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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

THE DEVELOPING COACH: A SEASON-LONG
INVESTIGATION OF COACHING EFFICACY AND COACHING
COMPETENCY, FEEDBACK. AND PRACTICE BEHAVIORS

 

presented by

Ryan A. Hedstrom

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THE DEVELOPING COACH: A SEASON-LONG INVESTIGATION OF
COACHING EFFICACY AND COACHING COMPETENCY, FEEDBACK, AND
PRACTICE BEHAVIORS
By

Ryan A. Hedstrom

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree Of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department Of Kinesiology

2006

ABSTRACT
THE DEVELOPING COACH: A SEASON-LONG INVESTIGATION OF
COACHING EFFICACY AND COACHING COMPETENCY, FEEDBACK, AND
PRACTICE BEHAVIORS
By

Ryan A. Hedstrom

Today, most coaches are not provided a thorough or comprehensive education in the
science of coaching. AS research into coaching effectiveness is continually showing the
complexity of roles and behaviors (Potrac, Brewer, Jones, Armour, & Hoff, 2000),
addressing this lack of preparedness is even timelier. To accomplish a better
understanding of coaching development, a season-long investigation Of several
inexperienced coaches could provide knowledge about how to better prepare coaches for
their role. The importance of coaches’ efﬁcacy (Feltz, Chase, Moritz, & Sullivan, 1999)
and the ability of coaches to use feedback effectively (Horn, 1985; Smoll, Smith, Barnett,
& Everett, 1993) have been shown to be important characteristics Of successful coaches.
The question Of how new or inexperienced coaches develop the efﬁcacious beliefs
posited by Feltz et al. (1999), or the understanding of how to use feedback effectively has
not been addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate how coaching
efﬁcacy, feedback, and practice behaviors changed during the course Of the season for
inexperienced high school head coaches. Speciﬁcally, did time of season and season
events affect the manifestation of these variables? An additional purpose was to examine
how these changes in coaching efﬁcacy and feedback were perceived throughout the
season by the coaches and athletes. Participants (N: 3) were inexperienced high school

varsity lacrosse coaches and their respective teams. Coaches took part in preseason and

- postseason interviews, season-long systematic observation of practices, and measures of
coaching efﬁcacy at beginning, middle, and end of season.- Athletes completed measures
of coaching competency for their coach throughout the season. Selected athletes took part
in postseason interviews. These developing coaches ﬂuctuated in their confidence
throughout the season based on season events, and spent a large part Of practice providing
non-skill/non—sport related feedback to athletes Further, these coaches did not take
advantage of teaching techniques such as modeling and physical assistance. Athletes also
ﬂuctuated in their views of their coach’s competency over the course of the season.
Interviews with coaches and athletes revealed effective and ineffective strategies
employed by these coaches related to the efﬁcacy/competency subscales, views on
coaching confidence and leadership, and the effect of coaching feedback on performance
and satisfaction. Implications for coaching education are the development of season-long

strategies for development as well as mentoring programs for inexperienced coaches.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The process of developing, conducting, analyzing, and writing this dissertation
has been one of difﬁcult discovery. I have learned so much about myself as a
researcher and scholar, as well as how to develop my interests and questions into a
passionate pursuit of scholarship. At the end of this long and complex journey it is
time to thank those who helped me ﬁnd the way.

First and foremost, this project could not have been possible without the
cooperation of the participating coaches and athletes. Thank you for your time and
enthusiasm. Secondly, thank you to the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at
Michigan State University for their ﬁnancial support of this project.

Many thanks to my committee members Marty Ewing, Crystal Branta, Deb Feltz,
and Tom Luster. Your guidance and support (and yes, a push or pull at times) has
given me a model of the effective teacher-scholar to emulate. Thank you for your
thoughtful assistance in the development of this project. Especially to my mentor and
advisor, Marty Ewing, your encouragement and counsel has given me so much over
the past few years. I am forever indebted to your willingness to discuss and take time
for me while formulating ideas, frustrated with projects or teaching, or just chatting
about the weekend’s big game. Above all, your nurturance has helped me tO become a
teacher and researcher who has an excitement for what I do everyday, for that I Offer
many thanks.

