The World Junior Championships were held a few weeks ago and I spent hours watching my athletes play. I had five players from different countries and they all played great and it was and still is an honor to work with them. But during the tournament I saw what I consider huge coaching errors made by all countries’ coaches. Here are the biggies.
1. Know your athletes. Listen to what they have to say. Just because they are kids does not mean they should do everything you say. They may have a better idea.
2. Usually the use of one specific serve over and over will not beat a world class athlete. It works maybe at the small regional tournaments in your country but not on the big stage.
3. Check your athlete’s positioning. Receiving serve up in singles too close to center court is a rookie mistake many coaches make. My athletes thank you for that.
4. Check your athlete’s doubles positioning. One athlete hogging 3/4 of the court opens your team up to defeat. Unless one of the players is injured this type of positioning hurts your team when returning serve.
5. Call for help.I was once a USA, Mexico, and Ireland head coach. I tried to listen to other coaches and their knowledge of the athletes I worked with. I called and talked to several coaches of my players and had meetings with each of my players before the tournament started.
6. Know your leaders. Who are your team’s athletes who can help you? Know your followers also!
7. Know your team rulebook. Your NGB makes rules. You need to employ those rules and make your team aware of things like curfew, room rules, etc.
8. Try to think ahead of the problems and head them off! We knew each of my team members enough to know who might break a rule, cause a problem, or be a problem.
9. Know this-yes these young folks might be great players but they are immature for the most part. Try not to be judgmental-the old “This kid is a good kid and this kid is a bad kid” type thinking can lead to poor decisions.
10. Listen to your parents. They know their children better than you and they are not your enemy.
11, Over the years we developed a hierarchy for decision-making. What was good for the sport came first. What was good for the IRF came second. What was good for the country I was representing (which was mostly the USA) came third. What was good for the athletes came fourth. What was good for the coaches came last. This led to myself and our coaching staff sometimes sleeping on the floors of fleabag hotels while we made sure our athletes had good rooms and beds (as much as we could). I do think coaches often try to please the PTB (powers to be) as opposed to following a guideline for decision-making.
12. Know what battles to fight. Some athletes are the problem and some are the solution. Some of the problems may not be worth fighting and will hurt your chances of success. An example might be team meetings. Too many meetings might be a problem. I fought that because I wanted my athletes to focus on the tournaments. I did have to have at least two meetings; one at the beginning and one at the end of the tournaments. Daily newsletters within our team covered the rest.
At the end of every competition we had sort of an informal “exit interview” with our athletes. This is what happened and going forward here is what we see you should work on. We also tried to do the same with ourselves. What did we need to do to improve?
Our sport has many promising young coaches. I wish them all well but urge them to take advantage of the experience and knowledge of the private coaches who work with their athletes day in and day out.
Go get’em tigers!!