Winning The Mental Game      by Ray Lauenstein

Summer Time Blues…Keeping your team motivated through the summer.

Football season is less than two months away in some states, no more than 10 weeks in most states. As a coach you are counting on new players to make an impact, seniors to really break through and that surprise kid to grow two inches and add 20 lbs of muscle! 

You all know that the key to your success next year is how well your summer strength and conditioning program goes.  Your team will be bigger, stronger, faster and less prone to injury.   What can you do to maximize your players’ motivation for off-season conditioning that will lead you right into pre-season camp?  A few suggestions for you to consider:

1. Team Meeting - If you have not done so already, have a team meeting of all players in the program. This meeting should outline next year’s goals for the team, finalize camp plans, communicate summer workout information and when practice starts.
   
   This meeting should set expectations and be a rallying point for the launch into the all-important summer season.
    

2. Player Development Plan – I strongly recommend that the coaching staff have a detailed player development plan which outlines goals for each individual in the program right out through their senior season.
   
   I have a good friend who coaches at Harvard and he told me that each player has career conditioning performance goals: Attendance is the first one, but also goals for lifts, vertical jump, shuttle runs, 40 yard dash, etc.This plan is shared with the player who sees he is expected to attain certain goals over his career with the program. The 140 lb freshmen can now see into the future a little and be excited that what he does today is getting him ready for things 2-3 years away.
   
   These goals should be re-evaluated each year, usually to set the bar higher.  Make it known what area the players needs to work the most on how you expect them to make that improvement.  This should help fight attrition as well.

    

3. Build Leadership Confidence in Your Upperclassmen.  Try assigning each rising senior an incoming freshmen and each rising junior a sophomore “training partner”.  Call it what you will but make it the upperclassmen’s job to make sure the lowerclassmen attend workouts.  Create rewards and incentives for pairs who have the best attendance record.  Add to this competitive spirit by assigning each class level a leader who is responsible for his entire class’s attendance. Make these leaders your agents of communication.
    
4. Communicate Regularly – Email is a great tool – even a team web site can be used.  I used to work for a company that allowed High School Sports teams to build team web sites.  The Butler High School football team in Charlotte NC had a great site and used it to promote all their programs, announce winners of the “Weekly Workout Warrior” and a lot of other things.  There were photos of the kids working hard, success stories – all things that keep kids working hard. Butler won a lot of games in a very tough league. It all adds up!

5. Give em a break! Occasionally, it makes a lot of sense to give your athletes a mental break from the grind of working out all summer.  Instead of a day off, bring them in as usual and run something different.  Ideas include: Obstacle course races, mini fitness Olympics, a game of dodgeball against the coaches, bringing the kids on a challenging hike up a hill while the carry the watermelon!  Open up the pool and do some water based games…anything that keeps them moving but is not the same old thing.
   
6. Talk to each of your players individually during the summer.  Talk about their goals for the next season, tell them what you expect of them, ask them if there is anything that you, as a coach, can do to help them reach their goals.  You would be surprised how much stress this takes off an athlete – when he knows that the coach is offering to help
   
   The nice thing is that you now have an avenue of communication open and you can ask the final question of the athlete… “Are you doing everything in your power this summer to get better, reach your own goals and ultimately help the team reach theirs?”

 A lot of Mental Skills Training simply revolves around removing doubt and building self-confidence.  The best way to build confidence is to let kids succeed and be put into situations where they have to draw on all their resolve to be a success.  Summer is a great time for this. Use it to your advantage.

Authors Note:  The purpose of my articles on mental skills training (MST) for The CompuSpors Network is to make MST easily applicable to the daily routines of coaching versus a complex theoretical exercise. If you are interested in more in-depth information, please contact me directly for resource recommendations or a discussion.

Other” Winning The Mental Game”  articles –

Momentum…what is it…can you stop it…can you regain it?

Performing Under Pressure: It starts in practice!

 Ray Lauenstein is a regular contributor of articles to the CompuSports Network. A writer, speaker and author based in Boston, MA, Ray  has a master’s degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology and has coached at the youth and high school level.   

Ray's two books  The Making of a Student Athlete, and Baseball Playing Outside the Lines and web site www.athletesadvisor.com  provide students and parents with advice and information about the college recruiting process.