“Treat everyone the same!” Say what?
My eyebrows went up on that one. My 29 years of experience in classroom teaching, football coaching, and tennis, not to mention racquetball has taught me the opposite.
I do not treat everyone alike.
Scenario: Coach has a rule–miss a practice and you do not play.
Troubled youth, troubled home life, sports might save them. They miss one practice because their parents made them babysit their 2year old brother.
Treat them the same way as the Captain of the team who never misses a practice?
Treat them the same way as someone learning the sport with a full academic load?
I can go on and on with this. I try to make my decisions based on what is good for the athlete; not me. Sometimes that means discipline and sometimes that demands understanding. What it does not mean, is sacrificing the team morale for one player. So to be sure, it is a fine balance beam a coach has to walk on.
Sometimes that means the athlete takes advantage of me and I fail.
Know what? I did everything I could do. So I can sleep at night. That’s on the athlete, not me.
Being a coach of a team or a leader means not treating everyone alike but treating everyone in a way that benefits the team first, athlete second, and coach last.
Think of others before yourself and that makes you a coach and leader!
Think of yourself before others and , well, you can fill in the rest!!