Essay/Term paper: Personal writing: the evaluation of my coaches

Essay, term paper, research paper:  College Essays

Personal Writing: The Evaluation of My Coaches


Throughout my high school basketball career I experienced several
different coaches. Every new coach brought a different approach to coaching.
The varying techniques of coaching brought about different attitudes and
expectations during practices and games. I found that during practice, coaches
had either the nice-guy or the drill sergeant approach. They also had different
methods of coaching during and after the games.
Practices are very important to basketball. If you practice hard and
take it seriously, your team can become successful. All of my coaches in high
school took practices seriously. I basically had two different types of coaches
when it came to practice. There was the drill sergeant type, which had the team
line up in the same place every day to do our calisthenics before each practice.
The team captain stood facing the rest of the team and lead us in various
stretches and other warm-ups. The coach was very strict. No horse play or
unnecessary talking or anything else we knew would make the coach mad. Coach
would have us do drills having to do with the plays we ran during the game. If
we made a mistake coach would stop us and make an example of whoever messed up.
He would say, "Did everyone see what Bryan just did? That is what you should
not do." He would then gripe a little and after that we would continue our
practice. I feel that this method of coaching during practice made my teammates
and I closer as a team during the game, but we always dreaded practice. I
prefer the nice-guy coaching method during practice. This makes practice more
fun. The coach is serious about making our team better, but he realizes that
people are not perfect. During calisthenics he would talk to us about our day
at school and tell us dirty jokes, and just try to be our friend. While we were
practicing he pointed out our mistakes, but when we did something good he
praised us. This made practice fun and everyone was more at ease during
practices.
All of my coaches gave a pre-game and half time pep talk. One of the
coaches I had would tell us how the other team played, who we needed to keep
from shooting, and then tell us to go out there and kick some butt. This was
his basic pre-game pep talk. At half time, if we had been playing bad, this
coach would come in the locker room cussing. He had a pace-maker and when he
would get mad at us you could hear it going tick, tick, tick, tick rapidly. He
was a little on the crazy side. Other coaches, during pre-game pep talk, would
tell us a little story that would move us in such a way that made us want to
play hard and win. During half time if we played horrible every coach I had
would come in cussing. If we had been playing good some coaches would come in
say, "Good game." then leave. Others would come in and point out specific
things that we did good. The coaches that came in pointing out specific good
points about the game was my favorite.
The attitude of any one coach was different if we won the game or if we
lost the game. Let's take, for example if we won the game. No matter if the
game was close or not every coach I had would come in the locker room a
congratulate each player individually. Then they would address us as a whole
team and tell us we all did a great job. It was a different story if we lost
the game. If the other team was really good the coaches would come in and tell
us that we tried our best, but the other team had talent. If we lost because we
played bad some coaches would come in and yell at us. Others would say, "You
guys know what you did wrong and I don't feel like talking to ya'll right now."
The next day at practice we would go over the things we did wrong in the
previous game. The team did not like to lose.
I believe that it is good for a basketball player to experience all
different types of coaches. If I was a coach I would have the more laid back
approach. A basketball player plays the sport because he or she loves the game.
If a coach is always negative then the player will not be having fun. This
discourages the player and could possibly lead to them quitting. You do have to
correct players when they do something wrong or you would not be doing your job
as a coach, but it can be done in a nice way. I only had one coach that was out
there to have fun and that is the basketball season I enjoyed the most.