You Can't Play Today's Game By Yesterday's Rules

Yesterday I had the privilege to hear Rod Olson speak at the Wisconsin Wrestling Federation Annual Meeting. "Coach O" is a former football coach who has organized his life to help coaches understand what is most important - teaching character. His presentation, called "Motivating the 21st Century Athlete," spoke directly to me as a coach.

When I was a junior in college, wrestling at the University of Wisconsin, we landed the number one recruiting class in the nation. We had 8-10 "can't miss" athletes that committed to our program in hopes of becoming national champions. Needless to say, they didn't completely live up to the expectations that the wrestling community had.

I saw something different in that group of athletes. I sensed that they felt entitled to something, but I couldn't put my finger on it. As we were striving for excellence, individuals from that recruiting class fell by the wayside.

When I finished competing, I started to look at athletics from a different perspective, that being a coach. I saw how people were motivated and learned differently. At first, I didn't know what to make of this phenomenon. I come from an "old school" mentality where everyone worked hard and followed authority and rules. This is not the case for the 21st century athlete.

Through a variety of education classes, I became aware of multiple intelligence levels, different learning styles and different teaching techniques. I was very motivated and inspired to reach out to this new kind of athlete. The most important lesson I learned in education is to know your students.

Coach O reconfirmed many of my personal coaching philosophies and helped me add to them. We do, in fact, need to develop healthy relationships with our athletes to become successful coaches. Also, we need to treat them all as individuals with different interests, desires, motivating factors, strengths, etc. Developing a "system" where everyone does the same routine is out-of-date and no longer the best practice.

In trying to understand the today's athlete, think about how they have been raised and what society where grew up provides for them. In college, I played massive amounts of Play Station and can identify with a teenager's obsession to gaming devices. However, consider what these machines are teaching these teenagers. Think about it...what does every little kid do when they are losing in their favorite game? They hit the reset button. You can even buy memory cards to save the good games while you get rid of the bad ones. You can go online and find short cuts to success (they even call them "cheat" sheets). This attitude is not limited to X-Box or Play Station. Today, there are no consequences for losing. At youth tournaments, every participate gets a trophy. If you show up, pay your money and do the absolute minimum, you get a reward. This is counter to what I experienced as a young athlete.

Today's athlete is starving for relationship! Everything that they experience is about not being in relationship. They go to practice then go home. Text messages, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are great tools and extremely convenient, but are eliminating real relationships. Real relationships require communication and transparency.

To be a successful coach today, I must change my focus. I love the old school mentality, but I need to make adjustments to reach today's athletes. My role as coach is about relationship. I can't change the entire youth population, but I can meet them where they are at. If I care more about the lives of my athletes than I do their athletic achievements I will seek who they are. If I care more about them as men and women than I do about them as players I will try to capture their hearts.

The secret is relationship. It is the basis of motivation.

"Value people over productivity" ~ Jerry Moore