Nice Guys Finish First!

What has happened to the world of youth sports in our modern society? I think I know the answer to that question. We’ve all gone crazy. When it comes to youth sports, we’ve gone crazy with our competitiveness, crazy with our perspective, crazy with our level of involvement and crazy with our delusions of grandeur for our child-athletes. The real problem is that the craziest of the “crazies” have taken over the control of youth sports, leaving the Nice Guy coaches to suffer as an oppressed minority. I can’t offer a deep sociological explanation as to why this has occurred. I suppose we could blame technology like we do for everything else. That suits me just fine. But whatever the cause, the trends for Nice Guys within the arena of youth sports is not a good one. The National Alliance for Sports reports that 70 percent of kids quit playing league sports by age 13 — and never play them again. According to Michael Pfahl, executive director of the National Youth Sports Coaches Association, “The number one reason (why they quit) is that it stopped being fun.” Unless we have wholesale conversion to Nice Guy volunteer coaching, we are destined to continue suffering the disenchantment of kids and the outrage of their parents.

By the time my oldest son, Colin, had reached the age of 16 I had already logged my fair share of volunteer coaching duties within youth sports. At one time I had counted up the number of teams for which I had either been a head coach or an assistant coach and it totaled over 40 teams between baseball, basketball and soccer. At my middle son Brendan’s 8th grade graduation I remember sitting there as each graduate’s name was announced and taking note of the boys whose names I recognized from sports over the years. I was amazed that I had actually coached 91 out of the total graduating boys’ class of 140 or so kids. It gave me great pride and satisfaction to know that I had interacted with such a high percentage of the kids in my sons’ age groups. By the traditional standards of winning and losing, the teams I coached had varying degrees of success. Some teams were undefeated, some struggled to win just a couple of games, and the rest were somewhere in the middle. By my own standards of success, regardless of the win/loss record, I found the experiences to be fantastically positive. And that’s because I measured success not by the win/loss outcome, but by a more profound set of measurements. Because of that, as a Nice Guy coach, I could never lose.

When it comes to Finishing First in youth sports the goal all starts with how you establish the objectives for the team. Mine were always as follows:

1) Make this team the best youth sports experience each kid ever had.

2) Make it the best experience the parents ever had.

3) Make sure each player improves his or her skill level, regardless of that level.

4) Make every player feel an important part of the team.

5) Teach life lessons about teamwork and camaraderie.

6) Be competitive and win as many games as you can.

I always thought of the families on my teams as “customers.” I figured these people had invested their time and money in signing their son up for a team sport and were obviously hoping to have a good experience. And almost without exception the “good” experience they were actually looking for was the same outcome described in the Nice Guy coaching objectives (i.e. build skills, enhance self esteem and confidence, experience the many virtues of teamwork, build friendships, be competitive, have fun). Therefore my Nice Guy coaching objectives were 100% aligned with the “customer” objectives. As a result, I already had set myself up with a high probability for a successful outcome. In the best case our team would be highly competitive, win most of our games and perhaps even go all the way. But even in the worst case of losing most of the games, our kids and their families would walk away having achieved the overwhelming majority of the objectives they had hoped to meet. So how do we judge the success of outcomes? Mostly by the expectations we set in the first place. And either way, I walked away feeling satisfied and fulfilled that something important in some small way was accomplished.

For those of you who have devoted your time to such volunteer work, you know it’s not as easy as it might look. Some of the most stressful times for me were caused by the fact that I had a crisis going on at the office which would require some late meetings, and yet I needed to sneak out early that day to coach a baseball or soccer game. I sweated out way too many of those days. I will acknowledge that one valuable benefit to come from all of those mad after-work rushes to the playing field was developing an uncanny ability to change from business-casual clothes to athletic clothes while simultaneously driving my car. I would not recommend it. And I’m sincerely grateful that I never had a mishap during any of my hundreds of such change-overs, since it could have left me in an extremely compromising position. I can imagine the headline for the accident in the local papers:

“NICE GUY” COACH CAUGHT SPEEDING IN UNDERWEAR AND SOCKS TO MEET LITTLE BOYS AT SOCCER FIELD.

That would be a bit difficult to explain.

By approaching youth sports with the Nice Guy attitude we are getting so much more out of the experience than the “Crazies.” While others are pulling their hair, rolling their eyes and blurting out exasperated “C’mon’s!” over every minor misstep from the kids, I’m laughing my rear end off at some of the funniest and cutest moments you’ll ever want to remember. When I think of any example of a youth player making a mistake on the field I can’t begin to logically explain the reaction of the Crazies, especially when you consider the following:

a) The child did not WANT to make that error.

b) The child was trying his best to make the play.

c) The child already feels lousy and embarrassed for the error.

d) Yelling at or criticizing him will not change the error, nor prevent another.

e) A humiliated child will lose further confidence and consequently play worse.

As Dale Carnegie suggested, fear is a great motivator for getting people to DO something, but it’s far more productive to get people to WANT TO DO something. The same’s gotta’ be true for playing 2nd base in Little League. Why can’t the Crazies understand that? The answer to the question is a simple one: ego and emotion. We tend to lead with our emotions, or more accurately, have our emotions lead us around on a leash. And here’s why we have all been guilty of some Crazy behavior at one point or another even if we are not full-fledged Crazies. As humans we are all emotional beings – and imperfect ones at that – and there is no stronger emotion than the attachment and love one has for one’s child. So if we feel our child is getting short changed or mistreated then our natural parental protective instincts kick in and we find it very difficult to repress the feelings of indignation and outrage. If we see our child make a mistake or experience failure than our natural parental sensations of ambition, hopes and dreams get riled up and we find it very difficult to repress the feelings of frustration and disappointment. The problem is when we let the emotions drive the bus, we not only engage in regrettable and counterproductive behavior, but we miss out on all of the fun.

Youth sports should always represent the Norman Rockwell moments for our families and our communities. What’s better than standing outside on a beautiful, crisp fall day, with the kids playing a fun game of soccer on a freshly mowed field, with the leaves turning color in the background, a nice warm cup of coffee in your hand, and enjoying the company of the team parents, some of whom have become your very good friends? What’s more relaxing than sitting on the bleachers on a warm spring day watching the little ones enjoy playing and learning the game of baseball with old and new-found friends? And what’s cuter than a ball player whose baseball cap or football helmet seems larger than he does, whose socks always seem to be one up and one down and whose attention span for the game has him more destined to be a brilliant architect than a rookie of the year in pro sports? C’mon, enjoy it, people!!! Lighten up!! Approach it all with a Nice Guy perspective and see how much fun it can be. ‘Cause it will be gone all too soon.