How & Why You Need to Coach 'Why?'

No matter what walk of life you come from you have heard "Why?" You could be a parent and have fielded that question hundreds, if not millions, of times from your wee beastling, or at work from an employee or peer. The question 'why?' is everywhere in our lives, yet we struggle to incorporate it in the one place we are most passionate about.

Coaching.

But why?

Why Not Why?
We struggle to bring 'why' into our teams or sport for a variety of reasons. We have the obvious reason that we ourselves, in our former lives as athletes, were not use to asking why to the coach. If you came from football, you are familiar with the conversation that happens among team mates;

Player 1: "Hey, why are we doing this?"

Player 2: "Because coach said to do it."

Then you did it with no questions. You often did it so many times you didn't have to think about doing it let a long the reason for why you were doing it. We are also love our X's and O's and the simplicity of knowing what step we were in the process of the play. You knew the overall reason of why you were running the play, to score or to stop them from scoring, but we never really knew why the whole process was set-up the way it was. Both of those things are the reason why we are a nation of emerging (that is a polite way of saying slightly better than average) coaches. We have a bad coaching culture. We are trapped in a cycle of "Because I said so" or "We've always done it this way" that has lasted for generations of coaches. These traits are passed down through the coaching tree because it once worked in the 60's for that one coaching great. Those two statements above might have worked for coaches in the past but now, we are dealing with different kinds of athletes.

Information Overload is one Reason Why...
The last two generation of players no longer respond to the old "Because I said to do it this way" mindset. Athletes, heck ALL of us, have the answer to any question at our fingertips. Think about it, any question you have can be answered by the internet and that is everywhere all the time.

Boom! In your face, sucka!

The traditional path of information gathering, which includes trusting our coaches, is obsolete. Even you as the coach are constantly looking for the reason of why. When you see a move,  or technique on TV, the internet, or from an opposing team your first thought is usally "Holy shit that was awesome!" quickly followed by the important question "Why did they do that?"

This takes us down the information rabbit hole, it starts with a few scribbles on a notepad, then a google search, followed by a few YouTube videos, and then maybe an actual coaching website with a fee. You do all of this in the search for the answer of why they did it and you come to your own conclusions.

Now, do a bit of personal reflection. How do you present it to your team? Does the process include why they are doing it?

How to Coach the Why

There is no one right way to achieve coaching the why. The important thing is to coach it and coach it well. Below is a quick list of ways I've been able to coach it successfully;

Coach it like a boss, son!

- Before you plan your session stop and ask yourself 'Why are we doing this?'. Whatever the conclusion is, make sure it is included in your brief to the squad. Why they are doing it should be a short and clear presentation lasting no more then 30 seconds. This will help with not over explaing it and losing the focus of the group.

- Make sure you include it in your practice plan. Use it as a question to your team and see what you get back. This is often a good way to see it from a different point of view. It also gives you an idea of how well you're explaning it to them. Don't forget to listen, they might teach you something.

- Highlight why you are doing something on film. Look for examples, either in your games or pro games, and draw attention to it. Don't just explain one point or action but expand on it to include how it effected the next couple of phases. Film doesn't lie so it is a great tool to catch real time results of what you coached in the week building up to match day. Create a dialogue around the why of an action.

- Make asking why a part of your coaching staff's culture. You should be looking to constantly develop yourself and the coaches around you. You would be kidding yourself if you thought you and your staff had all the right answers, and this is often a death blow to a team who's staff  share that mindset. Encourage your coaches to ask why of you and each other in a constructive way. This has often brought some good debate and new ideas to an old technique that made players and coaches alike better.

Regardless of how you get there, never forget to coach the why. We as a whole need to change our coaching culture and it starts by creating a positive dialect between players and coaches on why we are doing the things we do on the pitch. These are different athletes now, so we need to be different coaches.

See you pitch side

6-1-14 Good for the Game/Bad for the Game

Its time for good for the game/bad for the game. This is a weekly review of all things rugby broken down into what I deem good for the sport and bad for it. It's pretty simple...

Good for the Game:
1. Premiership Final
I won't ruin the ending for you but let me just say you are in for one cracking match! Saracens, coming off a spanking from Toulon the week before, were out to prove something. Northampton looked to tie the bow on their great season. Both teams didn't want to give an inch and it showed with smashing tackles and all out there attack from both squads. If you haven't seen this match yet, find it, watch it and enjoy!

2. College Rugby Championship on NBC (and their sister networks)
This tournament has grown in every important way. The crowds keep getting bigger, which means more people are paying attention to the game and becoming fans. The competition has improved, both in player skills and in team parity. But, the one thing I enjoyed the most was the celebration of the rugby player and not the glorification of the part-time crossover athlete who happens to be on the team for this one event. The true rugby player, once thought of as a second class athlete, is starting to come into his own and showcase all the dynamic aspects that is required to be skilled on match day. Don't believe me? Go back and watch the first year, you'll see what I'm talking about.

Bad for the Game:
1. CRC Marketing and women's tournament
It does bother me, in a very big way, that this event is celebrated as a 'national championship' when a very large number of good schools ( St. Mary's, Arkansas State come to mind) aren't invited to this event because they don't have the alumni to support ticket sales. If anything this should be called the the Commercial Rugby Championship as it is geared to one thing, making money. Which I'm fine with, just don't pretend the teams you see on TV are the cream of the crop when, if you follow any kind of rugby in America, you know isn't the case. Also, playing in an empty stadium on a poorly executed web cast can't be fun either. As for the women's side of the game why do they continue not to show their finals? We are aware that our women's team is the only hope we have for Olympic medal, right? We should be celebrating these athletes and encouraging the growth in the women's game. I have a feeling that either one of the women's national team's could do for our sport what the '99 women's national team did for soccer.

2. Super 7s
Why do we here in America feel like we need to attempt to make the great sport of rugby better by tampering with it to make it look like football? I don't know who won the thing, who played in it or if it was even enjoyable to watch. But you can't call it '7s' if you break it up into four quarters with a halftime. It kills the soul of 7s which is you need to make your chances count because you don't have the time to wait for another one. Also, the fatigue the players are subjected to must diminish the skill to the point where it becomes hard to watch. Leave 7s alone, it will sell itself without the help of our American sports business models.


See you pitch side!