If you talk to coaches across the country about what their goals are, you will probably hear this one the most often- making their players their own coach. This is a great goal to have for so many reasons. The first one that comes to mind is that you are not always going to be there to coach your players. Many of the repetitions that your players take are not going to be in your presence. In making sure that these repetitions are quality, we have to instruct the player so they understand in the moment AND in the future to do so on their own. That is just one example of why this is a good goal to have as a coach. I asked this same question to my followers on twitter and and you can see the responses if you click the tweet below. 

These are all great takes on why it is important to make the player their own coach. I have a little bit of a different take on this. I think about how I want my players lifting in the weight room and hitting at home when discussing this topic. If I had to describe why I want my players to be their own coach in one sentence: I want my players to be able to shape their environment to where they are practicing at the highest level every time they take a repetition. This can be taken many different ways, and that’s why I discuss it. Even if we speak the same language, that sentence can mean something completely different to the person I’m explaining it to. 

Now what do I mean by “shape their environment” when being their best coach? I’ll run you through some examples. It’s the end of your fall season and you found the perfect drills for a player that has him swinging the bat perfectly. You prescribe these drills to the player for when they go home. When they go home, they go to hit with their friends who go to another college. They have been best friends their entire lives, so it’s safe to say they are going to spend a good amount of time catching up. Your player starts performing the drill that you prescribed but at half the effort level of what he was doing at school. The movement quality goes down and he starts reverting back to his old mechanics. How do you combat this? Shape the environment along with the drill. Is it the players fault for lack of focus? No! We all would do the same thing subconsciously. If we give the players external feedback to follow as well, then it will be easier for them to focus and even create competition with their buddy.  

This is a good time to tie in a question that Greg Revak asked, “how do you merge the need for visual based and feel based performance?” I think this is a great way to do that. My blog two weeks ago, Drills. Are They That Important? , I argue the importance of drills. They are as important as the player thinks they are. If we have an athlete that bases his performance very much on how he “feels” then we HAVE TO prescribe drills. This is part of stepping out of the way and letting the player become their own coach. We feel that having a numerous amount of drills is unnecessary but if the player is performing at a high level with these drills, haven’t they become their own coach? The older I get, the less I have valued the importance of feel and appreciated shaping the environment. Is this right? No. It is what I am best at teaching my players because I never will know what they are actually feeling. If I can engrain the environment that they train in and allow them to shape their feels, I have made them their own coach!