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Mentality and Healthy Competition


blueandgold

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In my first year as a volunteer assistant coach, I see a lot of things, good and bad, that go on in the wrestling room that I question as an adult, but also think to myself, “Is that how my old teams and I were?” As a former competitor, it’s natural to feel like you could whoop up on the new high school kids of today, but you know as time passes, talent evolves and so does the sport which means that the way things are done have to be adapted to more current styles of coaching and learning. However, I wonder sometimes if things are devolving and actually worse for the athletes. The reason I say that is because I noticed the coaches are a little more cautious in how they approach their athletes these days because parents are more involved (sometimes too involved) on how a coach runs his team. Some kids in our room questioned why they had to go so hard and what the purpose for all of the intense drills was. Our Head Coach, visibly frustrated, explained calmly what the reason was. It caught me by surprise because their HC was my former HC and he was a lot harder and blunt on my teams. It made us better and we appreciated it. We also had lots of competition born inside the room due to our depth, and me and some of my best friends to this day would be cussing at each other and beating the crap out of each other because we cared that much about winning. It’s the nature of the sport. So, I tried to explain to our athletes that real friends push each other and beat up on each other in the room, working for takedowns and drilling hard to reach their goals and they looked kind of confused at that. Maybe my methods are outdated. I’m just wondering is there something I can do that can help push them to break their bad habits such as lazy drilling and a way to be assertive or a way to tell them to be assertive to one another without it becoming an incident. Every time it seems to happen, parents get involved. I don’t wanna call them soft, but at the same time I don’t think I’m telling them anything wrong. I think healthy competition in the room is necessary to be successful, but are their mindsets too weak/too naive to understand this, or is mine broken?

Edited by blueandgold
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Even if that mentality is outdated in the mainstream, I don’t think it is ineffective. Quite the contrary. It definitely leads to success.  I am not speaking in terms of wrestling, as I am no expert in wrestling.  I am speaking in terms of life.  And this mentality is the reason I have my kids wrestle. Of all the sports I participated in as a kid, wrestling taught me the most. And it taught me the “mentality” that you’re referring to—that pushing yourself to the extreme gave you an edge over the competition and made you realize that your limits are far beyond what you think.  That is invaluable in all aspects of life. 
 

With that said, I would struggle being a coach because I would be hesitant to push other people’s kids the way I push my own. And that is because of the change in society as a whole doesn’t fit with my mentality.

 

My favorite coaches of my sons’ are the ones that don’t give a hoot about the changes in society and say and do things I would not if I were in their place. 😆

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I ask in all sincerity.....does your team allow "open practices" whereby parents can come watch? I don't think I saw one live practice of my kid in his 4 year high school days. If you do, maybe that enables the snowflake culture for your athletes? Disallow parents to attend and start coachin' those dudes up how you want..amirite?

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3 hours ago, UncleJimmy said:

I ask in all sincerity.....does your team allow "open practices" whereby parents can come watch? I don't think I saw one live practice of my kid in his 4 year high school days. If you do, maybe that enables the snowflake culture for your athletes? Disallow parents to attend and start coachin' those dudes up how you want..amirite?

Explains a lot about my kid....I was at a bunch of his practices! Lol

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