Dovey Herzog, President of the Fresno Alliance for Physical Education and Athletics

Dovey Herzog, Yosemite Middle School

For an educator/athletics coach, there is no more daunting task than the guiding and shaping of young lives. Coaches are charged with teaching athletes new skills, advancing skills they already posses, and teaching the inherent value of competition. They may come to us with the bluff and bluster not uncommon to the 13-18 year old age group, or they may come to us completely unsure of their worth to an athletic team. Some have competed in youth sports from as early as five years of age and some have never stepped into the athletic area.

So it falls to us, the coaches, to meld these ultimately varied personalities and skills into functioning units. As the authors of this work, we admit to having cut our coaching teeth primarily on the "trial and error" method of athletics coaching. Having begun our coaching careers in the 60's and early 70's we were exposed only minimally to the formal process of understanding the psychology of the adolescent/athletic mind. Why is it then that we were able to achieve a modicum of success over three decades of coaching? We believe it is because we gave full consideration to the student-athlete as a person first and as an athlete second. The following will provide an overview of our holistic approach to the teenage student-athlete. We hope we can give you cause to ponder the role of the teenager as a student-athlete, as well as the role that athletic participation plays in the life of each child entrusted to you.

Overall Coaching Philosophy

In order to bring out the best in their athletes, coaches must first consider their philosophy and how it will guide their practice. For example, is capturing a championship a desirable goal or an all-consuming need? Are you content with developing your athletes as best you can, trying to bring them to the knife's edge of competitive readiness and then letting the chips fall where they may? Our philosophy was the latter as we believed that a well-trained, confident athlete supported by teammates, coaches and parents was most likely to be successful.

In keeping with this, we attempted to set multiple goals with each athlete and we were never timid about challenging our athletes to step beyond their comfort zone. Our belief is that self-confidence and self-esteem are necessary qualities to successful and enjoyable performance. We tried to instill the belief in our athletes that a poor performance was simply a stepping stone to increased understanding of their own abilities, their own adaptation to a given competitive situation and was a valuable tool in their learning. We attempted to provide a multi-tiered foundation as a means to help our athletes with this process. First came the emotional support. This was accomplished by us as coaches always being present and positive regardless of the performance outcome. Secondly, we made it clear that we would bring the best of our knowledge and experience to each and every one of them, regardless of their skill level or position on the team. Thus every individual committed to success received the best of what we had to offer. This leads to another important component of the coaching process, namely commitment.

Commitment

Obviously coaches must be committed to the athletes and their learning. They must be at hand to guide practice, to work with individuals and to teach strategies, techniques, values and sportsmanship - every day, rain or shine. The coaches' commitment is just one piece of the puzzle though, as the athletes' commitment is equally important to success.

As coaches, we establish a set of parameters to guide our athletes and to help them with their commitment. We impart those rules to our athletes so that they understand that not only have they become part of something larger than themselves, but, that those guidelines are necessary for them to have the opportunity to progress and achieve higher levels of personal success. Our expectation of our athletes was for them to be at hand, every day to participate in those sessions, in order to learn and develop and not to be absent, as Thomas Jefferson said, "for light and transient causes." That being said, we were well aware that student-athletes had other callings in their lives. They are members of student government, various clubs, had academic responsibilities and most importantly, had family responsibilities. Not to recognize these circumstances is to deny the student-athlete as a person.

Regardless, our need as coaches is to have control over the time frame proscribed for each athlete. From 3:00pm to 5:30pm, or whatever the time frame might be, we need to have the athletes on hand and task oriented, otherwise we are unable to fulfill our responsibility and commitment. We expect, require, and even demand that. We are not however, so rigid that we cannot make exception to the rule, under acceptable circumstances. Our expectation was that such an exception required a further statement of commitment on their part. Extra time at the next practice, a morning session or a weekend workout could fulfill that requirement, but that requirement was never to be ignored or dispensed with.

Maximum Participation and Team Building

For middle school and high school athletic teams, nothing supplants numbers. Certainly encouraging increased numbers of participants virtually guarantees an increase in overall skill, a concept not lightly dismissed when traveling down the path towards potential championships. It was always our goal to encourage the greatest possible level of participation, regardless of the participants' skill level because if the athletic experience is beneficial to the most highly physically gifted, then it is equally valuable to those of lesser abilities, but of equal interest and enthusiasm. In sports such as track and field and cross-country (among others), there is no substitute for having maximum levels of participation. An increased level of intra-team competition is an immediate advantage of having profuse numbers of participants. Complacency is eliminated and each athlete is challenged to rise to the pinnacle of his/her ability to secure a position on the competitive team. Furthermore, as a track and field coach, having ultimate numbers made it possible to fill in positions for the myriad of events that comprise the sport. There was, however, an equally valuable aspect to the appearance of so many young faces. The variety of personalities, experiences, attitudes and expectations added immeasurably to the collective experiences of our teams, always for the better.

