by Mike Davenport, CoachingSportsToday
Wisdom can come from the strangest places.
I’ve written about finding “coaching smarts” at parties, blogs, and growing up.
Now here’s a new one … bottle caps.
Specifically, the sayings under the tops. For example: Dance As Though No One Is Watching
DOSE OF WISDOM
That quote got me thinking, something clicked, I played with a few words, and came up with this …
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
There is a sense of deep coaching-truth to that morphed saying, which is becoming more truthful each and every day.
We do need to coach as if everyone is watching, because they are watching.
Ninety-nine percent of what you do as a coach, what you say as a coach, how you act as a coach can be, will be, and probably IS ALREADY, recorded, blogged, and archived.
You now coach under a microscope.
Not a telescope, where someone far away is watching, and could easily miss the intracies of what you do.
The days of coaching secrecy, of things said in confidence, of one-on-one conversations are long gone.
You are now on a slide, under a lens, being watched.
And it is not just one scientist (or referee, or compliance officer, or adminstrator) watching you. For good and for bad, everyone is watching.
DON’T BELIEVE ME?
That’s okay. Ignore me. Happens all the time.
But if you have 3 minutes, go to YouTube and search for *stupid coach*. Thirty-seven million results. I looked through just the first three pages. Numerous examples of a coach, trying to do his/her job, making a mistake, and now becoming an unwilling junior internet star.
That is just the public venue of YouTube. I would guess (don’t know, but would guess) that there are many times more examples on the internet behind the closed doors of some of the other social media platforms.
And it is happening not just during games … but practices, locker rooms, classrooms, parking lots.
Everywhere.
SHOULD YOU CHANGE?
So, should you act differently, coach differently?
Damn yes, if you are doing anything wrong or improper. Stop now. Immediately. First, from the POV that it’s wrong. Second, because you will be exposed, called out, on a world-wide platform. Have you forgotten the unfortunate example of Mike Rice?
But face it, if you are doing things wrong/improper/illegal as a coach … you’re not reading this blog anyways.
Damn no, don’t change, if you are trying your best to coach with the best interest of your players, the game, and those around you in mind. In this case, you can’t coach worrying about someone recording your mistakes. Full speed ahead.
And if your mistakes show up, like mine, smile, learn, and move on.
MY SCREW UP
Here’s an example of one of my screw ups.
We had a boat flip at practice. No one was hurt, just enough bruised egos to go around. We were all trying our best and an accident happened. In this case, we were the ones who filmed it, and posted it. Hoping that others might learn from our error.
I’ve had many emails and several phone calls about that screw up. Each one was either, “Oh, that’s happened to me!”, or, “How can we make sure that doesn’t happen to us?”
In this case, putting ourselves under the microscope was worth it.
Is that an iPhone over there, recording you as you read this post? Probably.
And it is also our new reality.
The bottle cap says so.
Dr. Mike Davenport is a longtime college coach and the man behind the popular website CoachingSportsToday.com. He is a regular contributor to College Recruiting Weekly.