I would like tO thank Aaron Moffett and Craig Paiement for their friendship and

camaraderie along the way, the hike was worth it and the summit is beautiful!

iV

And foremost to my wife, Joy, who has provided countless hours of support,
advice, frustration, and threats in which to help me through this process. I am forever

in love with you; thanks for being my partner in everything I do.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... x
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1
Self-Efﬁcacy and Coaching Efﬁcacy ....................................................................... 2
Coaching Feedback .................................................................................................. 4
Coaching Behaviors and Development .................................................................... 7
Purpose ................................................................................................................... 13
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................................... 14
The Role of Coaching ............................................................................................ 14
The Coaching Profession ....................................................................................... 15
Coaching Development .......................................................................................... 17
Coaching Behaviors ............................................................................................... 18
Systematic Observation of Coaching Behaviors .................................................... 22
Self-Efﬁcacy and Coaching Efﬁcacy ..................................................................... 29
Summary ................................................................................................................ 35
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS ............................................ 37
Participants ............................................................................................................. 37
Instrumentation ...................................................................................................... 38
Procedures .............................................................................................................. 41
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .......................................................... 45
Overview Of Data Management ............................................................................. 45
Overview Of Case Studies ...................................................................................... 47
CASE STUDY 1 .................................................................................................... 49
Overview of Coach 1 ............................................................................................. 49
Overview Of Highland Bears Practices and Data Collection ................................. 49
Coaching Efﬁcacy and Coaching Competency ..................................................... 49
Systematic Observation of Practices ...................................................................... 66
CASE STUDY 2 .................................................................................................... 73
Overview of Coach 2 ............................................................................................. 73
Overview of Oak Hill Tigers Practices and Data Collection ................................. 73
Coaching Efﬁcacy and Coaching Competency ..................................................... 73
Systematic Observation of Practices ...................................................................... 89
CASE STUDY 3 .................................................................................................... 96
Overview of Coach 3 ............................................................................................. 96
Overview of Highland Bears Practices and Data Collection ................................. 96
Coaching Efﬁcacy and Coaching Competency ..................................................... 96
Systematic Observation Of Practices .................................................................... 113
Comprehensive Summary of Results and Discussion ......................................... 120

vi

CHAPTER 5: IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................... 128

Limitations ........................................................................................................... 128

Implications for Coaching Education .................................................................. 129

Implications for Future Research ......................................................................... 131
Appendix A: Coach Demographic Questionnaire ..................................................... 134
Appendix B: Athlete Demographic Questionnaire .................................................... 137 -
Appendix C: Coaching Efﬁcacy Scale ...................................................................... 138
Appendix D: Coaching Competency Scale ................................................................ 139
Appendix E: Coach Preseason Interview Guide ........................................................ 140
Appendix F: Coach Postseason Interview Guide ....................................................... 141
Appendix G: Athlete Postseason Interview Guide .................................................... 142
Appendix H: Institutional Review Board Approval .................................................. 143
Appendix I: Coach Consent Form ............................................................................ 144
Appendix .1: Parent Consent Form ............................................................................. 145
Appendix K: Athlete Assent Form ............................................................................ 146
Appendix L: Sample Systematic Observation Grid Sheet ........................................ 147

Appendix M: Team 1 -- Beginning of the Season: Observed Coaching
Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 148

Appendix N: Team 1 -- Middle of the Season: Observed Coaching
Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 149

Appendix 0: Team 1 -- End of the Season: Observed Coaching
Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 150

Appendix P: Team 2 -- Beginning of the Season: Observed Coaching
Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 151

Appendix Q: Team 2 -- Middle Of the Season: Observed Coaching
Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 152

vii

Appendix R: Team 2 ~- End of the Season: Observed Coaching

Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 154
Appendix S: Team 3 -- Beginning of the Season: Observed Coaching

Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 155
Appendix T: Team 3 -- Middle of the Season: Observed Coaching

Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 156
Appendix U: Team 3 — End of the Season: Observed Coaching

Behaviors During Practices by Segments .................................................................. 158
Appendix V: Team 1 Qualitative Results .................................................................. 159
Appendix W: Team 2 Qualitative Results ................................................................. 171
Appendix X: Team 3 Qualitative Results .................................................................. 181
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 194

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Arizona State University Observation Instrument

