YBCA

Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory suggests that people are motivated when they have feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. SDT proposes that intrinsic motivators enhance motivation better than extrinsic motivators, and Dan Pink in Drive cited numerous studies to support the importance of intrinsic motivators compared to extrinsic motivators (rewards and punishments) for any task involving even rudimentary cognitive skills; for an algorithmic task, that is one where the person simply follows a set of instructions, punishment and rewards improved performance.

Some coaches approach youth sports as an algorithmic task: They want players who simply follow instructions. However, I would contend that excellence in sports depends greatly on creativity and adaptivity, which would be enhanced by intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic motivators.

While many have jumped on the SDT and intrinsic motivation bandwagon, few people are completely intrinsically motivated. Is that a bad thing? Teams attempt to win games, which would be an extrinsic motivator. Players want playing time, which be an extrinsic motivator. Very few people are completely intrinsically motivated, which would mean that the locus of control is internal and regulated solely by interest, enjoyment, and the inherent satisfaction of participation. I am fairly intrinsically motivated, yet I finally decided that I wanted something (a doctorate) to show for the hours that I spent studying and learning. Is that bad?

As a subset of SDT, Ryan and Deci (2000) introduced the Organismic Integration Theory (OIT). Within the OIT, extrinsic motivation exists on a spectrum (well, all motivation exists on the spectrum with amotivation to the far left and intrinsic motivation to the far right).

Extrinsic motivation is divided into four regulatory styles that move from more external to the left to more internal to the right. This is a more realistic approach to motivation, as it acknowledges the influence of extrinsic factors, while also acknowledging internal perceptions of causality.

A true external regulation is a reward/punishment environment. A player plays hard to avoid running. These are the types of players who we want to avoid. Ryan and Deci (2000) originated the SDT in the belief that people have “an inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capacities, and to explore and to learn” (p. 70). Therefore, in our natural state, we our intrinsically motivated; therefore, the need is not to motivate someone, but to avoid extinguishing that motivation. A child is naturally motivated to play, to move, and to be social, all reasons for joining a team. However, many practices are organizing to ignore or eliminate these things, which leads to reduced feelings of motivation for the child. Therefore, the coach feels compelled to motivate the child, often using a reward/punishment approach, and soon the child is externally motivated with an external regulation.

Slightly to the right, introjected regulation is still somewhat external, but the individual has more feelings of control. Rather than being motivated by rewards and punishment, “behaviors are performed to avoid guilt or to attain ego enhancements like pride” (p. 72). A player knows that his parents spent money for his personal trainer, so he trains hard because he feels guilty wasting his parent’s money, not because he is motivated to improve. Coaches often will make players feel guilty, whether consciously or subconsciously, or players will work to get a positive word from a coach so they have a sense of pride. These feelings are internal, but they are motivated by external reasons, often someone else’s feelings toward the individual. Coaches should not work to create environments where players play for the coach and his or her approval.

Moving to the right is identified regulation, which is when the player consciously values a goal. For instance, a player works hard because he wants the team to win or he wants to earn a scholarship. The goal is external, but he is making the conscious choice within himself that the goal has personal value.

Finally, just short of intrinsic motivation is integrated regulation. Integrated regulation is very similar to intrinsic regulation, but there remains an external goal. In sports, when we speak of intrinsic motivation, we really hope to reach an integrated regulation. There will always be an external goal. Very few people participate in sports with an obliviousness to the scoreboard. The more amateur the sport, the more likely for the motivators to be intrinsic. When a child plays on his own, he is likely intrinsically motivated, as the purpose is the activity itself. In integrated regulation, there is still the internal locus of causality and the individual participates for his own purposes, but there is some external goal. As a simplified explanation, this is the difference between going out in your front yard and shooting around purely for fun without any consequences, and going out in your front yard and shooting around until you make 50 shots. You control your effort; you can stop before you reach the goal if you choose; you made the decision to shoot and set your own goal; but there is the external motivator of hitting 50 shots.

Everyone exists somewhere along the spectrum. As a coach of young children, the goal should be to create environments that maintain the intrinsic motivation rather than creating a controlling environment which causes the player to lose his own motivations. With slightly older children, where external goals become important, the goal is to create environments that move the athlete further and further to the right, so the players make their own goals and direct their own efforts for their own purposes, not because they are controlled by some external force, even if it is their own perceptions of other’s feelings.

By fostering an environment with autonomy, competence, and relatedness, we can create environments that nudge athletes to the right along the spectrum.

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

In competitive athletics, caring appears to have a negative connotation. We are not looking for caring coaches, but competitive coaches who can advance a child’s athletic career. Caring tends to be associated with soft, and everyone knows that the tough teams win. Over and over, I witness coaches screaming at children for mistakes, while parents sit idly by in the stands, shaking their heads up and down because their son did make a bad turnover. 

