Finding the fun in fundamentals
If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society. – Piaget
Take a moment, close your eyes and try to remember the times in practice when your coach would pull you aside to stress the importance of getting the fundamentals right. You probably thought then that you were being singled out for no fair reason, or why does jumping off the left foot matter that much, and/or you just wanted to play, scrimmage, In fact, my guess is this memory might conjure up a little anxiousness, perhaps some annoyance, and hopefully some laughs.
As someone who believes fundamentals truly matter and is blessed to work with kids of all ages on a daily basis in sports, I’ve come to accept that the way the majority of us felt back in the day about fundamentals is identical to how most kids today feel about fundamentals; They are boring and unnecessary and can we just play!
Therein lies the classic situation I call the ‘coaches conundrum’. The realization that anytime coaches take time during practice to focus on the importance of fundamentals, they will be inevitably sacrificing a small portion of excitement within each player. However, if you don’t take the time to get the fundamentals right, well, I’m sure anyone reading this know what that slippery, frustrated road looks like.
Alas, a real life coaching paradox that occurs every day, wherever there is practice going on. This challenge is not relegated to any one sport but rather to all sports in all countries all the time.
So what’s the solution?
I suspect most reading this would believe me when I tell you that there is not a magic bullet I know of that can provide a complete solve for this complicated challenge. Instead, I believe most honest coaches would tell you, practices are really a continuous state of testing and failing but always observing and learning. The genesis of any hypothesis we create or conclusions declared are born from the experiences, lessons we’ve learned. The following insight below is a simple but important one I’d like to share I hope all coaches, parents, and educators will consider giving it a shot. Like praising players, it costs nothing but the impact is huge.
So without further ado, a look behind Coach Bels curtain,
Find the fun in fundamentals.
Last April, I was asked by a good friend to attend to the first lacrosse practice of the year for 1st and 2nd graders. Like most volunteer coaches, he had bravely raised his hand to coach a group of young kids most of which had little to no experience. And while he played the sport his whole entire life, he too had not had much experience when it came to coaching the sport.
After some initial warm-ups, the group of roughly 60 boys broke out into four groups for some ground balls lines. After a few minutes, I observed that many of the boys in the one of the groups were not really partaking in the drill. In fact, I think it was about only a quarter of the boys who were really engaged. The rest of the gang were either going through the motions or repurposing their lacrosse stick as light sabers as they battled to the end. I also heard some loud laughter. It came from two of the kids who were supposed to be in the line drill but instead relocated themselves on the middle of the hill that abutted the field. These 2 first grade boys had tentatively suspended their desire to hunt ground balls for the moment and replaced it with the act of rolling down the hill. As I stood there observing them, I noticed both boys laughing loudly and smiling as they cruised down the hill at a fairly decent speeds with no lacrosse sticks in sight.
Now, the majority of coaches I know would see this as unbecoming behavior and immediately reprimand the boys for their actions. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong to do so. I mean, we all can agree that a coach’s job is to teach and how can a coach effectively teach when players are horsing around doing barrel rolls down a hill.
Having been invited to this practice to help my friend, I saw an opportunity to do just that. I asked him, if we could make a slight tweak to the ground ball drill. I suggested that instead of having the boys scoop up the ground ball and head back to the end of the line, how about:
Any player who runs hard towards the ball, calls out ‘ball’ as they scoop it up must then super fast back to the base, drop their stick, sprint up the hill, and do the best darn barrel roll they have in them. Alas, for every successful ground ball, you get one barrel roll.
I asked one the coaches to roll out a ball for me to which I charged at like there was no tomorrow, roared ‘ball’ as I scooped it up then turned to run towards the hill where I dropped my stick, and in a demonstration of passion sprinted up the hill. Knowing I had the full attention of the kids in that group, I fervently dropped for what many would consider a best-in-class barrel roll.
“Thump. Roll, Roll, Roll, Roll, Roll, and then came the Thump again.
There I was, a 40-year-old man rolling down a moderately sized hill on a cold rainy April weekend in a practice I wasn’t even the coach for trying to show these boys, barrel rolls?
William Arthur Ward, an inspiring American, author and teacher once noted;
‘the mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires”.
