Coach – PARADIGM Sports

Posted November 4, 2021January 27, 2022 Glen MulcahyPosted in Athlete, Coach, Officials, Organization Executive, Parents

One of the 5 takeaways I share in every talk, workshop or clinic is the importance for coaches to make the environment for their players safe, as the hockey world has recently coming to terms with the Kyle Beech tragedy and the dominoes that are falling, it is just another painful and emotional reminder why we need to make it safe from all forms of harassment that I wrote on in 2017.

The other area that I have been advocating for years is the importance for coaches to make it safe to fail, unlike the coaches and parents that are highlighted time and time again in social media for their outbursts towards kids as players, officials, I have always been a believe thanks to the coaches that I had growing up to encourage to make mistakes in practices and even in games and have fun when they do so.

WHAT ?

Recommend they make mistakes, the uglier the better … what if they coughed up the puck that lead to a goal, fumbled the ball that lead to a touchdown by opposing teams, missed that free throw or field goal that could have won the game and son on.

Hmmm … there have been just a few players that were pretty good that made a ton of mistakes, but had they not done so, never would have achieved their milestones and become some of the best ever to play their respective sports.

Reggie Jackson/Babe Ruth

Reggie Jackson holds the record to this day of the most strikeouts of any player in MLB history (2597) but was touted year over year in his Hall of Fame Career as Mr. October where his bat would hit many out of the park, much like Babe Ruth who did the same decades back.

Another recent example is Mason Crosby missing 3 field goals in regulation but made the 4th to win the game in overtime for the Cheeseheads (Green Bay Packers) against the Cincinatti Bengals (whose kicker also missed 2 field goal attempts in the same game)

This was a complete surprise for all those that watched as Mason had only missed 2 field goals in the last 2 seasons combined !

Why was he to make the 4th field goal? Because he had the support of their teammates, coaches, managers who recognized that mistakes would happen and once they did, were history, was time to move on to the next play. This is in a league that is focused on winning, the top sport in the world in terms of revenue with millions of dollars in player salaries, billions of dollars in TV and merchandising revenue NOT community youth sports.

Sadly in today’s era of youth sports where it has become adultified, where adults are competing with other adults thru their kids, gone are the days where kids play without fear of failure which was prevalent in free play (i.e. pond hockey, pickup basketball, sandlot baseball) where there were no adults present (no coaches, parents or officials), it has lead to increasing attrition rates as a result.

In lieu of focusing on the results, wins/losses, goals/assists, focus on the process of development, ensure that kids are having fun and winning will be the byproduct vs. the focus.

Growth Mindset

One of my top recommendations for books for coaches, parents and youth sports leaders I the book Mindset by Carol Dweck who shares the differences between the fixed and growth mindset.

Those with a fixed mindset believe that their skills are fixed due to DNA, they don’t believe in working to improve, and fear failure so would focus on simpler tasks. Those with the growth mindset however, believe they are not that good YET, and will put in the effort to improve and recognize making mistakes is part of the process.

A perfect example of a coach that has incorporated the growth mindset with their team is Karch Karaly, voted best men’s volleyball player in sand and courts of all time, in 2012 he became the head coach of the US Women’s Volleyball team soon after he read Carol’s book and as I have shared in past their team white board encourages the players to make UGLY mistakes so they develop.

He has lead the team to their first gold medal at an international event in 2013, and medaled at the three Olympic games under his watch, including Gold at this years summer games in Korea.

In order for us to reverse the negative trends we have seen in youth sports for over a decade, we need to create an environment for not only for our players where it is safe for them to fail, but also for the young officials.

Sadly, we lose 50% of young officials in many sports (especially what I refer to as the money sports, Hockey, Baseball, Football, Basketball and Soccer) in their FIRST YEAR.

Why?

The #1 reason is due to the abuse they are taking from the adults in the stands or along the sidelines.

We subsequently lose 30% on average every year so we are literally are constantly recruiting and not allowing time to mentor and train these young officials so they can hone their craft which just creates this vicious circle.

To give you some numbers, in Canada, we have approximately 30,000 officials registered across Canada to ref minor hockey games, and every year we lose over 10,000!!!