Joe Keller was vilified in Play Their Hearts Out by George Dohrmann. I watched Keller coach, and I use that term with the loosest possible meaning, one game. Demetrius Walker, Keller’s famed prodigy, was an 8th grader and his team of southern California All-Stars was playing a local team from Sacramento in a tournament in Portland. Keller stalked the sideline, ranting and raving, yelling at players from his team and the other teams, and turning to talk trash to the crowd. I was astonished. At one point, with the game well in hand, he called a timeout, stormed on the court, grabbed a player around the shoulders and proceeded to scream at him for a bad pass or a missed screen. At another moment, as future UCLA forward Brandon Lane dribbled down court, he yelled at his player to “do him, take the ball from him, he can’t play with you.” When the Sacramento team’s coach, assisted by a California state-championship winning high-school coach, called timeout, Keller turned to the crowd and said, “Who does this guy think he is trying to coach with me?”

I looked around in the stands at the parents of these players on his team. I could not believe that anyone would allow their child to play for a guy like this. I was shocked, but not too surprised, as I had to hold back my assistant coach one time when we were coaching U9s because he wanted to go after the opposing coach who had screamed and belittled his own son so much that he was in tears on the sideline. This coach who had his son in tears is a well-respected AAU coach.

This is the environment that many appear to accept, tolerate, and even embrace. Caring is not an overwhelming concern for most parents caught up in the advancement of their child’s career. However, nothing about caring has to be uncompetitive. Caring includes “the ability to reduce anxiety, willingness to listen, rewarding good behavior, being a friend, and appropriate use of criticism” (Newton et al., 2007). The caring climate was defined as “the extent to which individuals perceive a particular setting to be interpersonally inviting, safe, supportive, and able to provide the experience of being valued and respected” (Newton et al., 2007). Is this climate uncompetitive? Would seeking a coach who creates such a climate negatively impact one’s athletic aspirations? Is such a climate soft?

Our first goal in youth sports should be to create an environment that maintains the child’s interest and enjoyment in the activity. According to Ryan and Deci, the more amateur the level of sport, the more likely it was that the motives for engaging in it were intrinsic. Therefore, young children begin to play with an intrinsic motivation – they participate for their own interest, enjoyment, and the inherent satisfaction from participating (Ryan & Deci, 2000). However, a “controlling coaching climate, contingent reward motivators, and evaluative pressures are all environmental factors that are at serious risk for undermining sports participation” (Ryan & Deci, p. 4).

A caring climate, however, has been shown to correlate positively to a positive attitude toward the coach and teammates, caring behaviors, enjoyment, and commitment in youth soccer players (Fry & Gano-Overway, 2010). Therefore, if the goal is to increase enjoyment and commitment to the sport, a caring climate has a positive effect on the goal. In terms of competitive aspirations, few players will ascend to a high level of sports participation if they do not enjoy the activity, and nobody excels without a commitment to the activity.

According to Fry and Gano-Overway (2010), a coach who emphasizes positive reinforcement, provides appropriate feedback and creates a task-involving climate is more more likely to have players who enjoy the experience and continue participation. A task-involving climate means that success is defined as improvement, value is placed on effort and learning, satisfaction comes from working hard, errors are part of the learning process, and evaluations are absolute and based on progress rather than normative to peers (Ames & Archer, 1988).

Caring is characterized by engrossment and motivational displacement (Fry & Gano-Overway, 2010). One attends to the needs of others by listening and sympathizing. To create a safe, supportive environment, coaches should make every player feel important in some way. This involves talking to the player as a person, and not just a basketball player. It may involve giving lesser players a certain role to give them a feel of belonging with the team rather than feeling like an outcast or afterthought. This means that coaches need to set the tone for acceptable behavior and not allow any negative banter between players. Coaches must create a team where there is mutual trust and respect between coaches and players and players and players.

The easiest way to create this climate is to model it and set the expectations early. To model it, a coach can arrive early and give every player a high five as he or she arrives. While a simple gesture, this shows a sense of caring on the part of the coach. To set the expectations, a coach can discuss respect for others and the environment that he desires (demands).

When coaches scream and yell at players and leave them in tears, the players do not feel safe. This is not a learning experience in toughness or tough love. This is a poor environment for children. Instead, coaches should emphasize a safe, respectful, supportive for all players to enhance feelings of enjoyment and intentions to continue participation. Before a player can excel, he or she must enjoy the activity and commit to it. A caring climate increases these feelings.

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

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This weekend marked the first Change the Game conference sponsored by Boston University’s School of Education, Edgework Consulting, and Up2Us Sports. The idea behind the conference was to examine Sports System re-Design (SSrD).

There are three primary ways to affect change and achieve desired outcomes within a sports organization: coach education, curriculum, and changing the game. Everyone changes the game without realizing it. Youth basketball leagues prevent zone defenses or prevent full-court presses; these are ways that leagues re-design the game to create desired outcomes. Softball instituted the 10-run rule, baseball uses a tee, volleyball invented the libero: these are all re-designs of the game to achieve desired outcomes.