Behaviors and Deﬁnitions .................................................................................................. 40
Table 2: Demographic Descriptions Of Case Study Coaches ............................................ 48
Table 3: Team 1 - Beginning of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 50
Table 4: Team 1 ‘. Middle of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 51
Table 5: Team 1 — End of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 51
Table 6: Team 1 — Observed Practice Behaviors Over the Season .................................... 68

Table 7: Team 2 — Beginning of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 74
Table 8: Team 2 - Middle of the Season: One-Sample T -tests Of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 75
Table 9: Team 2 — End of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 75
Table 10: Team 2 — Observed Practice Behaviors Over the Season .................................. 90

Table 11: Team 3 — Beginning of the Season: One-Sample T —tests Of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 97
Table 12: Team 3 — Middle Of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 98
Table 13: Team 3 - End of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of

Coaching Efﬁcacy and Perceived Coaching Competency ................................................. 98
Table 14: Team 3 — Observed Practice Behaviors Over the Season ................................ 114

ix

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Coaching Efﬁcacy Model ............................................................................. 32

Figure 2: Team 1 — Changes in Game Strategy Efﬁcacy and Game Strategy
Competency over the Season ....................................................................................... 52

Figure 3: Team 1 - Changes in Motivation Efﬁcacy and Motivation Competency
over the Season ............................................................................................................ 55

Figure 4: Team 1 — Changes in Teaching Technique Efﬁcacy and Teaching
Technique Competency over the Season ..................................................................... 57

Figure 5: Team 1 — Changes in Character Building Efﬁcacy and Character
Building Competency over the Season ........................................................................ 62

Figure 6: Team 2 — Changes in Game Strategy Efﬁcacy and Game Strategy
Competency over the Season ....................................................................................... 76

Figure 7: Team 2 — Changes in Motivation Efﬁcacy and Motivation Competency
over the Season ............................................................................................................ 79

Figure 8: Team 2 — Changes in Teaching Technique Efﬁcacy and Teaching
Technique Competency over the Season ..................................................................... 82

Figure 9: Team 2 — Changes in Character Building Efﬁcacy and Character
Building Competency over the Season ........................................................................ 85

Figure 10: Team 3 — Changes in Game Strategy Efﬁcacy and Game Strategy
Competency over the Season ....................................................................................... 99

Figure 11: Team 3 — Changes in Motivation Efﬁcacy and Motivation Competency
over the Season .......................................................................................................... 101

Figure 12: Team 3 — Changes in Teaching Technique Efﬁcacy and Teaching
Technique Competency over the Season ................................................................... 103

Figure 13: Team 3 — Changes in Character Building Efﬁcacy and Character
Building Competency over the Season ...................................................................... 108

 

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CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

The development of athletes has been an important topic in sport psychology
literature. Bloom’s (1985) work has shown that athletes travel through three speciﬁc
stages in order to reach the elite level: the early, middle, and later years, each with its
own milestones and characteristics. Gould and his colleagues (Gould, Dieffenbach, &
Moffett, 2002; Gould, Hodge, Peterson, & Giannini, 1989) have investigated the qualities
of coaches who were inﬂuential in the development of elite athletes. These coaches were
signiﬁcant because they instilled conﬁdence in their athletes, provided positive and
effective skill instruction, provided positive encouragement, and interacted with their
athletes in a manner that affected the individual’s life as both an athlete and a person.
Given the very important role of coaches in the development of athletes, it is surprising
that few studies have addressed the process coaches go through to become effective
coaches. A few studies have investigated coach development in the area of elite
basketball (Schinke, Bloom, & Salmela, 1995) and professional soccer (Jones, Armour,
& Potrac, 2003), but have neglected the area Of scholastic, speciﬁcally high school, coach
development.

The importance of coaches’ efﬁcacy (F eltz, Chase, Moritz, & Sullivan, 1999) and
the ability of coaches to use feedback effectively (Horn, 1985; Smith, Smoll, & Curtis,
1979; Smith, Smoll, & Hunt, 1977; Smoll, Smith, Barnett, & Everett, 1993) have been
shown to be important characteristics Of effective coaches. The question of how new or
inexperienced coaches develop the characteristics identiﬁed by Gould et a1. (1989, 2002),

the efﬁcacious beliefs posited by Feltz et al. (1999), or the understanding of how to use

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feedback effectively has not been addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to
investigate how coaching efﬁcacy, feedback, and practice behaviors changed during the
course of the season for inexperienced head high school coaches. Speciﬁcally, did time of
season and season events affect the manifestation of these variables? Another purpose
was to examine how these changes in coaching efﬁcacy and feedback were perceived
throughout the season by the coach and athletes.

