Some say winning is what the outcome is, or the final score. I would have to completely disagree with this theory. Winning to me isnt necessarily the team score but your own personal score, or how well you did in the game, or what ever the competition. The competition could for a job, or the competition could be life in general.
Winning involves both mentally and physically doing your very best, but more importantly having fun at the same time. However, in order to your best you have to have fun. So having fun is a big part of winning. You could do your best at anything but you wont always have fun doing it. Some coaches say, “Winning isnt everything, its the only thing.” This saying means something different to everyone. To me it means, you should do your best all the time and to always have fun while doing it. Winning comes down to just plain having fun. You cant win if you dont have fun. If you win as an individual and everyone as a team wins individually, then you will win on the scoreboard.
As the varsity coach my main objective would be to make the team play as a team, and not as a group of individuals. Once this is achieved then anything else that I would want to achieve or the team wants to achieve, will follow. Other objectives would be to make everybody on the team a team player and not an individual, this would go back to the main objective which is to make the team play as a team. Nothing can be accomplished if the team doesnt play as a team. Nobody has influenced me to make me the person I am today except for my parents and the rest of my family.
There are many things a coach would expect from his team. Such as; doing his/her own job, picking a player up instead of putting them down when they make a mistake, not being late for practice or games, not to be a negative factor to the team, to give 100% effort always, and to stay away from drugs/alcohol. Parents are a really big part of an athletes life. Any athlete like to know that his/her parents are there watching them play. A parent shouldnt ever be involved negatively such as; questioning the coachs decisions. This, for one, embarrasses the athlete if his/her mom goes up to coach and says, “Why isnt Jimmy getting any playing time? You need to put in Jimmy;” and two, makes the parent and the athlete look bad. A parent should be involved positively. They should be involved in the fundraising for the athletics. Be at the games and tell their child that they played well, even if they didnt. If a parent is involved negatively then they shouldnt be involved at al.
All tardiness/absences should have a good excuse. The excuses should be something that couldnt have been prevented, something beyond the athletes control. If not then there should be some kind of punishment. The punishment should be made according to the excuse, or how late the athlete was to practice/games. Consequences for being late to a game should be greater than the consequence for being late to a practice. The reason why an athlete should miss a game/practice should be because of some kind of family affair. Family should always take priority over sports.
Practicing on weekends or holiday breaks is a big issue. Athletes dont want to practice on weekends, and especially during any holiday break. But I think that a team should have mandatory practices on weekends. However, these practices should not be as long as practices during the week. The practices should start in the afternoon and not in the morning. This would allow the team to rest, so that they will be able to practice their best and it wont be a complete waste of time.