Sports System re-Design is redesigning the sport experience to get a desired outcome. I was honored to be a mentor at the event due to my experience founding the Playmakers Basketball Development League. The PBDL incorporated the basic ideas of SSrD to achieve several desired outcomes:

1. Coach cooperation
2. Emphasis on skill development, not winning
3. Increased opportunities to perform skills
4. Exposure to better coaching
5. Equal playing time
6. More court time/less sitting

An  unintended outcome that have arisen due to the structure of the league has been the reduction of negative parental involvement. While many leagues complain about the behavior of parents during games due to yelling at players and officials, and sometimes each other, these problems seem to go away with the PBDL due to its inherent structure.

When the organizers described SSrD, they suggested that re-design is “experimenting with discrete elements in your sport system to achieve specific outcomes.” Essentially, this means:

1. Making the path to the outcome easier
2. Making the path to the outcome unavoidable
3. Making the path to undesired outcomes more difficult

By playing 3v3, skill development becomes easier. More playing time and additional opportunities to perform skills becomes unavoidable. At the same time, the structure of the league helps to reduce coach and parent ego involvement, which creates a more positive experience for each child. All of these outcomes are achieved without sacrificing the integrity of the game, as no skill in basketball requires more than three players.

Furthermore, 3v3 answers many of the questions posed by inexperienced or unskilled players. Should we allow zone defense? Should we allow presses? These types of decisions are negated by reducing the number of players on the court.

Throughout the conference, attendees extended their imagination and arrived at innovative solutions to complex problems in youth sports. For instance, why not have youth baseball players pitch to each other to increase the likelihood of hit balls and to eliminate walks? Why not treat quarters in basketball or hockey or innings in baseball like sets in volleyball? Rather than worry about a 20-point rule or running clock during a blowout, play first to three sets.

When working through these ideas, attendees were given four directions or guidelines:

1. Go for quantity
2. Try wishing
3. Practice “Yes, and….” rather than “but…”
4. Absolutely no discounting of ideas

With that in mind, what crazy ideas could a basketball league adopt to make the league better?

The organizers introduced a five-step model of SSrD:

1. Understand SSrD
2. Current reality assessment
3. Goal setting
4. Re-Design
5. Formalize your SSrD

In my example, my current reality assessment was that there had to be a better way to develop youth basketball players. I believe that coaches volunteer of their time because they want to help children and provide a good experience. I do not believe that any coaches originally sign up to volunteer with a youth team because they want to win a meaningless trophy or create a poor environment for children. However, when games start, and coaches coach in the fish bowl, every coach wants to show his or her competence. Since we judge coaches based on won-loss record, coaches are invested in the success of their teams. There is ego involvement associated with winning games. I wanted to devise a way to remove the ego involvement and return coaches to their original state: creating a good environment for children and helping all the players.

Beyond the coaches, I wanted to create a game where coaches do not hide players and all players are more involved in the game. I wanted to increase the number of repetitions, much as Daniel Coyle (The Talent Code) alludes to futsal as an important element in the development of Brazilian soccer players due to the increased number of repetitions.

How would you assess your current league? What problems would you attempt to fix? If anything was possible, and no idea would be dismissed, what would you do? How would you re-design your league or your sport to achieve your desired outcomes?

That was the objective of the conference: To get coaches from a variety of organizations to imagine possibilities to improve youth sports and to set in motion these changes by inspiring these coaches and league administrators. The conference was a huge success and a great event for everyone who attended. If you want information on the next Change the Game conference, check out their blog.

Imagine. Experiment. Assess.

What would you like to see in a youth basketball league? How can we make the game better?

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

At the Change the Game conference at Boston University, Lou Bergholz led with the question: What is the greatest game that you have ever played? What made it great? He referenced the video below from Improv Everywhere:

What makes a game great? More importantly, does that question guide our coaching? Is it important to create a great experience for our players?

If we took this approach, how would it change the game? How would we as parents and coaches act before, during, and after the game? Would coaches stall? Would coaches only play their best players? Would parents scream at the officials? Would parents coach from the stands? What would happen if the goal was to make every game the greatest game ever?

When I was at UCLA, I coached and managed the UCLA Special Olympics program. We played in events that were poorly attended and generally lacked enthusiasm. Then, one tournament at L.A. Trade Tech, a bunch of our coaches showed up at the game. Only two or three of us could coach on the bench, so the rest sat in the stands. However, rather than sitting, they stood and cheered. They brought signs. They cheered both teams, not just our team. They changed the entire atmosphere.

