April 2, 2010
What makes a coach?
by Kristen Kjellman/
In 12 years of playing lacrosse, I’ve had the opportunity to play for a number of coaches at the youth, high school, collegiate and national level. Some have won state championships, NCAA championships, and even World Cup titles. I’ve been lucky to play for some of the best around! With their unique personalities, philosophies and game strategies, each of these coaches has contributed to my development as a player and a person.
I consider the following attributes to be the key ingredients a coach needs to maximize a player’s team experience: Confidence, positivity, practice preparation, game strategy, innovative teaching tactics and communication.
Confidence: Knowing that my coaches were confident in me and in my team, made a huge impact on my self-confidence and our team-confidence.
I don’t think my 2005 Northwestern Wildcats would have won the National Championship that year if our coaches hadn’t instilled in us the belief that we were a great team and would win. We were just midwestern lacrosse youngsters knocking on the door of the national stage; it was the confidence that Coach Amonte-Hiller and her staff infused in us that put us over the top.
Positivity: When it comes to attitude and manner of communication, I feel like I’ve seen a little of everything. Without hesitation, the coaches who were positive, encouraging and reassuring gained my utmost respect. The coaches who were more negative and quick to call out mistakes seemed to weaken team morale.
Nine times out of 10, as a player, you easily recognize a mistake you have made on the playing field. You know the story about being your own worst enemy, right? Well, I can almost guarantee that having a coach accentuate the slip-up will not help the player’s confidence or correct the error.
Practice preparation: On most of my teams, we normally competed in about 20 games per year, but we had countless more practices. The coaches who had great practice plans, fresh drills, and innovative teaching tactics kept us motivated and good-humored throughout the season. You would think that, in the fourth year of playing college lacrosse, practices would start to get monotonous.
For me, this was not the case. In fact, this may sound cheesy, but I always looked forward to practice. We were always learning new drills and creating serious team competitions.
Game strategy: I have so much esteem and admiration for my coaches who devised smart, elaborate game plans. The way my coaches at Northwestern would maximize the particular strengths of their players was very impactful. They were especially strategic in studying our opponents and teaching where and how to attack their weaknesses.
Communication: One of the most essential attributes for any coach is great communication skills. Having clear and open communication with my coaches made me a better player and made our teams stronger. When a player can receive constructive criticism and is encouraged to ask questions and make comments, it establishes a level of trust between the entire team and staff.
Clearly, all coaches have their unique philosophies and approaches to the game. Some yell more than others, some are better teachers. Some are competition junkies and hate to lose, while others are more gracious in defeat. After seeing a range of different coaching styles throughout my career, I’ve found that the components I mentioned above served best as catalysts for team success.
The best coaches that I have played for have balanced these elements and created a highly structured system with a family-like atmosphere that allowed their players and teams to thrive.