Self-Eﬂicacy and Coaching Efficacy

The theory of self-efﬁcacy (Bandura, 1977, 1986) refers to the extent one believes
he or she can be successful at a given task. Bandura stated that one develops his or her
level Of efﬁcacy from several sources of information. These sources include past
performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and emotional
arousal. Due to this theory’s applicability to the sport achievement domain, sport
psychologists have examined both individual and team efﬁcacy (Feltz & Chase, 1998;
Feltz & Lirgg, 1998).

A fruitful expansion Of that research was in coaching efﬁcacy. Evolving from
research in teaching efﬁcacy (e.g., Coladarci, 1992; Woolfolk, Rosoff, & Hoy, 1990),
coaching efﬁcacy refers to the degree that a coach believes in his or her inﬂuence on the
learning and performance of athletes (Feltz et al., 1999). Four dimensions of coaching
efﬁcacy have been identiﬁed: game strategy, motivation, teaching technique, and
character building. Using the Coaching Efﬁcacy Scale (CES), F eltz et al. (1999) reported
that coaches with higher efﬁcacy scores gave athletes more praise and instruction than
coaches with lower efﬁcacy scores. Further, athletes of high-efﬁcacy coaches reported

more satisfaction with the coach and season (F eltz et al., 1999). Coaching efﬁcacy has

 

 

also been examined in relation to other factors such as coaching education (Malete &
Feltz, 2000), coaches’ expectations for team performance (Chase, Lirgg, & Feltz, 1997),
the interplay of coach, team, and player efﬁcacy (Vargas-Tonsing, Wamers, & Feltz,
2003), and leadership style (Sullivan & Kent, 2003). While these studies have furthered
understanding of the construct of coaching efﬁcacy, the ﬂuctuation of coaching efﬁcacy
in relation to feedback behaviors and expectations has not been fully examined with
coaches who have different preparation for the role of head coach or who are just
becoming head coaches.

During the course of a season, coaches are forced to respond to ever-changing
environments. Exploring this possibly unstable atmosphere could aid in a greater
appreciation of the impact of efﬁcacy on an inexperienced head coach’s behavior and
interaction with athletes. For example, it is assumed that coaches would not accept a head
coaching position without a high coaching efﬁcacy in the areas of motivation, teaching
technique, character-building, and game strategy. Many events during the season, such as
time Of the season (preseason, season, postseason), outcomes (winning or losing), and
uncontrollable events surrounding athlete participation (e.g., injury, dropout) which may
inﬂuence a coach’s efﬁcacy over time and subsequent responses to athletes, have not
been investigated. Previous research has relied primarily on a single time of self/coaching
efﬁcacy score collection during the season. Incorporating a season-long examination of
coaching efﬁcacy in relation to feedback and behaviors could aid in a better
understanding of how different events during an athletic season impacts an inexperienced
coach’s efﬁcacy. This study examined the ebb and ﬂow of an entire athletic season

versus “snapshots” Of coaching behavior.

 

Coaching Feedback

In addition to their coaching efﬁcacy, the ability of coaches to teach skills and
strategies, correct skills, and reinforce performance is critical to their success. Many head
coaches do not have degrees in pedagogy and are not teachers in the schools in which
they coach. The question of how inexperienced head coaches develop effective teaching
and reinforcement strategies has not been fully investigated. Hedstrom, Ewing, and
Gilson (2004) recorded the feedback and coach—athlete interactions of inexperienced
youth soccer coaches across a season. They reported that these coaches struggled with
communicating desired feedback, properly managing their teams, and teaching soccer
skills and strategies. Further, athletes on these teams noted some ﬁ'ustration with the
coaches’ inexperience in pedagogical techniques. Interviews with the coaches revealed
that they believed that more education would provide them with valuable insight into a
more effective and positive coaching and feedback style.