Suddenly, there was a P.A. announcer. As the game got close toward the end, the P.A. announcer got into the game, giving players nicknames and cheering into the microphone. The whole gym transformed. It was such a unique, special, and awesome experience that we adopted the monicker of the Fun Police after the old Nike commercials featuring Kevin Garnett, Tim Hardaway, and others. We designed bright yellow t-shirts and added Fun Police to the Special Olympics. We made it our program mission to make every event great for our program and the other athletes. A little enthusiasm, some cheering, bright t-shirts, and a general excitement for every game, tournament, or meet. My last two years with the program when we adopted this attitude are many of the best experiences of my life, and a lot of it started with a couple undergraduate students who got out of bed on a Saturday, drove downtown, and cheered for no other reasons than to make a couple Special Olympics athletes feel like rock stars.

Of all the games that I have played and coached, that’s the greatest game ever.

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

Originally published in Los Angeles Sports & Fitness, March/April 2012.

Parents frequently ask me about pushing their child. They are unsure of the fine line between offering encouragement and opportunities and pushing an activity onto their child. When children begin organized athletics, the parent almost always makes the decision, as few five, six, or seven year-olds know what they want to do; at the same time, almost any kind of activity is interesting to a child at that age. 

Once the child joins an organized sports team or league, and the child shows an interest in the activity, how much should a parent push? If all the other children are going to private trainers, should my child? If I do not take my child to extra lessons, am I failing my child or allowing him or her to fall behind? If I take my child to extra lessons, am I pushing the sport too much?

Parents know that practice is necessary for the child to improve. However, how much does an eight-year-old need to improve? Does he need to be the best player on his team or in his league? Is it better to play multiple sports even if it means not being the star in any of them?

An old blog on The Nation of Wimps web site differentiates spoiling one’s children from overparenting.

“Overparenting is driven by the demands of the adult. And it isn’t necessarily focused on things….A parent consumed by anxiety for a child’s achievement calls a teacher to protest a grade given to the student. Or sends a kid off to ballet camp with an eye to developing an array of extracurricular skills that will ultimately impress college admissions officers. It isn’t necessarily something the child has asked for. It is something that soothes the parental anxiety.”

I used to train a lot of young athletes. These players played on their team, but they or their parents believed that they needed more instruction or more practice. Rather than seek the additional practice on their own or by playing pick-up games at the park, they sought out individual or small-group training.

Nowadays, children do not seem to practice or play on their own. Their lives are scheduled from early childhood. Therefore, to practice outside of the team’s practice, a parent has to schedule the additional training. Is this a sign of overparenting?

My sister teaches at a private elementary school, so I hear frequently about parents calling about grades. Last summer, I taught an undergraduate course and saw the product of this overparenting. The students turned in terrible work and expected A’s. University students who did not spell check a paper were indignant when they did not receive an A. Of course they were. Their parents likely complained to their teachers all the way through high school, regardless of the quality of their work. My sister explained to a parent once that the student had not turned in homework for weeks and had not attended a single review/tutoring session that she had offered. The parent’s response was that the bad grade would hurt his high school application. The parent did not say, “Oh. I’m sorry. I will find out why my son is not doing his homework and make sure that he attends the tutoring sessions to catch up.” Instead, it was the teacher’s fault that the student could not be bothered to do his work.

As The Nation of Wimps blog continues:

“Overparented kids wind up without a sense of self. They grow up overly compliant. They lack coping skills because everything has been done for them by anxious parents. They’re weak from within, and it’s a pervasive weakness. The grow up risk-averse and unable to make decisions on their own. They, too, have a low tolerance for frustration.”

Through our interactions as coaches, parents, and teachers, we are setting up these children and teenagers for failure, often out of our best intentions. Athletes with a low tolerance for frustration are unlikely to succeed at a very high level. Developing talent is a process filled with frustration, as improvement requires practicing on the edge of one’s ability where mistakes are frequent. If these athletes lack coping skills, they will struggle to push themselves to improve, and they will struggle every time that they move up a level and face better competition. Nobody achieves a high level of success in any discipline without some struggles.

John Wooden is famous for his quote, “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” It seems like with this generation, parents, teachers, and coaches are afraid to allow children to fail. Making mistakes and failing is not bad, unless the person lacks the coping skills to handle the missteps. By not allowing children to fall flat on their faces, adults are interfering with the development of these coping skills. In terms of developing talented individuals, these skills are more important than constant and early success.

Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code, wrote on his blog about the new way to identify talent. The two factors are early ownership and grit.

“One pattern of successful athletes happens when they’re 13 or so, when they develop a sense of ownership of their training. For the ones who succeed, this age is when they decide that it’s not enough to simply be an obedient cog in the development machine — they begin to go farther, reaching beyond the program, deciding for themselves what their workouts will be, augmenting and customizing and addressing their weaknesses on their own.”

Overparenting would seem to exclude the opportunity for early ownership. If a parent’s anxiety leads him or her to sign the child up for more training, how does the child learn to take ownership for his or her development? Instead, these players tend to learn that to practice means to go to a lesson. They practice less because they never practice on their own. They are accustomed to having a coach or trainer direct their practice. These players will plateau because they lack the drive to go further and augment and customize their own workouts.

