A personal insight by Becky Carlson into the journey to extraordinary coaching
Many Coaches can pinpoint their AHA moments. Their moments of sudden realization, inspiration, or insight into better coaching. These moments often coincide with a renewed commitment to their coaching and contribution to their sport.
In a recent interview with Athlete Assessments, Head Coach of Quinnipiac University’s Women’s Rugby Team, Becky Carlson, shared her AHA moment. It is a story of finding an unlikely connection, and proves that we can all make adjustments in our behavior to achieve results we didn’t think were possible.
“When I was 14, I began helping my Dad teach adult tennis classes. Aside from being a commander in the navy he was one of two head pros at our club. After four years coaching with my Dad, I began spending summers teaching youth tennis clinics for ten hours a day six days a week. In my 9am class I had players ranging from 4-11 years of age. Parents would usually drop off late and arrive early to watch the last of whatever closing drill I had chosen for the day. One of the students who would casually drop in was the Grandson of a very popular older female player at our club whom I will call “Sylvia”. Sylvia wanted so badly for her Grandson Luke to take to tennis since she herself spent so much time at the club socializing and ever so often catching a mean game of 2.0 doubles.
She would casually bring Luke by and insert him into camp by giving the pro shop twenty [dollars] to let him be part of the group. Luke was adorable and shy but always smiling and wore the same purple tank top every drop in. What Luke had in his charming grin was not nearly enough to make up for the glacial pace at which he operated. Aside from his pace I would award him a zero in coordination and application of any kind of athletic instruction. He was small and terribly lacking in sport experience and even had trouble with our opening skill of balancing one tennis ball on his racquet. Sylvia was a doting Grandmother who had zero tolerance for any recognition that her grandson was not the next Andre Agassi. As a paying customer I chose to approach it with patience and understanding.
Whether it was a forehand, backhand, serve, volley or even picking up balls to be put in the hopper, Luke struggled with all of the above and had a special talent for collecting advice from his instructors that would unfortunately go unapplied no matter how many times he was told to ‘keep your eye on the ball’.
One afternoon Sylvia showed up during volleys to watch her Grandson stand in line that looked less like a line than a big mob behind a service line. Each player who could barely see over the net would stand in ready position and receive three balls. When it was Luke’s turn he got up and defied all the instruction to give the ball a light punch and would just swing at will almost a day behind on his swing timing. With each missed swing his smile did not fade and he would just stare as if to say, “okay, maybe next time, this is fun.” It had been three camp sessions and Luke had not made contact yet.
After listening to Sylvia and even some of the other kids tell him to watch the ball all the way onto his racquet, it dawned on me that Luke was always just focused on the instructor looking for a smile back no matter what the outcome. He was so fixated on making the feeder happy that he never took his eyes off of us.
He cared little about competition but I think a part of him knew he had no passion for tennis but he would try anyway for Grandma. I walked over to the table where all their lunches sat and pulled up a red sharpie used to write out the schedule for the week on a sign so the parents could read it and limit their unnecessary questions to 500 after every session.
I took the marker and colored over almost half the ball. I returned to the net and said, “Want to see something cool, Luke?” He nodded in agreement. I said, “I’m going to juggle these three tennis balls and I want you to keep your eye on just the red one and when the red one comes at you, I want you to give it a punch with your racquet. Luke nodded yes once against but he was no longer smiling he was just staring at the badly colored red tennis ball. I began juggling on the other side of the net facing him and he watched with intense focus. I noticed all the other kids had gone silent as well. I started talking about how Luke had such a great eye and how he was going to hit the red one and be the first to do so. Suddenly I let the other two balls fall and the half red ball was lofted over the net to Luke. His racquet met the ball right on the sweet spot and he volleyed it directly down the line. He put his arms up in the air and stared at the ball hitting the back fence. I put my hand out for a big high five and all the kids were cheering for Luke. In that moment I did something I had never seen any teacher of mine do, but it worked. It went against every method I was taught in how to make contact but it just so happened that the way I was taught was of no interest to Luke. This was a small but pivotal moment in which I thought, for the first time, I wanted to be a coach.”
Finding the keys to unlock an athlete’s development is the challenge for all coaches. Each athlete responds in a unique way to our technical drills and exercises. Often the stock-standard drills you may have been taught yourself by your coach, may not reach an athlete you are coaching and you will be challenged to innovate.
Successful coaches I know have developed their own unique learning tools. Becky saw a small window into a different way a young athlete processed his information and created a tailored solution to meet his need. In doing this, Becky achieved so much more than a simple improvement in technical execution. I remember a similar moment my coach Tim created for me, and this has become a life memory and lesson still serving me today. This is our role as a coach.
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