimming team, not the football or basketball team won state titles year after year. Seemingly my hiring was of great interest to everyone and not just those in the swimming community.

After my hiring we moved to this town, and suddenly I found out just how important a winning swim team was to the community. Upon our arrival in town the attention began in earnest. I was interviewed on the local radio station, interviewed by sports reporters from three papers. The story of my hiring even made the front page of the sports section of the paper in the capital city of this state. I really did not feel the pressure until I went into the local grocery store with my family to do some shopping. As we were checking out, the clerk at the register stopped checking us out, looked at me and said, "Say aren't you the new head coach of our state championship swimming team?". He was both excited and eager to ask me questions as he finished checking us out. Needless to say the check out process felt a little longer than normal, and like I was getting checked out as well as our groceries. In the process of the "check out interview", it was the first time I felt like I had an entire community looking over my shoulder.

Not long after settling my family into our three bedroom apartment. I arranged to meet the swimmers for the first time prior to school starting and before we began our practices for the short course season. As I met with the team I had some very definite goals which I had written down-increase team membership to 125 members by the end of the short course season through providing a positive experience for team members, start a master's team that would help grow the sport and involve more of the community, set the stage to have swimmers get back to the National level meets-Juniors and Nationals, and finally move the club up to number 2 in the state, and win a state title for the local high school. I shared these goals with the parents and swimmers who were part of the program and then went to work.

In those days I had one assistant coach and we coached everyone on the team. Knowing that the success of the swimming program was very important to the community I felt that I needed to a establish a well organized and strong plan. Starting out with a new group of swimmers, especially the older kids, I believed that they needed a team meeting on a weekly basis to discuss what we were going to be doing each week and how we were going to get things done. At the the very first team meeting, I had each of them write down the answers to the following questions:

1. What do you want from swimming for this team?
2. What do I, as your coach need to do to help you get your number 1?
3. What do you, as the swimmer need to do to get your number 1?
4. What would happen if either you or I failed to do our part (see questions number 2 and 3)?
5. If you are willing to commit to doing your number 3 sign and date this document. After you sign and date it I will read it thoroughly and if I agree to number 2 I will sign and date it, and return it to you. If I do not agree I will speak with you and we will come to an agreement on what you believe I can do to help you.

Everyone on the team completed the assignment, even though this was not junior high or high school it was school-competitive swimming school. After I collected their responses, I took about one week to read through each of the documents. As it turned out, I had no questions. So I signed each one, made a copy and returned the original signed document to the members of the team in our next team meeting. Based on the feedback I learned form reading their documents I put together a plan for the year. I handed this out to the swimmers and we went to work.

It was a great first several months as we started our season together. I learned from them, and hopefully they learned from me. We went to a meet about every three to four weeks. Once the high school season began the meets were a little more frequent. During the meets I kept a very careful record of the progress of each swimmer so that I could review and evaluate the plan. The swimmers were really working hard and turning in some very fine early season times. At about four months into the season one young lady, who really liked the previous coach came to me and said, "Dee you are not not motivating me like the previous coach (no names here). I asked her what do you mean and she responded that she was not motivated by the way I was teaching and coaching her. I asked her what her goals were?

I knew what she had written down and I was wanting her to tell me what she had written down, hoping she remembered her goals. After thinking for a brief moment, she told me what she had written down on her paper and said, something that I will always remember, she said "But Dee, my goals do not motivate me. I want you to swear and cuss at me, throw a chair at me once in awhile. This is what the previous coach did and that is what motivates me." Being surprised I tried to calmly think of how to respond, and make this a teaching moment. After taking a deep breath I calmly asked her what job she wanted to work at once she was done with college. She responded and I then replied, " Tell me what do you think your employer is going to do to you if he/she has to swear, cuss or throw a chair at you to motivate you to do your job for the company?". She looked at me in a puzzled and thoughtful way and then responded with, "Probably fire my butt."

I told her I agreed and that I was trying to teach her and her teammates about how they needed to internalize there goals; and how she needed to keep these in front of her each time she got in the water. I told her that I would not swear, cuss, or throw chairs at her because I did not want her swimming out of fear but out of a desire to be her very best. Furthermore I stated that I would teach, coach, love, encourage and cheer for her to the very best of my ability. She walked away with some food for thought.

What I can tell you is that at the end of the short course season she achieved her goals and had a great year. In fact the entire team had a great year. In club swimming, the team placed second at the state short course championships moving up one place even though we were one of the smaller programs in the state. At the high school state meet we took first place for the men's team, winning another state title for the boys and community. The girl's high school team finished in third moving up two spots from the previous year. Additionally our club membership did grow to 125 and the masters team became active in our USS Club team and they were active supporters at our high school and club meets. The club swimmers in return supported the Masters swimmers in their meets. Overall I felt like we achieved a great deal that year in this small town and with this club.

Conclusion

In my next post I will write about my thoughts on how to build intrinsic motivation and help the swimmers to feel autonomy, competent, and related in an effort to strengthen a stronger growth mindset

Recommended reading and listening

The first two links are to talks that were given by Coach Wayne Goldsmith. The second link is to a TED talk by Coach John Wooden. Coach Wooden's TED talk takes about 18 minutes.

1.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MM-psvqiG8

2.  https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/how-to-spot-terrible-coaches-three-signs-that-give-them-away/?fbclid=IwAR0p_po831T6X4GjIytdxJNaa5A-HJ51xGQ1yg

3.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mTLtaD6ZA8&feature=emb_logo