“Another tell is grit. This quality, investigated by the pioneering work of Angela Duckworth, refers to that signature combination of stubbornness, resourcefulness, creativity and adaptability that helps someone make the tough climb toward a longterm goal” (Coyle, 2012).

With overparenting, the child may not learn this stubbornness. If the parent gets the teacher to change a grade or transfers the player to a new team if he is not playing enough or taking enough shots, how does the player learn resourcefulness and adaptability? In the future, when facing those tough situations that require grit, will he have learned these lessons? If he lacks grit, will he handle and overcome frustrations?

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

In the talk below, author and entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann argues that real life moves too slowly for children raised in a video-game world. Rather than crying about the dreadful video games and their negative effects, we should embrace video games and the gamification of our society.

Zichermann mentions a talk by Andrea Kuszewski where she gave five reasons for games ability to develop fluid intelligence or the ability to solve problems.

1. Seek novelty
2. Challenge yourself
3. Think creatively
4. Do things the hard way
5. Network

In previous generations, these five things may have explained the popularity of youth sports. However, in this generation, these things are largely absent from youth sports. Rather than seek novelty, children specialize in one sport, and even one position, at a young age. Rather than challenging oneself, parents holdback children to give their child a competitive advantage, while coaches stack teams to win at all costs.  Rather than think creatively, players follow the coach’s script and are punished for creative plays. Rather than do things the hard way, players train with trainers and learn through repetitive block drills to ensure success. Rather than network with other children, children are, to quote my high-school cross country, “here to win, not to fraternize with other teams.”

When I was young, I learned the game, to a large degree, at Rollingwood Racquet Club. There was a half court with one hoop, and I played there every Sunday night at a minimum. I played against adults, college students, and high school players before I reached high school. I learned new moves and new shots because I was playing against older, taller, and stronger players, and I had to adjust to have any success.

My experience was normal, but today’s youth sports environment differs considerably. To find these novel, challenging, creative and social experiences, children increasingly avoid sports and gravitate toward video games for these experiences. How disappointing is it that playing video games provide these experiences better than sports? As society gamifies, the sporting world, and especially youth sports, appears to be one of the last industries to embrace these ideas.

Rather than focus on competition, specialization, all-star teams, and the other things that leagues, organizations, trainers, and coaches use to differentiate their programs, why not focus on these five ideas from video games? How can a youth sports organization create novel experiences? How can a coach or league encourage players to think creatively? How can a coach or league create challenges or do things the hard way? How can a coach or league make the team or league more social?

These are the types of questions that coaches and leagues need to ask and answer to make better experiences for the players.

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

Parents, coaches, and educators loathe video games for the very reason that makes video games successful: Video-game makers know how to engage children (and adults). They study the best ways to engage users and tweak games to make the games more engaging. Rather than complain about video games, educators, coaches, and league administrators should attempt to learn from the games, as I have written previously, because video games offer some positives for youth development.

In the video below, Tom Chatfield describes the ways in which video game designers engage players through an understanding of psychology and neurology.

In his talk, Chatfield highlights seven ways that video games engage players:

1. Experience bars measuring progress
2. Multiple long and short term aims
3. Rewards for effort (credit for trying; don’t punish mistakes)
4. Rapid, frequent clear feedback
5. An element of uncertainty – 25%
6. Windows of enhanced attention
7. Other people

In his talk, he makes up a game to illustrate his ideas. He says the game is to get 15 cupcakes. He says that a game designer could pick any number to create the game, but 5-20 works best. If a game has too many challenges, players lose interest. There needs to be some payoff for the effort, and if the game looks never-ending, it becomes de-motivating.

From a psychological perspective, many of these seven ways have to do with competence. The experience bar is not unlike the belt system in martial arts. The belts signify progress and an ascension to a new level. Few sports leagues have the same type of progressive system. Children get promoted based on age. There is no real system to demonstrate a player’s progress throughout a season or throughout a season in specific skills or overall skill level. 180 Shooter was designed around this idea with t-shirts to match the levels of progression. However, in most cases, progression is measured through the eyes of a parent, coach or the player, or through the basic stats (ppg). Both of these measures can be distorted or fail to reflect true skill development in all the players. Since demonstrated competence is important for retention, confidence, and motivation, creating an experience bar could be one way to make the sports experience more like video games and increase engagement.

 By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

The self-determination theory states that autonomy, competence, and relatedness maintain or enhance intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Interestingly, the theory is based on the idea that in many cases, we start with intrinsic motivation, and we need to find ways to maintain or not retard that motivation. Rather than trying to motivate someone, we need to avoid de-motivating him or her. This is especially true with youth sports, which are inherently enjoyable activities. 