In keeping with our coaching philosophy, all athletes and potential athletes are valuable to our team. Some coaches view their team in somewhat "elitist" terms. They "expect" certain students to show up for the opening of the season, relying on those athletes and making minimal attempt to recruit others. The attitude being, "If they aren't interested enough to show up on their own, then they don't have the interest or commitment I need." This view, of course, denies the fact that many students don't recognize themselves as athletes. Given the opportunity to participate and discover themselves, many an "undiscovered" athlete is just waiting to advance to center stage. Thus, it was never necessary to be a championship level athlete in order to be recruited as we sought to convince any competently skilled individual that we could find a place for them on our team.

A coach committed to the overall success of his/her team and to the social, emotional and physical development of students in the school population recruits individuals and encourages participation with an unending array of posters, announcements and individual contacts. We asked other coaches and faculty members to encourage kids to take part in athletic competition, regardless of the sport. That level of pursuit of the potential athlete is sparked by the belief that the athletic participation is a positive, beneficial experience in the life of a teenager. Phone calls to parents played an important in our team building as well. We believed that it was crucial that parents understood our philosophy, particularly in relation to "2nd tier" athletes. In an era where the "superstar" athletes have become the icons of society, it goes without saying that parents appreciate the concept that there is a secure place for the children who simply want to be a participant or who need encouragement from home to take that step to become a participant. In one instance, it took me three years to encourage a young lady at our high school, an all-league performer in softball, basketball and volleyball, to give track and field a try. She was almost immediately captivated by the camaraderie of the sport and while she was competent in many events, did not stand out in one. Given the opportunity to participate in a Heptathlon, she established a school record and confirmed her reputation as the school's premiere athlete, which sat well with academic status as Valedictorian. Thus, the potential doors that athletics and we as coaches can open, the avenues, which can be descended, should be made available to every student interested in the journey, and even to those who may not realize that they are interested.

Scheduling

It is common in scheduling in track and field, swimming and to some degree wrestling, to focus on invitational level competition. Very few, if any invitationals allow unrestricted entry. Some athletes will be left behind, and rarely do athletes from the same school have the opportunity to stack up against each other in a competitive situation. Middle and High School competition should not be so exclusive that athletes lose the opportunity to compete. We favor the concept of dual and/or triangular level competition, particularly in the first half of the season, so that athletes have an opportunity to develop and compete at a level commensurate with their experience. If it is our responsibility to develop the physical, emotional and social skills of these children, then frequent competition at a level equal with their skill and experience is a necessary thing. The elite level athlete rarely has difficulty finding an appropriate opportunity for a high level competition. The reality of having to, or the possibility of failing to, qualify for post-season competition always rests just over the horizon.

Approaches to Competition

Athletes deal with the competitive aspects of their sport according to their own emotional makeup. For example, three basketball athletes may thrive on being told the game rests on their shoulders, one may be very laid back and one may perform well only as long as the pressure of the situation isn't deposited on his/her shoulders. This can be a difficult situation to deal with in the huddle with 18 seconds left and the team down by a point. During that crucial timeout, the coaches have the difficult job of putting each player in the right frame of mind. They must decide what to say to each player and in what order to send them out onto the court, so as to put each player in the thinking mode most functional for their mindset. All of this needs to be done, of course, in 60 or 65 seconds. For larger groups such as a track team, the time frame may be extended, but there may be thirty to forty or more individual personalities for the coach to comprehend. To help meet this challenge, we regularly gave our athletes a lengthy pre-season questionnaire to fill out, asking for their reasons for participating, their goals, both general and specific, their previous experience, and parental interest among other things. This gave us the opportunity to have, at least, a surface understanding of each athlete's motivation which allowed us to tailor our comments and approaches to meet individual athlete needs.

We found that most athletes responded to a mild form of motivation right before competition, the supportive "You can do it," sort of thing. Some competitively enthusiastic personalities could be really "Fired-Up." With certain athletes we found it necessary to contain our enthusiasm and not apply pressure right before competition. Some other athletes responded best when we just said "Good luck, today," as they got off the bus. Again, this stresses the importance of knowing each individual athlete and taking the entire person into consideration.

