Do You Resemble Your Favorite Player? (Bot9 #288)
Great players can capture our gaze and our hearts. Whether as a coach or as a fan, we watch what our favorite athletes do with awe and amazement. What do we love about them? It could be their work ethic, their relentless pursuit of excellence, their ability to grind, their passion, and maybe even their love for their teammates. They are the rising tide raising all boats.
With more than 20 years of coaching experience behind me now, the things I appreciate about those players has changed over time. The things listed above are great, important, and not to be overlooked. But, the one thing that I’ve come to appreciate about my favorite players also applies to me. It’s being coachable.
This past weekend, I was on the field with our players in their hitting groups. At one point during the session, one of the groups needed to get pushed a bit. I put a challenge before them - how many singles can you hit in a row? The main reason I chose that was because that group of players can all leave the yard and is constantly hunting to hit the ball deep to the gaps. After each player hit the requested single one after another, they looked at me as if they were all saying, “What’s next?” I set a new challenge - every ball to the opposite field. And they did it again.
It wasn’t so much the execution of the skill that was amazing. It was their desire to do what I asked them to do in that moment. It became an overflow of joy for everyone involved. This level of coach-ability is rare, but it can be developed. It made me wonder - how do I know if I’m being coachable as an adult? I still have many things to learn and I’m constantly engaging in that process. Being coachable as an adult is much more complex than when you’re growing up. Thankfully I had a friend recommend an article by Kathleen Winsor-Games of the Denver Post titled “How Do You Know if You Are Coachable?”. Here are her top traits of a coachable person:
• Thirst for lifelong learning and inquisitive nature
• Innate belief that you don’t have all the answers
• Commitment to listening deeply to peers, leaders, mentors, and customers
• Humility to admit and address mistakes
• Bias to taking meaningful action on top priorities
As we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. today (pictured above) and prepare for additional unrest in our country during the inauguration this week, it might do us good for us to reflect on our favorite players and national heroes for a while and attempt to be more like them. Seek to be a great coach by being the most coachable coach you know. The country needs us to rise by seeking to resemble our favorite players.