Organized youth sports are not purposeless play in the same way that playing a game at the park or in one’s backyard is a purposeless activity. Organized youth sports are generally adult-led activities, which opposes the individual’s need to feel autonomous. Lepper and Greene (1975) studied surveillance, which was defined as “the constant or periodic monitoring of a ‘subordinate’s’ behavior by a ‘supervisor’ with power or authority over him” (p. 479). A coach’s role naturally fits with the definition of surveillance.

In one study that compared high surveillance to low surveillance, the supervisors saw the “high-surveillance subordinates as motivated primarily by the surveillance, and hence less internally motivated, less trustworthy, and less likely to perform adequately in the absence of surveillance “(Lepper & Greene, 1975; p. 480). This creates a cycle where the supervisors believe that the high-surveillance subordinates need more supervision. What does this mean?

Imagine two coaches. The first coach (C1) believes that the players are motivated internally, want to play basketball, and want to do their best. The second coach (C2) believes that the players are minimally motivated, are there for extrinsic rewards, and will try to do as little as possible to get by.

Because C1 believes in the players’ internal motivation, he is likely to take a low-surveillance approach. Rather than set forth a lot of rules and a carrot-and-stick management style, he is more likely to create an environment that gives the players some choice and self-direction. Rather than hovering and constantly monitoring the players’ activities, he will allow some freedom. When a player makes a mistake, he will assume the player does not understand and attempt to re-explain, rather than assuming that the player is not playing hard enough or does not care. This creates a more positive approach to coaching.

C2 will use a carrot-and-stick approach. He will coach with a series of rewards and punishments. When players do not perform, the coach will automatically associate their lack of performance with a lack of effort or lack of motivation and punish the players. The environment will be one where the players perform in order to avoid punishments rather than for more intrinsic reasons.

Based on the studies of Deci and Ryan, the players on C2′s team will lose motivation and may quit. They will be in an environment where there is no opportunity for feelings of autonomy. The players on C1′s team are more likely to thrive and improve their performance. The coach’s behaviors become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since C1 believes that his players are motivated, and provides the space for them to perform, they are likely to maintain their motivation and perform. Because C2 does not believe his players are internally motivated, he will use external controls. When these work, it will reinforce his belief that the external controls are responsible for the players’ behaviors, which will lead to more external control. If the external controls do not work, the coach will believe more punishments or more rewards are necessary and will increase the external controls, creating a cycle.

In one study by Deci and Ryan, students who were interested in puzzles were observed as they worked with puzzles. One group received no reward. The second group, after a baseline measurement, was told that they would receive a reward. When the students were told to take a break, the non-reward group was more inclined to continue participating, while the reward group waited until the end of the break. The implication was that the presence of a reward turned the play into work.

Every coach wants his or her players to practice more, especially away from the team practice. Every parent wants his or her son or daughter to practice more. Often, the coach or parent puts pressure on the child or creates an external reward. This turns an intrinsically motivating activity – playing a sport – into work. Once the reward is introduced, the player is less likely to practice without the reward. I see a relationship with training. Once parents invest in a personal trainer for a player, the player loses some of his or her autonomy and is less likely to engage in self-directed practice.

Coaching and training are surveillance roles. One cannot avoid being in a position of power or authority over the player. However, one can mitigate the negative effects of the surveillance through his or her approach. By giving players some choice of their environment, one can increase their feelings of autonomy: The players believe that they are doing something of their choosing, not because they are forced to do something. The coach can focus on positive, informational feedback to improve feelings of competence. If the players feel like they are good or they are improving, this feedback may cancel the external controls (especially losing) that are a natural part of competition. Finally, the coach can create a sense of belonging for all the players. When players feel like they are important, and important to the team, there is a sense of relatedness. When players have these feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, even when under surveillance, they are likely to maintain their intrinsic motivation, play hard, and ultimately perform better compared to environments which ignore these feelings or concepts.

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

After watching a team for several games, one can see the effect of the coach’s behaviors on the team and the individual players. One frequent issue is a coach who lacks confidence in his or her post players. I have watched several coaches like this in the last couple years; regardless of what happened, the coach blames the post player. 

This is what happens:

First, the coach develops a perception about the post player that “predicts the level of performance and type of behavior that athlete will exhibit over the course of the season” (Horn, Lox, & Labrador, The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Theory: When Coaches’ Expectations Become Reality). In this case, the coach perceives the post player not to be as good as the coach would like.

Next, the expectations influence the coach’s treatment of the players (Horn et al.). When the coach has a negative expectation of the player, the coach is quick to blame the player for mistakes or to substitute the player for a perceived mistake. For instance, the opponent gets an offensive rebound, so the coach quickly blames the post player. However, if the coach looked at the cause of the offensive rebound, the mistake can be traced back to a guard who allowed dribble penetration which forced the post player to rotate to stop the penetration, leaving his or her opponent undefended. However, in good team defense, when the post player rotates to stop the ball, a weak side defender should rotate to the undefended offensive post player. Therefore, the offensive rebound could be attributed to the guard who allowed dribble penetration or the weak-side defender who did not “help the helper”. Unfortunately, because the coach has a perception of the post player as being slow or lazy or not good enough, the offensive rebound is attributed to the post player, and the post player is removed from the game.