To assess the impact of education on coaching feedback and behavior, Smith et a1.
(1979) placed little league coaches in either an experimental or control group. The
experimental group was given Coach Effectiveness Training (CET) in which they were
taught how to provide positive feedback, contingent and information-based responses to
players, as well as techniques to avoid the use of punishment. The control group was not
given this training. Both experimental and control teams were observed over the baseball
season, using the Coaching Behavioral Assessment System (CBAS; Smith et al., 1977;
Smoll, Smith, Curtis, & Hunt, 1978) to code coaching behaviors. Players were also given
measures of attitude and enjoyment, perceived coaching behaviors, and self-esteem.

Several interesting ﬁndings were revealed through this study. First, children who played

for the CET coaches reported more enjoyment with the season as well as liking their
coach and teammates more than the players who were coached by those in the control
group. Further, those children who started the season with lower self-esteem and played
for a CET trained coach showed a greater increase in self-esteem over the season than
those with lower self-esteem who played for the control group coaches. The CBAS
results showed that trained coaches exhibited greater amounts of “positive coaching” by
providing technical instruction, mistake-contingent instruction, positive encouragement,
and lower levels of punitive behaviors. The results of the study became more salient
when it was shown that the two groups (experimental and control) had comparable
win/loss records, ruling out success as an antecedent to enjoyment and satisfaction.

Attrition rates in participation have also been affected by this positive type of
coaching. Following-up on an earlier study, Smoll et a1. (1993) interviewed athletes 1-
year after playing for either a CET trained or untrained coach. The researchers found that
those athletes who played for an untrained coach reported an attrition rate of 26%,
whereas those athletes playing for a CET trained coach reported attrition rates of only 5%
(Barnett, SmOll, & Smith, 1992). These ﬁndings substantiate the effect of positive
coaching behaviors on keeping youth active in sports.

Following the protocol established by Smith, Smoll, and colleagues, Horn (1985)
further investigated coaching feedback in interscholastic softball utilizing both a modiﬁed
version of the CBAS and player self-perceptions (competence, performance control, and
expectations). Horn reported that those players who received a higher amount of praise,
reinforcement, and non-reinforcement after successful performances reported a lower

sense of competence. Those athletes who received criticism after unsuccessful

performances reported higher levels of competence. While these ﬁndings may seem
counterintuitive, Hom’s explanation posed an interesting possibility. Those athletes who
received criticism after failure could have attributed their performance to effort;
consequently, increased effort could elicit not only praise from the coach, but also
successful performance. This attribution Of effort could cause an increase in both
perceived competence and perceived control. Conversely, those athletes who received
reinforcement without information after successful attempts reported lower levels of
competence, feeling that they had exhibited the extent of their skill mastery; therefore, no
further instruction was needed. Another interesting ﬁnding in this study was that athletes
perceived the feedback given by the coach in practice to be more salient than feedback
given during games. Horn attributed this to the climate of skill development during
practice.

Of the observed coaches (Horn, 1985), all were either certiﬁed school-employed
teachers or in teacher-training programs. Further, all had coached their team for at least 2
years in a position Of head coach and had other interscholastic coaching experience.
These coaches had multiple years, both as coaches and teachers, to develop their
feedback styles and coaching behaviors. The results of this study may have been different
if the coaches were less experienced and came from educational backgrounds other than
teaching. Perhaps the feedback patterns and practice behaviors would not be perceived by
the players in the same manner. This study addressed how experience and education of a
coach affected feedback patterns and behaviors. An examination of how less experienced
coaches begin to understand the beneﬁt of a positive coaching style and feedback could

aid in understanding the development of effective coaches.

These lines of research (Horn, 1985; Smith et al., 1977; 1979; Smoll et al., 1993)
show the compelling impact that coaching style and feedback can have on the
psychosocial development Of athletes. The positive approach to coaching has been found
to inﬂuence perceptions of ability, self-esteem, satisfaction with the season, competence,
and other important outcomes of sport participation. The results of these studies show
the effectiveness of a coaching style rich in information-contingent feedback,
encouragement, and low in punitive or punishing behaviors. This study extended the
literature by examining feedback in a season-long contextual manner. Feedback was also
investigated in conjunction with coaching efﬁcacy and behaviors of the coach as well as
how the athletes interpret their coach’s feedback behaviors.

