A recent story from a dear friend and coaching colleague has inspired this blog.

As a field hockey coach in an independent high school environment, she coached the third team. Many of the girls on the team are international students. Some have never seen the game, let alone played it. For many, English is their second language. Winning is not this coach’s priority; it is about developing basic skills like communication and confidence, which are transferable on and off the field.

She taught these girls the basic technical skills of the game, including stopping and hitting the ball, dribbling and tackling and scoring. She then moved on to establish the key technical elements, including team-based posessional play, using and exploiting space and set pieces. At this point, she felt the team might be ready for its first game.

On the final attacking play of the game, the right wing picked up the ball, and the player dutifully crossed it to a player waiting in the goalmouth. Not known for her stick-stopping skills or her ability to chain two skills together i.e. stopping and hitting the ball, the coach watched with baited breath to see the player stop the ball perfectly and quickly execute a deft turn with the ball, away from the goal mouth and hit it with speed and precision back toward her own defensive end. The goal that was a certainty and that would have tied the match never happened. The team lost.

What would your response as the coach have been? To put your head in your hands, shake you head and scream, ‘What are you doing? You lost us the game.’

Or would you have done something different?

In this instance, the coach took an approach straight out of the positive coaching 101 rule book. She noticed what it actually was the player did unbelievably well during the process of executing the skill. The player stopped the ball dead on her stick. She moved it quickly and with control onto her strong side and hit the ball hard on the sweet spot of her stick at least 30 yards and out of what the player perceived to be dangerous territory. The coach smiled and applauded the player’s efforts. She even turned to one or two of the other players reminding them what the player had just done well.

As soon as the coach and player had the opportunity to speak, within minutes of the final whistle, the coach raised her alarms aloft with success written all over her face and shouted ‘you did it, you did it, You stopped it sweetly and hit it so hard. I am so proud of you.’ The player beamed and said, ‘I know I did.’ And then with a fairly sheepish look on her face went onto apologize, saying, ‘I am so sorry, I just got so excited when I stopped it, I forget which way I was going, I just I knew I needed to hit it.’  Coach and player then discussed how they could help the new player remember whether she was on attack or defender, and which way she was shooting.

At the end of the short, yet productive feedback session, the coach and player went their separate ways. The player knew she had acquired and could use these skills in a game situation and had strategies for remembering the direction. The coach knew the player’s confidence was slightly higher, and that because of her success also knew she had fallen in love with the game a little bit more.  

So, what can a football coach take from this field hockey coach? It is a player development feedback model that adopts four key stages. Inspired by work done at the English Football Association, the process is coach-led and player-centered:

 

• WWW - What went well
• EBI – Even better if
• NT – Next time
• SLL – Success looks like

 

Using the process consistently well and effectively takes time. It takes time to practice, to reflect on, to improve and master. It is time worth investing if you wish to model positive coaching practice, not just from the sideline, but every line.

Sarah McQuade is an independent coach education consultant, owner and director of e.t.c coaching consultants and co-director with The Coach Learning Group. To learn more about accessing how-to coach skills workshops click the Coaching Skills button at www.etcoachingconsultants.com.