Eventually, the way that the coach treats the player affects the player’s learning (Horn et al.). In this case, the post player may learn not to help on dribble penetration and simply block out his or her own player. The player may become dejected on the bench and play with less enthusiasm when returned to the game. The player may not practice as hard, as he or she learns that nothing is good enough to please the coach, and all mistakes are blamed on him or her.

Finally, since the player reduces his or her effort or changes her approach, the performance tends to conform to the coach’s initial expectations (Horn et al.). Because the post player does not play as hard or does not rotate to help or does not practice as hard, the post player is not a very good player or is lazy on the court.

Coach’s initial judgements come from many areas. Often, other coaches affect one’s assessment of a player, and that assessment affects the coach’s behaviors. When I took over a women’s professional team in Europe, the former coach took me to lunch and told me about all of the players. In particular, he described my power forward as a troublemaker who was lazy and out of shape, and he described my shooting guard as the best defensive player in the league.

From the beginning, I maintained the same starting line-up as the previous season, except at center where the starter had retired. I did not allow the coach’s comments about the PF to affect my judgement; it was clear to me after one practice that she was the best player on the team. I interacted differently with her than the previous coach, who had a negative perception of the player, and she had career highs in points and rebounds, started in the all-star game, and was a legitimate player of the year candidate. I don’t think that I did much to make her a more skilled player; it was not player development that led to her career highs. It was her fitting perfectly into a system that I prefer, and my empowering her with confidence through my positive belief in her ability, rather than the previous coach’s negative perceptions.

On the shooting guard, however, I did allow his comments to affect me. When the player missed a shot, I ignored the misses. When her player scored, I ignored the baskets. He had flavored my perceptions of this player in a positive direction. When a coach has a positive perception of a player, he ignores mistakes as aberrations or normal mistakes that everyone mistakes. When the player makes a positive play, it confirms the coach’s perception of the player.

After a couple games, I watched our game tapes over and over. I noticed that this player was not our best defensive player, as the coach had said, but probably our worst defender. She tried hard, but she was beaten off the dribble frequently and was often out of position on rotations. Worse, she was shooting 23% from the three-point line as our “best shooter”.

She was a popular player and important for team chemistry, so I did not want to bench her. I also liked our better SG coming off the bench to give us a lift, and I felt it suited her personality better as a rookie. But, I started to reduce the starter’s minutes. I also experimented with two younger players who the former coach had nearly ruined the previous season. They did not set the world on fire, but they shot better than 23% and played better defense.

Finally, it became apparent that it was time not to start her. She came to me to complain. The former coach had gotten in her ear. She was not mad about the new starter, as she was a borderline all-star and our second-leading scorer, but she complained about the younger players who were getting a chance. The veterans disliked these players and did not rate them at all because the former coach never played them (combined 36 minutes the entire previous season) and did not give them opportunities in practice. He decided that they were not good and his perceptions were inflexible. However, the former starter missed a game due to illness even though she knew we were down to eight players, and the younger players played and acquitted themselves well against the best team in the league. Her absence gave me a chance to play the younger players prolonged minutes, and they did well. I explained to the former starter that she was not shooting well, she was not defending well, and the other players had been outperforming her in practice and games. It was nothing personal, but it was time to give other players a chance in games to see if their performance matched their practice performance. In retrospect, I could have handled the situation better, but that story is for another day.

My perceptions were flexible. I gave chances to players who were deemed originally not to be good enough to be in the rotation, and I reduced opportunities for the player who was originally perceived to be our best defender. Typically, however, coaches tend to be inflexible in their judgements. Once they deem a player to be important, they rarely change their perception despite objective and subjective evidence.

I watch a team where the 7th best player on the team starts and plays 38 minutes a game. The coach acknowledges that this player is the only one who the coach trusts. The other guards are better passers, better on-ball defenders, and better shooters. How does the coach’s perceptions affect the coach’s behavior of the player? How do they affect the coach’s behavior toward the other players? How do they affect playing time, feedback, etc.? When this player makes a mistake, the coach ignores it. When another player makes a mistakes, the player is pulled from the game immediately. How does that affect the other players’ confidence when they have one eye looking over their shoulder at the bench after each play? Alternatively, when the player knows that she is going to play 38 minutes a game regardless of mistakes, how much more confident is that player? Every good play confirms the coach’s perceptions of her importance, while every bad play by the others confirms the coach’s lack of trust. You can see the difference in body language between the players, and its affect on performance. For confirmation, the team should have finished first or second in its league (based on talent), but instead finished next to last.

