One day a few years ago, a club board
member accused me of "having favorites" on our club team.
Several other parent board members nodded their heads in agreement The
implication was that this was a terrible sin. When I was a younger
coach, I thought it was terrible also. And he was right. I did have
favorites. My favorites were those athletes who most fervently did what
I asked of them. Those that did, I gave more attention to. I talked to
them more. I spent more time teaching them. I also expected more of
them.
The implication that he was making was
that my favorites got better than the others because they were my
favorites, and that was somehow unfair. He mistook cause for effect.
The fact is, that the athletes who came
to me ready to learn, ready to listen, ready to act on what they learned
and try it my way, even if it was more challenging, more difficult than
they imagined, were ready to get more out of our program. And they were
my favorites.
As a coach, I have only one thing to
offer to an athlete. That is, my attention. Which means that I attend to
their needs. The reward for good behavior should be attention . . .
attending to their needs. The consequence of inattention, lack of
effort, unwillingness or unreadyness to learn or just plain offensive or
disruptive behavior is my inattention to that athlete.
How could it be other than this? If you
have three children, and you spend all of your time and energy work
working with the one that is badly behaved, what does that tell your
other two children? It tells them that to capture your attention, they
should behave badly. What we reward, is what we get.
As a coach, I want athletes who are eager
to learn eager to experiment to improve, eager to work hard. I want
athletes who come to me to help develop their skills both mental and
physical, and are willing to accept what I have to offer. Otherwise, why
have they come to me. And I am going to reward that athlete with my
attention. In so doing, I encourage others to become like the athlete
above. If I spent my time with the unwilling, the slothful, the
disruptive, I would only be encouraging that behavior.
The link I want to forge is between
attention and excellence. Excellence in the sense of achieving all that
is possible, and desired. My way of forging that, is to provide my
attention to those who "attend" to me. This does of course
result in increased performance for those that do so. I am a
professional coach, and when I pay attention to a person, that person is
going to improve. Over time, this makes it appear that my
"favorites" are the better swimmers. Not so at all. The better
swimmers are those that pay attention, and thus become my favorites.
What Dad didn’t realize is that you
must have favorites if anyone is to develop in a positive fashion. The
coach’s job is to reward those who exhibit positive developmental
behaviors. Those are my "favorites," and they should be.