This is not a recent trend, this has been the case since I started running Hockey Clinics over a decade ago.

It is the reason why Hockey Canada and USA Hockey came up with the campaign “Relax it’s just a game” in 2007 … 14 years ago

The focus was more on parents who are coaching or critiquing their kids, but I have also seen my share of coaches do the same towards players and officials.

Ironically, during a recent clinic that I was running, at the lunch break just before we all shut down out audio/video a coach shared with me and those that were still in the room (we have shifted to online virtual clinics in part due to COVID, in part due to efficiencies) and he shared that two parents were fighting in the stands at a U11 minor hockey game and the Police had been called in.

This was not a the zone or academy level where parental expectations are even higher (due largely due to the costs financially and time).

Time after time each time I run a clinic coaches share similar analogies how other coaches are running short benches to win games, parents are screaming from the stands or in parking lots, the ride home (or to) games/practices.

The saddest analogy and driving reason for me to continue running clinics to shift the needle is when a coach stood up to introduce himself in a in person clinic and said the reason he started to coach is his 8 year old daughter shared with him why she wanted to quit Hockey at the end of the season.

He said, with emotion in voice and tears in his eyes which made the rest of us in the room do the same (including yours truly)….

“My daughter told me that she was going to quit because she was scared of making mistakes.”

Until we make youth sports safe to fail again like it was in prior generations, we will continue to experience high rates of attrition, so if you are an adult involved in youth sports (parent, coach, administrator) please provide the players under your watch that opportunity to do so.

The Reality of Youth Sports

Posted October 20, 2021January 27, 2022 Glen MulcahyPosted in Coach, Organization Executive, Parents

It is about ½ way through this year’s hockey clinic season and like last year, I have been running virtual online clinics every weekend and will until the end of November.

Each clinic, there are another group of 40’sh coaches in the various levels of the Hockey Canada NCCP program that are starting their coaching journies and literally every clinic the same issue comes to light with the high expectations that parents have for their kids.

Ironically, before the clinic season wrapped up I made a road trip to the Kootenays where my in-laws have a mobile home we have visited for many years in the spring/summer for some R&R. We always take a day to walk “the town” and visit local used bookstores and every time we do so I find a book that I then read while there for a few days.

This past trip, I came across one of the best reads I have found to date that will be one of my top 10 book recommendations for coaches, players and athletes written by Gary Mack, former acclaimed Sport Psychologist in the USA that worked with hundreds of high-profile athletes and teams in a plethora of sports called “Mind Gym – An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence”.

There are many great nuggets and quotes in his book that I will reference in future in terms of tips for coaches, parents and athletes.

The book was released in 2001, ironically the same year of one of the worst tragedies the world has ever faced, 911, but also the same year of the launch of the iPod and iTunes, as well as Microsoft’s first Xbox. Since that time iPod morphed into the Touch and then the “World’s first smartphone according to Apple iPhone (which is not the case, it was the Blackberry)” and the world as we know changed where now these smartphones can cost in excess of $2K. My son shared with me the other day that one of his good friends just both the new Xbox 5 for close to the same although the go to street price is supposed to be 499.99 due to bent up demand due to COVID impacting production

What I found fascinating about Gary’s book was the fact that one of the last chapters of the book “The Well-Played Game” he talks about the various issues revolving around youth sports that was pushing kids out of the game in his experience in the USA.

THIS WAS 20 YEARS AGO!!!

I started down this path initially to become a Hockey Canada NCCP instructor over a decade ago as I also saw many of the trends that are still commonplace today not only in the USA, but have become global issues

• Exceedingly high and unrealistic parent expectations for their kids to get a NCAA Div 1 Full Ride Scholarship

The Reality is international tuition for the schools that do offer athletic scholarships can be over $40K USD per year (approx. 55K CDN based on current exchange) and if athletes do get a scholarship, more often than not is a partial in the area of 8K so that still means parents will be out of pocket over 30K year or approx. 150K CDN over the course of 4 years.

