With no disrespect to my young educated readers, I’m going to start this article with the dictionary definition of respect. (transitive verb) : to consider worthy of high regard. After reading the definition of respect, a lot of questions came to mind. Like, how many young athletes out there respect their coach and how many don’t? How many coaches respect their athletes, or don’t? How many parents respect their kids coach, or don’t? How many coaches respect the team parents? Above all, why does it matter and where and how does respect happen. Wow, way too many questions.
My answer is, it all starts with the coach. Have you ever had a coach that was intimidating or made you feel scared of making a mistake. If you have, you will probably remember that no one ever showed disrespect to that coach either. But does that mean that your coach was respected ? My observations and findings say no, your coach was not respected. Your coach was feared. These are the same coaches that are sometimes very knowledgeable in their field of sport, and often played at a high level of competition. Yet, some have winning seasons, others have losing seasons.
Here are the traits of a good coach who is respected by the team:
- they are knowledgeable in their field of sport
- they take full responsibility for their teams weaknesses and never place blame on anybody but themselves
- they spend more time and employ more patience with the less talented athletes
- they have their gifted athletes help and encourage the not so gifted ones
- they don’t single out athletes in anger or disappointment
- they make practice fun
- they figure out ways to get adequate playing time for all team members, and
- they always have winning seasons.
Most importantly, a good coach gets to know the kids' parents. If a coach gets to know a kids parents, they will find out everthing they need to know about that kid. And they will gain a lot of respect from both players and their parents because it shows that the coach cares. And that is the main reason why a good coach is respected, because they displayed a true sense of caring toward you and everyone else on your team.
If Rodney Dangerfield were still alive, I wonder what he would have to say about it.
