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Dear Athletic Support: At what point should a coach stop working a team so hard and just let them have fun? I think my daughter’s basketball team is there. They’ve only won one game so far this year, but the coach just keeps working them harder and harder. We’ve gone weeks where we’ve had extra practices in the morning. Sometimes, she even makes the girls come in on the weekends. I get it: you must work hard if you’re going to get any better, but we just keep working and we’re not getting any better! We can barely get the basketball in bounds without tripping over the three-point line. In all these practices, I find it hard to believe this coach couldn’t teach the girls something as simple as an inbounds play. Recently, the coach has started demeaning the girls from the bench during games. It’s obvious she’s just as worn out as they are (she is working really hard and putting in long hours too), but I just can’t stomach her speaking down to my daughter. I really wish she’d cut practices short, send everyone home early, and try to make the best out of a bad situation.
— Time To Give Up?
Dear Light: This question hits very close to home for me. My first season as a head football coach we didn’t win a single game.
0-10.
Nothing Nada. Zilch. The big goose egg.
And let me tell you, it was tough.
During that season, I did exactly what your daughter’s coach is doing. I pushed harder, hoping that the extra work would pay off and we’d miraculously win a game somewhere down the line.
We didn’t.
We never even came close. Most every game was a blowout. But I just kept pushing.
I’m afraid that was a mistake. The better thing to do would’ve been to cut practices short and try to make football as fun as possible until the end of the season.
The reason I didn’t, though, was because it felt too much like giving up. I thought that if I stopped asking the boys to practice late, run the extra wind sprints, and come in on Sundays—they’d see right through me. They’d know that I’d quit on the season. That I’d quit on them.
So I stuck it out, and yes, it was painful.
The next year, we only won one game, but we were competitive in almost all of them. During that second year, I never even questioned whether I should’ve been working the kids so hard. They wanted it. They could feel that we were getting better, we were getting close to where we wanted to be.
What does that say about the first season? I don’t know. Maybe we wouldn’t have won that one game in season two without grinding it out. Maybe we would’ve won three games if I let them take it easy.
Who knows?
That’s coaching. That’s life. You make the choices you can, and you roll with it.
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