As I have shared with every parent over the years, if this is what you are aspiring for, in lieu you should start a RESP when they are young and by the time they are old enough for university you would have saved enough

• Aspiring for their kids to play professionally in the money sports like NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB

The Reality – only .03% of kids will reach this level from minor sports and other than Tennis, Golf that have developed their female professional programs, female professional sports are really difficult to make a living at playing professionally, many have to have full time jobs and play the sports due to the disparity for men’s vs. women’s professional sports (which I wish the other pro sports would take the lead the WNBA has but that is another issue for a future post)

• Fast tracking their development by having them specialize in a sport year-round to chase the 10,000-hour rule that was made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers in 2008

This has been argued by yours truly and many others since is wrong, including two amazing well researched books written by David Epstein “The Sports Gene” (2013) and “Range” (2019) among many others in recent years. Below is an interview panel that Malcolm did with David highlighting key takeaways from his book Range, highlighting why being a generalist first, then specializing later is the better path

• The focus that parents, coaches and even athletes have at the recreational level (the majority) looking at the professional level focusing on winning at all costs when even those playing and coaching at that level focus on the process of development, loving the game, where winning is not the focus, it is the by product

The fact that Gary highlighted issues that are still relevant, in many cases, worse than they were 2 decades back sadly for me was painful reminder that we still have so much work ahead of us to bring the game back to the kids BUT fortunately I am seeing a positive shift in interactions with adults involved in youth sports in recent years than when I first started seeing these trends start coming to fruition en masse. Many recognize we need to make organized sports more positive, focus on fun, as well as the importance of unstructured free play but as the cliché goes, it takes a village for us to get there.

As I share with all the coaches that ask how they can deal with parents that have unrealistic expectations, the more education we can provide to all the adults that are involved in youth sports, the sooner we will continue to see the needle move back where kids play the games they love again without the pressures and fear of making mistakes or working the sport that is leading to such early attrition rates.

Although we have made headway, last year just before COVID, Project Play published data that 62% of kids in the USA are quitting organized sports by the age of 11, after only playing organized sports for 3 years.

This is a video that was produced called “Don’t Retire Kid”

We never will get back to the pre-internet era where kids played for hours on end without coaches, parents, officials like our past generation did, but we need to find the happy medium where kids do just that … PLAY without fear of making mistakes and ultimately come back year after year to various organized sports with big smiles on their faces.

Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids.

There are NO shortcuts

Posted May 8, 2021January 27, 2022 Glen MulcahyPosted in Athlete, Coach, Parents

I am currently in the process of onboarding a couple of interns for this coming summer who will be working on our various digital platforms, image creation, video and audio editing and back end support for summits, webinars and live streams.

We have now sponsored over 20 university co-op students over the last few years as we have built out our websites to provide content for all youth sports stakeholders and as we onboard new students each time, one of the key teaching points I share with them is the importance of having a strong work ethic and have used a myriad of sports analogies over the 4 months they work with us to ensure they finish the term strong.

This comes from the many years of playing various sports where coaches would remind me and all of my team mates of the importance of work ethic, something that has been lost in part in recent years where many parents, kids have fallen into the early sport specialization trap but not recognizing the importance of practicing the way they will actually play in games.

What separates those that reach the highest levels they aspire vs. those that do not having coached hundreds of different players in different sports and now having interacted with thousands of coaches that have shared similar stories of players they coaches, is the fact that the ones that excel are the ones that have superior work ethics to do vs. those that have a tendency to not run through the finish line.

There are so many analogies I can share as examples of those that reached the elite level, below are three that come top of mind;

Sidney Crosby

When Sid (The Kid which is no longer the case) was coming up the pipeline many felt that he was the next Wayne Gretzky, much like people feel now of Connor McDavid. What has separated Sid from the rest of the pack and what has made him the player he has become is not the fact that he focused on hockey from a young age like many kids do today, is his commitment to practice like he is going to play every practice.

He even will ask his team mates not to pass “tape to tape” so that he can retrieve pucks that are too far away or caught up in his feet to kick to his blade and doing so at full speed.

