The Coach: Leadership for Excellence /The Successful Coach, an Exploration

Designed and Produced by Peregrine Press for the Amateur Softball Association

Author: Dr. Peter S. Pierro                           Narration: Dr. Robert Grupe

Copyright © Peregrine Press, 1987   

The Game - The Thrill of Being a Coach

Here is a short list of qualities that great athletes have exhibited in their pursuit of excellence:

Pride - Your players must be proud of their team, proud of their own actions and achievements, and, yes, proud of you, their coach. In order to be proud, one must have a good self-image, one must have self-esteem. It's hard to hold your head up and say, "I'm an Eagle!" after the coach has spent considerable time convincing you that you'll never be worth anything as a player and as a human being. The pride your players have in your team will be no greater than the pride that each of them has in being a player on your team.

Next is Discipline - No, this does not mean standing over your players with a whip. That is called "Control". Discipline is the setting of goals and then moving toward them with a sense of purpose and responsibility. Discipline is learned just as the skills of pitching a ball are learned. Discipline is something that you, the coach, demonstrate as you set rules and keep them, as you schedule practices and get there on time, as you talk about sportsmanship and communicate humanly with umpires. Discipline is the quality that enables a Chris Evert to get to the top of the tennis world and stay there for so many years.

Next, we have Self-reliance - As coaches, we spend so much time telling kids what to do, how to do it, what not to do, how to walk, how to talk, etc. etc. etc., that we sometimes lose sight of one critical responsibility we have to our kids, and that is to make them self-reliant; in fact, to work with them so that they are self-sufficient, so that they don't need us any more, so that they become more and more independent.

And then there is Courage - the ability to assess a situation and then to act in the most positive possible way relative to your goals and your beliefs. We see this daily with people who have lost some ability and simply do not allow it to keep them from being the best they can be. We see it in class­rooms, as a child is determined to learn those number facts and does. We see it in all sports and when we see it, we see Champions.

Finally, we have Dedication and its companion, Hard Work. As you spend more time and years in coaching, you tend to look back and recall that short fellow on your basketball team who seemed to be a magnet for every loose ball or that shortstop who couldn't make that double play pivot until you taught him how to line up the base and the second baseman and then he worked on it and worked on it until it became his trademark.