Coaching Behaviors and Development

Today, most coaches are not provided a thorough or comprehensive education in
the science of coaching. As research into coaching effectiveness is continually showing
the complexity of roles and behaviors, addressing this lack of preparedness is even more
timely (Douge & Hastie, 1993). Traditionally, most high school coaches were teachers in
the school who had the beneﬁt Of teacher preparation courses where effective feedback
was discussed and practiced before assuming full responsibility for a classroom. With
fewer coaches having a traditional background in education and the rise of contract-hire
coaches (those individuals being hired from outside of the school system), coaching
education advocates are beginning to warn against the lack of professional preparation
among coaches (Stewart & Sweet, 1992). For example, the Michigan High School
Athletic Association reports that over half of their coaches throughout the state are non-

faculty (J .R. Johnson, personal communication, October 7, 2005). Researchers have

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started to investigate the interplay of education, coaching development, and the changing
role demands of scholastic coaches (Dils & Ziatz, 2000; Sage, 1987, 1989; Stewart &
Sweet, 1992). Of speciﬁc interest to coaching education is how differing educational
backgrounds affect coach effectiveness, speciﬁcally, behaviors and coach-athlete
interactions. For example, a contract-hire coach may be unfamiliar with appropriate
pedagogical techniques for teaching skills. In contrast, the teacher-coach may understand
that in the scholastic setting athletics are viewed as an educational domain. These
coaches’ differing educational backgrounds may inﬂuence their views on success in
sports, the role of teaching skills, or team management techniques. A purpose of this
study is to examine the interplay between educational experience with the variables Of
coaching behaviors, efﬁcacy of these coaches over the course of a season, and the impact
of this interplay on athletes’ perceptions of coaching effectiveness.

The effectiveness Of feedback in changing behavior in athletes is complex and
Often subtle. Therefore, using ﬁeld Observation and multiple assessment strategies are
warranted to capture both verbal and nonverbal feedback of the coach. Tharp and
Gallimore (1976) Observed coaching legend John Wooden during practices for a majority
of the 1974-1975 collegiate basketball season. The authors used observation techniques
from teacher education to assess the coach’s behavior during practice. In this seminal
investigation of coaching behaviors, Tharp and Gallimore (1976) reported a constant
interplay between praise and scolding, an emphasis on “hustle”, and the use of physical
modeling. In addition, the researchers (1976) found a strong emphasis on instruction.
Coach Wooden spent over 50% of all exhibited behaviors on giving instruction. In a later

analysis of this study, Gallimore and Tharp (2004) reviewed the previous ﬁndings and

interviewed Coach Wooden to expand on observed behaviors. An interesting extension Of
the earlier work was the explanation of a “Wooden”; this was a behavior involving a
sequence of scold, modeling-positive skill performance followed by modeling-negative
performance, and modeling-positive performance again. Coach Wooden referred to this
as a sandwich approach.

For some time, Docheff (1990) has advocated the use of a very similar sequencing
of feedback, which he called a “sandwich” approach when providing feedback as an
effective pedagogical technique. The ﬁndings of these studies (Gallimore & Tharp, 2004;
Tharp & Gallimore, 1976) extended knowledge of teacher-coach pedagogy as well as
identifying behaviors of a very successful coach. Coaches who are learning their
profession may use this approach early in the season while the emphasis is on skill
instruction. However, as they move into the performance or game phase of the season, it
is not clear if these developing coaches would continue to apply this technique as they
experience the ebb and ﬂow of wins and losses or injuries to players on their team that
impact team cohesion. The ﬁ'ustration of these negative events or the expectations
associated with a winning streak Of three or four games might cause novice coaches tO
become more demanding and critical, while failing to use a positive approach.

An addition to the line of research using systematic Observation was the
development of the Arizona State University Observation Instrument (ASUOI; Lacy &
Darst, 1984; Lacy & Darst, 1989). This instrument was developed in order to categorize
and examine coach’s teaching behaviors. This instrument originally consisted Of 14
behaviors: use of ﬁrst name, preinstruction, concurrent instruction, postinstruction,

questioning, physical assistance, positive modeling, negative modeling, hustle, praise,

O
5
.3
i
5
x
(s
I:
.

scold, management, uncodable behaviors, and silence. The behavior of “use of ﬁrst
name” is considered a dependent behavior-- meaning that it can only be recorded in
conjunction with another behavior. For example, if a coach says, “John, next throw when
you go through your rotation lead with your hips,” the Observer would record the
behaviors of both “preinstruction” and “use of ﬁrst name”. These behaviors were deemed

appropriate by the researchers for several reasons. First, these behaviors take into account