He is so committed to working on his skills even now at the age of 31 years old, that the Pittsburgh Penguins, according to a story shared with one of my colleagues who interviewed Mike Johnston, former head coach, built as second practice rink adjacent to their initial rink so that he and other players would not have to wait for the Zamboni to clean the ice for 15 minutes.

Per his current head coach Mike Sullivan

“The quality that allows Crosby to remain atop the league, coaches and teammates say, is his unique work ethic, an ability to specify subtle areas for improvement and work with meticulous precision until they match the other elite elements of his game. … “He’s a generational talent,”

Micheal Jordan

Many know the story that he was released from the first high school team that he tried out for, was totally distraught, cried as a result for quite some time after the fact but he made a commitment to be the best he could be, and ultimately became arguably one of the best ever to play in the NBA by working tirelessly to do so.

The same work ethic transferred to when he decided to retire from basketball when he lost his Dad, to pursue a career in professional baseball and although never made it to the MLB White Sox, he honed his craft over a few years in the minors by working tirelessly every day with hitting and other specialty coaches to improve his batting %, stealing bases and so forth.

Walter Payton (AKA Sweetness)

Hi workout routines to this day are still used as examples for those in the NFL to mirror and what many don’t know is he mentored a former high school player to work out with him which he did for years. In the short clip below he shares the 5 years that he did so with Walter where they became good friends as a result and talks about the infamous hill (AKA Hell) they trained on.

There are many other examples that I can cite of professional players whose work ethic got them there like Kobe Bryant (sadly who we lost way too early last year), Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali, Pelé, all of which continued to work on their craft while even when they reached the levels they did professionally.

This is the big takeaway that youth coaches must remind their players regardless of the level to ensure that they don’t cheat themselves, and at the same time their team mates, of the importance of working hard during every game, practice … to reach the highest level possible, there are no shortcuts. Too often over the many years of coaching I would see kids that had great skills but when push came to shove they did not put in the extra effort to hone their craft and as a result they got passed by many of their less “skilled” counterparts.

Those that reach the tip of the pyramid don’t make shortcuts along the way, they recognize that it take YEARS to reach that the highest level they aspire to and continue to work on their crafts even when they do.

10 Tips to run effective practices

Posted April 9, 2021January 27, 2022 Glen MulcahyPosted in Coach

That time of the year where I get a break from various hockey hats after a whirlwind season with all the ups and downs of dealing with COVID-19 return to play, pivoting to running virtual coach clinics, coordinating coach evaluations that complied with safety protocols and marking a record number of written assignments due to ease for coaches to take clinics virtually vs. face to face in various parts of the province.

While it was top of mind, I thought this would be a good opportunity to share some tips for running effective practices based on this and past years evaluations for coaches that are generic to carry over to other sports, then late summer will share one specifically for hockey coaches are they ramp up for what hopefully will be a better normal than this past pandemic season.

#1 – Have a Plan

Depending on the level you are coaching, as the cliche goes, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. The practice plan is probably one of the most important things you need to run an effective practice and it should be based on what you overall season plan is (another blog in itself) but making sure that you are not a game reactive coach (i.e. focusing on errors that were made in a prior game, but staying the course to develop over the course of a season

#2 – Ensure that every player has a full water bottle

Even during Covid-19 I have talked to several evaluators that observed practices where coaches did not pay attention to the number of water bottles that players had when they came to the practice, and as a result, players ended up sharing with their team mates. Regardless if cohort or not, but players must have their own FULL water bottle before practicing and given regular hydration breaks

#3 – Consider using computer software or an app

This will permit you to plan and share your practices in advance with coaches and players, ideally using ones that have video demos for drills so it will make your practices much more efficient

The other benefit, is everyone will be able to READ the practice plan, drill and key teaching points. Having marked hundreds of practice plans over the years, it amazes me how many coaches have the handwriting of physicians and practice plans are very difficult to follow.

#4 – Don’t try to do it on your own

If you are just getting started coaching a sport or have for many years, I can’t emphasize the importance of finding a coach mentor so you can pick their brain for drills, best way to identify errors and correct them connect with players, engage parents and so on. I have always argued that we should provide as much support for those starting out as they could have a positive or negative impact on kids early one when they are developing their core skills.

