The Smart Coaching Series on the Coach and Coordinator Podcast is designed to help coaches improve over the course of the season in the areas outside of the X&O’s. Coaches need to be able to take care of people and this podcast will give pause for reflection, as well as generate ideas for the coach to be smart about how he improves his players and team.

This week on the Smart Coaching series, Grabowski, Dr. Gearity and Dr. Kuklick focus on the issue of player stress, giving the coach the opportunity to not only be looking in the athletic perspective, but the human perspective that will ultimately affect them the rest of their lives. They discuss the importance of watching the different types of stressors for players and give different ideas of how a coach may find ways to monitor stress in their players, as well as the ability to get involved and help them deal with stress.

Show Notes

01:20 The different stresses an athlete may face

02:00 The different types of stress

03:35 Sources of stress

05:55 Seeing the subtle signs

07:00 Dr. Brian Gearity’s example

09:20 Tools for athletes

14:00 Keith’s truth statements

15:20 Communicate to the athlete authentically

16:40 Share personal tools

17:30 What does a coach do?

19:25 There is support

22:10 Subtle example

26:05 Emotion affecting stress

27:25 Distracting the mind

29:30 Changing the environment

30:30 Making it creative

31:35 Make it different

32:50 Talk to them after the fact

33:45 Final thoughts

34:00 Make a stress plan

35:05 Be cognizant

Bios:

Dr. Brian Gearity and Dr. Clayton Kuklick, professors of sport coaching at the University of Denver. Dr. Gearity has been the director of the Master of Arts in Sport Coaching program at Denver since 2014. Before teaching at Denver, Dr. Gearity spent five years at the University of Southern Mississippi as an assistant professor of Sport Coaching Education.  As a coach, Dr. Gearity’s specialty is in the strength and conditioning side. Dr. Gearity worked as a strength coach at the University of Tennessee for nine years and received his PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Tennessee in 2009.

Dr. Kuklick works as a clinical assistant professor for the Sport Coaching program at Denver. The previous two years, Dr. Kuklick has worked as an assistant professor of Athletic Coaching Education at West Virginia University. He also previously received his PhD in Human Performance and Recreation: Administration and Teaching at the University of Southern Mississippi in 2014. In coaching, Dr. Kuklick has worked as an assistant coach for baseball teams at Shepherd University, Georgia College and State University, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Kutztown University. Dr. Kuklick has also worked as a head coach for several college baseball summer leagues.

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