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Can You Relate?
Drew had played basketball ever since he was a little kid, and for years he’d looked forward to playing on the high school basketball team. He made it to varsity, and was excited about playing with older kids against tougher teams—but pretty soon he started dreading practice. His coach yelled a lot. If he made a mistake, the coach would point it out to the whole team—at great length. At first, Drew was a starter, but halfway through the season the coach benched him without any explanation. Drew didn’t know what he’d done wrong, or why the coach seemed to dislike him.
Drew has good reasons to be frustrated. His coach sounds like an intense competitor who uses yelling and criticism to motivate his players. As a first step in dealing with his situation, Drew probably needs to look at a hard reality—basketball at the varsity level is extremely competitive in most schools. He should start by taking a good look at his playing ability. Is it up to the level of the older kids yet? He showed enough raw talent to be a starter at the beginning of the season, but he may need to take his game to the next level. Is he willing to work hard enough to get to that level? The coach may be harsh and his motivational style may stink, but do his criticisms have any merit? It may take some sacrifices and self-discipline on his part to get back to a starting position—more practice at the gym, less hanging out with friends; more time in the weight room, less time on Facebook. (No, he shouldn’t cut back on his study time.)
But he shouldn’t just guess about what’s wrong. His next step is to take action and talk to a parent or trusted adult about how to approach the coach. Now, some coaches are just jerks—they want to win at all costs, even if it means trashing their players, shaming them into working harder, or driving them to a more extreme level of competitiveness. That may be the situation here—or it may not. Either way, Drew needs to take a shot at finding out what’s wrong that he can get back in the game. Once he has thought through his talking points with an adult, Drew should practice his approach a few times in front of a mirror or with a friend so that he doesn’t choke when he meets the coach. A straightforward approach, good eye contact, and a confident voice will go a long way toward showing the coach that he’s ready to play.
The coach seems pretty intense and is probably intimidating, so it’s important that Drew show the coach that he can respectfully challenge his decision to bench him and wants to figure out how to get back on the floor. Unfortunately, this coach probably doesn’t want to hear about Drew’s feelings—he’d just think that Drew was a whiner. Instead, Drew needs to tell the coach that he’s up to the challenge, wants to know why he’s been benched, and that he is willing to work hard to get back on the starting team. That approach will impress most adults and should give Drew another shot if he’s willing to work for it.
It may take some time for Drew to work his way back into a starting position. Or he may just need to wait his turn to play more regularly once he becomes one of the older kids. The coach isn’t likely to change his approach, so Drew may have to deal with some yelling and criticism on his way back to the top. Ultimately he’ll need to decide if he wants to endure the coach’s style in order to play the game he loves at the varsity level.
One last thing—if the coach is truly being verbally abusive to the team, Drew and some other team members should talk to their parents about the situation. It may be that the school principal needs to be made aware of the problem so that he can either tell the coach to take it down a few notches or find a new coach who can use more positive motivators to help the team succeed.
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Curt VanderWaal, M.S.W., Ph.D., is chair and professor of social work at Andrews University, where he has taught since 1990. He is also associate director of the Center for Policy Research at the Institute for Prevention of Addictions. He teaches classes in drug and alcohol addiction and treatment, group therapy, and values and ethics.
Curt likes travel, skiing, basketball, photography, canoeing, and eating Thai and Indian food. He knows an insane number of pirate jokes, checks e-mail obsessively, and hates squash. |
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