#5 – Watch/Listen to webinars/podcasts not only what, but HOW to coach

Too often I have seen coaches short and long term goals focusing on the what (skills/drills/tactics) but not on how to coach (leadership, communication, interpersonal skills). Having surveyed thousands of coaches over the years, the characteristics they have shared of the greatest coaches they had did not have to do with the what, it had to do with the how … how much they cared about them as people, how they connected to them as individuals, how they taught them valuable life lessons and so forth.

#6 – Ensure that your practice plans adhere to your sports LTPD/LTAD model

Too often I have seen coaches having tons of high level flow drills, strategies, tactics for young age groups when it should be the polar opposite. In lieu of team tactics/systems, should focus on core skills and individual tactics until kids are in their teen years. Without the skills, they can’t execute the systems and strategies

# 7 – P&R = Patience and Repetitions

Terry Crisp, long term hockey coach shared with a colleague of mine who shared with me Terry’s philosophy on practices, as a coach you had to have a lot of patience and also permit players to do numerous repetitions to get it right. Often I have seen coaches in many sports run practices and when players are making mistakes they scream at them for doing so. In lieu, what you should be doing is encouraging them to make mistakes and come out of their comfort zone

#8 – Remove the joystick

In lieu of treating your players like mini-me’s or robots to do drills exactly as you drew it up on the whiteboard, what you should provide them the opportunity to do is to figure it out on their own (AKA – FIO per Corey McNabb at Hockey Canada). One of the biggest issues that all sports face to day is players are too robotic, lack creativity and is a direct result of being over coached

#9 – Make it Safe to Fail

Much like I did coaching all the kids on teams that I coached for a myriad of sports, I have fostered a safe to fail environment for the co-op students we have sponsored over the years who have been instrumental in helping us build out our websites, host summits, webinars, podcasts and so forth. They all work on terms of 4 months and I know when they start it will take several weeks for them to get up to speed with our various platforms, and provide them a safe place to make mistakes (within reason) while they do so.

#10 – Smile

Last but not least, regardless of what type of day you had before you got to the field, rink, court for the practice, I can’t emphasize enough the importance for you put you coach hat on when you arrive and smile and greet all players when they arrive. Ask they how their day went, how school was, what they learned and various other queries to get to know them better as people, then when you run the practices and are on the bench/sidelines for games they will know that you have their back and truly care about them as people first, athletes second

Wear your parent hat at home, coach hat at the rink/field.

Posted March 22, 2021January 27, 2022 Glen MulcahyPosted in Coach, Organization Executive, Parents

Years back I started a tradition with my family as I was traveling extensively for my day job then and when traveling in lieu of buying various touristy items for my kids I opted to buying the latest movie that we would watch when I returned home.

Although my kids have now become adults, as they are still going to college/university, they still reside at home (much like every other 20 something in the lower mainland of Vancouver due to the high costs of housing) and last night we decided to watch “Antwone Fisher” based on a young man who lost his father when he was 2 months old and was given up for adoption by his mother and had an abusive foster family environment until he entered the Navy.

Due to various emotional issues, particularly anger the led to him getting into numerous fights, he was ordered to see the Navy Psychiatrist brilliantly portrayed by Denzel Washington who helped Antwone overcome the various emotional struggles he experienced from losing both his father, turned over to what was an abusive foster care environment by his birth mother and then he lost his best friend in his late teens.

You’re probably wondering why I am sharing this, but the reason I am doing so is that I can relate to Antwone’s journey on a few fronts which is why I get very emotional when I watch the movie.

#1 – Like Antwone, I lost my father when I was very young, at 8 years old and as a result of his work we had had moved 8 times already to be close to the buildings he managed (so can relate to all the military brats out there), but also how disappointed I was that he was unable to honour his promise to coach my baseball team as he died half way thru the season.