The self-fulfilling prophecy is one of the biggest issues in coaching. I am aware of it and always attempt to avoid inflexible perceptions. I regularly have a coaching associate watch a practice or game simply to assess my behaviors toward the players to make sure that I treat players fairly. Personally, I do not take out players for a mistake. Some coaches do. However, either way, it should be consistent or you are telling your players something. If you take out one player for a mistake, but not the other, the players learn who the coach trusts. The one who gets take out loses confidence, while the one who plays through mistakes gains confidence. The coach’s behaviors affect their development, much like my behaviors affected the PFs development and performance.

Often, these perceptions affect practice coaching too. A coach will spend extra time with a good player or a player perceived to be good or to have potential, but not with a lesser player. All these actions send signals to players. A coach may tell a bad player “Good” after every play, even a mistake, which may tell the player that the coach has a very low opinion of his ability. Meanwhile, the coach gives the good players informative feedback after a mistake because he expects them to perform better.

These actions and behaviors are often subconscious and with no malicious intent. It’s just what a coach does when trying to win games. However, a coach needs to be cognizant of the effect of these behaviors and actions on the players, and work to avoid the inflexible perceptions. No coach is perfect 100% of the time. However, those who are aware of the self-fulfilling prophecy and its effects can avoid becoming a coach who is ruled by his or her initial perceptions.

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

As a follow-up to this week’s article on the difference between education and training, I saw a post by math professor Kevin Devlin on the difference between instructing and teaching. 

Devlin describes instruction as:

“primarily one-directional, from an instructor (we should not use the word teacher here) to the student. Education in the instruction mode proceeds along the lines: first provide information, then give an opportunity to practice, then test.”

In contrast, teaching is

“unlike instruction, which is essentially unidirectional and provides no guarantee of learning that which is ostensibly being ‘taught,’ teaching (the real kind) is bi-directional. In fact, you can’t separate real teaching from learning. They are simply two perspectives of the same human interactive process. From the teacher’s perspective it is teaching, from the student’s perspective it is learning.”

Devlin suggests that many people do well in an instruction setting though they may not understand or learn the material:

Many students do learn to do well in this system. Some of the ones who do well actually learn what the course is supposed to be about, though others (and I suspect most) simply learn how to pass the course tests. Case in point: I got straight A’s on all my high school calculus courses (“freshman calculus” in US terms), but only when I was a doctoral student in mathematics faced with running problem sessions for math undergraduates did I actually start to understand calculus. At school I had merely learned how to pass the tests. At graduate school, five years later, I finally learned calculus, by way of trying to teach it.

Academics and athletics differ in many things. However, there is a parallel. When I was in 5th and 6th grade, my team ran the Flex. we practiced the Flex. I could run the Flex. I learned “what the offense was supposed to be about”. However, I did not learn the skills within the offense, namely reading screens. We ran from point A to point B because that is what we were instructed to do. That’s how “we passed the test,” so to speak, to ensure playing time. Years later, primarily when playing pick-up games, I learned how to read and use a screen.

When coaches instruct in a unidimensional manner, there is no guarantee of learning. I have recounted these two stories before, but they explain the point:

I watched a girls’ varsity game during a summer showcase event. One team ran the same play every time down the court. After two to three possessions, the defense knew what was coming. They stopped defending, and played the play. First, they got  a lay-up for a steal. Next, they had two players running to steal the point to wing entry pass. While two players ran to steal the pass, the point guard never took her eyes off the intended receiver, and the post player left alone under the basket never turned to look for a pass: she was too busy going to set the next screen in the play. The team was so focused on running its play that it forced passes that became turnovers rather than doing something different, and easier, that would have created an immediate lay-up.

I ran a clinic one time. I always tell players to ask questions if they do not understand. At the end of the clinic, I got on this group a little bit because they made mistakes, but never asked questions. They were a pretty good varsity team and several of their players had worked out with me previously, so I was aware of their ability. I told them that they had to ask questions if they did not understand something, and I said something about their coach being willing to answer questions. A couple players snickered. I let it go and ended my rant. Afterward, I asked an assistant why the girls had laughed. The head coach had a rule that they were not allowed to ask questions; they had to go to an assistant at a break and write down their question, and the assistants evaluated whether or not to bother the head coach with the question.

How do either of these examples illustrate teaching? What are these players learning? These coaches are interested in obedient players who follow their orders, not players who understand the game and make plays. Unfortunately, while these two examples may be extremes, they also are far too reflective of common coaching procedures.

What is the goal? Is a coach there to instruct or to teach? Are players there to follow directions or to learn? Are successful teams the ones with the most order and structure or the ones with the players who can think the game? Is the goal of coaching to get players “to pass the test” or to enhance their playing abilities by helping them learn?

By Brian McCormick, M.S.S., PES
Coach/Clinician, Brian McCormick Basketball
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League