Competitive Evaluation

Each competitive event provides an opportunity for learning. To help the athletes with this task, we as coaches provided written summaries after almost all of the 1200+ track and cross country meets and 100+ basketball games in which they participated over our thirty-six years of coaching. It is important to note that these comments were never negative. If the effort or performance an athlete produced lacked focus or determination, we found a way to state our comments so that the individual knew that there would be another chance, a better day ahead. We wanted our athletes to know that we had confidence in their ability make adjustments, and to believe, honestly, that next week would be better. While there is the rare athlete who responds to critical evaluation, the vast majority of middle and high school athletes are mostly looking for an enjoyable experience both athletically and socially. As educators it was our job to support that concept. Practice sessions could be more intense, more challenging, more intrusive. It was not uncommon for an athlete to leave practice grumbling over the toughness of the workout and the insistence on the part of the coaches for quality effort. Even then, however, we were positive and encouraged our athletes to learn from these experiences and helped them to pull out the lessons.

Equal Respect for All

Sometimes an "elite" level athlete would expect, or even demand a level of treatment above and beyond that of his/her teammates. In fairness and out of respect for the other athletes on the team, we did our best not to accede to those demands and expectations. We did provide additional feedback or encouragement, however, for those athletes with realistic expectations of a collegiate level career in their sport. For example, we followed up on transcripts, making sure that all necessary classes were, successfully, in the fold. We discussed with parents whether or not proper paper work had been filled out, SAT or ACT tests signed up for, or already taken. We regularly handed out a composite list of the most important NCAA rules for eligibility and recruiting. We individualized training programs for those athletes who were not properly served by a daily "team" workout. However, the rules for the Valley champion sprinter were the same as for the 60" discus thrower. Talent and potential do not alter the basic rules or structure of a team, or at least should not.

Neither did we expect an athlete of superior ability to necessarily step forward into a position of leadership. In fact, most, but not all, of our elite athletes enjoyed the opportunity to be team leaders. There are those highly skilled individuals who have tremendous focus and are, by nature, very introspective in their nature. To force them into a position of leadership at which they were neither willing nor skilled would have been a mistake. Ultimately, we believe that our goal was to treat all of our athletes as students. Regardless of their physical skills or even their ultimate goals, they were first and foremost students, young people in the process of becoming adults. Our responsibility, using the athletic opportunity, was to help them in that development. The expectations that we placed on our athletes were quite basic: maximum academic achievement, in accordance with the individual's potential, acceptable social behaviors on- and off-campus and a willingness to commit to the ultimate success of their team. In return, we respected our athletes and treated them as human beings, not "horses." While they were expected to carry their share of the load, to be open to ideas and new events, individual athletes were never "sacrificed" on the field of competition. An injured sprinter was never pushed into a race for points, nor was a distance runner "tripled" for the same reason. Athletics should be an enjoyable experience, even though it may be fraught with personal fears and uncertainties along the way. To perform at their highest level, all athletes must know that their coaches believe in their worth as individuals. It is the responsibility of a coach to teach, educate, push, cajole, encourage, prod and sometimes even demand, in order to bring an athlete within reach of their true and reasonable potential. It is never acceptable to make demands upon a child that may well be beyond their physical or their psychological/emotional limits. It remains our job as coaches to discover what those limits are, for each of the children placed in our charge and respect them in this process.

Conclusion

In summary, both of us experienced successful athletics coaching careers, encompassing a variety of different sports. Many of our "elite" athletes, as well as many of our "every day" kids remain in contact and are to this day counted as close friends. The reason for this rests in the concept that we viewed our athletes in a holistic fashion. It seems clear that the life of any individual is made of many facets. For the middle school and the high school student, participation in athletics is one of these many facets. For some it may be the foundation block in their lives; for others just another building block in the complex structure of their life. Our goal was to attempt to find where that facet fit in with each of our athletes. It was a time consuming process. For an athletic team, both the part and the whole had to blend together, harmoniously for the experience to be both enjoyable and athletically successful. It is true that we won our share of titles through the years. But on a vastly higher scale of importance we tried to provide experiences for our athletes not available in any other type of venue. Our measure of success was not measured in the win-loss column, but in the success of our athletes as they used their time and experience with us to go on to greater victories in the game of life.

* Joe and Dovey Herzog have over 50+ years of combined coaching experience and have been recognized numerous times for their coaching expertise. Joe's awards include Honor Awards from the San Joaquin Valley Track Coaches Association, and the California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Boys and Mens Athletic Division Honor Award for Middle School Athletics and Physical Education while Dovey has been named the California High School Coach of the Year for Women's Track and Field as well as the National High School Athletic Coaches Association District 8 Coach of the Year for Women's Track and Field. They are also activists in the field. Joe and Dovey co-founded the Fresno Alliance for Physical Education and Athletics which is striving to improve the teaching and coaching conditions for educators. Their proposals include decreasing class size in physical education and developing a due process clause for the hiring/firing of athletics coaches.

Contact Joe (bigfish344@hotmail.com) or Dovey (3herzogs@hotmail.com) for more information about their article or the Fresno Alliance.