My favorite picture of my Dad that I actually took when we were on the train heading from Montreal to our new home in Vancouver when I was 7 years old

#2 – Like many youth without a father, I ended up hanging out with a group of misfits, my non-sport “friends” in my teen years but also continued to play various sports, in particular contact sports hockey, football and rugby as I too had issues with my temper from not having a Dad to turn to but the team mates in sports and coaches I had help me keep it in check, would say to me all the time to use my temper in a positive fashion by being tough to play against.

One of the main reasons that I am so passionate about sports and kids is all the amazing coaches that I had and team mates who helped steer me down the right path vs. “my friends” that went down the wrong path (many of which did not graduate high school, were imprisoned for various reasons so who knows where I would have ended up)

#3 – Although playing contact sports did keep my temper in check at times, one that I did not try and several said should have was boxing as I did in more than my fair share of bar brawls over the years into my mid 20’s until I lost my “first and last fight” (to that point I had lost a fight in any of the brawls I had been in) and was beaten up so bad that I made the original Rocky pic of Sly look like like he only had a couple of love taps that lead to me recovering from a concussion for several months and ended my collegiate rugby career and chance to represent Canada Nationally as I had been invited to attend the national camp later that year.

All of that is water under the bridge now, as I transitioned to working a day job to coach after I completed my post secondary education at night/weekends and when I became a parent I made a promise to myself having lost my father so early that I would be there for my kids, be their coach like he couldn’t and support them to the best of my ability.

This Saturday I did a presentation of my core talk “Don’t be a Kid’s Last Coach” for Ontario Lacrosse virtual 4 day conference and shared a couple of tips for the coaches as majority of youth sports are parent coaches;

Tip #1 – When you are a parent coach, ensure you wear your parent hat at home/in the car and when get to the rink/field/court put your coach hat on and vice versa

When I shared that analogy to coincide with a video on the ride home that I have shared for a hockey clinic, one of the coaches came up to me during the break and was in tears and I asked him if he was ok and he said he never thought about it, but his 10 year old son shared with him that he was going to quit hockey as was not having fun that he was wearing his coach hat all the time.

He coached him at home, at the dinner, breakfast tables, in the car to and from the practices and games and shared with me that he will take my advice and only coach at the rink.

The clinic was in November, in March I received an email from the coach later that season sharing how appreciative he was of the advice and the relationship between him and his son was so much stronger and happier, and his son was looking forward to playing soccer in the off season and told his dad thanks for being his coach and was looking forward to next season in hockey.

Tip #2 – Treat your son or daughter the same as all the other players and ensure they call you Coach when you have your coach hat on and Mom/Dad when you have your parent hat on.

Two things can happen when coaching your kids, you can either make them one of your favorites and give them more playing time, top lines, positions (which is the big reason why competitive hockey now has tried to go the non parent route but at huge cost for honorariums for coaches) OR you can be too hard on them.

The latter is one that I saw in my third year coaching minor hockey,, one of the coaches of the U8 team that shared ice with for practices would constantly scream at his son for making mistakes, although he was an early bloomer and one of the top players in our age group, I could tell every time his Dad did so he lost a little more of the joy he had for the game. Although I would talk to his Dad numerous times when he beraded his son reminding him he was just a kid, game should be fun, treat him the same as others it went on deaf ears.

I heard the following year that his son had quit hockey and all other sports, his Dad also was not invited to come back to coach again as a result.

I know all too well how hard it can be as a parent coach to ensure you are not biased either way, I also know how big of a time commitment it can be for all of us that juggle many things including work, perhaps other children, perhaps coaching multiple teams and sports as a result.

Although I know I made my mistakes as well, probably the greatest reward I received was when my son was 19 and was asked to play on a Junior Ball Hockey Team that several of his team mates and he had talked and asked if I would help coach the team as the head coach merely put up his hand as they were having a tough time finding coaches.

To which I humbly said, yes, I would be glad to help out and had a blast coaching my son and many of his friends who he grew up with playing a myriad of sports.

Sadly I don’t get to watch him or my daughter play youth sports any more, but I can look back with a big smile on my face how much I loved watching them and all their friends (part of my extended family) play the sports they loved and continue to be active in their adulthood.

At the end of the day, that is all we can ask for as parents and as coaches, if they play at a high level beyond their high school years that is just cherry on the cake.