 

and use past research using systematic observation Of coaches (Dodds & Rife, 1981;
Tharp & Gallimore. 1976). It also takes into account differing aspects Of feedback such as
when instruction is given (pre-, concurrent, and postinstruction) and motivating behaviors
such as hustle, scold, and praise. One advantage that the ASUOI has over other
Observation instrument (e.g., Coaching Behavioral Assessment System) is that it takes
into account both verbal and nonverbal behaviors. One disadvantage is that behaviors are
not categorized as responsive or spontaneous; both behaviors are treated the same with
this instrument.

One study using the ASUOI examined behaviors Of male and female coaches
during two phases Of the athletic season. In this investigation Lacy and Goldston (1990)
observed male and female high school basketball practices three times during two phases
of the season, preseason phase and inseason phase. Lacy and Goldston used 13 behaviors
from the earlier instrument (14 behaviors; Lacy & Darst, 1989); use Of ﬁrst name was
considered a dependent behavior so was not categorized by itself. Also, event recording
was used so the category of silence was not used. Several interesting results were
reported from these Observations. First, verbal instruction (pre-, concurrent, and

postinstruction) accounted for the majority of all coaching behaviors across genders and

10

 

both phases of the season. Gender differences were found in that female coaches
displayed more praise and hustle behaviors than the male coaches. Female coaches used
ﬁrst names more, especially in preseason, than male coaches. Finally, male coaches
displayed more modeling and questioning behavior than female coaches.

While systematic Observation has been used in sport psychology and coaching
literature in various forms (Bloom, Crumpton, & Anderson, 1999; Lacy & Goldston,
1990; Seabom, Trudel, & Gilbert, 1998; Trudel, Cote, & Bernard, 1996), several
additions to the literature are warranted. First, systematic observation is a valuable tool in
order to understand not only what behaviors are being exhibited, but also at what time of
the practice session and season and in what context the speciﬁc feedback behavior is
occurring. An extension of this study was to observe coaches over the course of the entire
season in order to investigate ﬂuctuations and Changes in behavior. While several studies
have incorporated this approach (Bloom et al., 1999; Tharp & Gallimore, 1976), most
have? observed coaches only a few times during the season. A second extension to this
work is to investigate the changes in behaviors based on the time of season. Lacy and
Goldston (1990) Observed high school basketball coaches during preseason and inseason.
However, observation of behaviors during the postseason is a valuable addition to the
coaching literature due to higher expectations and pressure to win. Finally, there is a
sample of the coaching population that has not been adequately Observed. Most studies
have focused on elite coaches (Bloom et al., 1999; Tharp & Gallimore, 1976) or
successful high school coaches (Claxton & Lacy, 1986; Lacy & Darst, 1985), but what
about the developing coach? This question is particularly relevant in light of the recent

ﬁndings that revealed no relationship between conceptions of ability to coach and

11

 

 

coaching efﬁcacy. In other words, collegiate head and assistant coaches believed they
were “born” to coach and need little training (Chase et al., 2004). Examination of
developing high school coaches could prove a valuable addition to coaching education
literature and understanding of the coaching development process.

This study examined several additions to this framework of research that could
aid in a more comprehensive understanding of how coaches develop effective feedback
strategies. First, insight into subtle shifts in feedback type due to contextual effects could
prove to be beneﬁcial. As previously discussed with coaching efﬁcacy, these contextual
effects such as time of season, outcome, and uncontrollable events could greatly impact
the feedback patterns of coaches. To accomplish this understanding, a season-long
investigation of several developing coaches as case studies provided depth and breadth of
knowledge. While a small sample may seem problematic, the use of both extensive
Observation and a case study design in the analysis support this framework (Gallimore &
Tharp, 2004; Tharp & Gallimore, 1976; Yin, 2003a). Within the ﬁeld of sport
psychology, there has also been a recent call for and use of this research ﬁamework
(Gilbert & Trudel, 2004; Krane, Greenleaf, & Snow, 1997, Smith, 1988). Secondly, the
work of Smith, Smoll, and colleagues as well as Horn (see Horn, 1985; Smith et al.,
1977 ; Smoll et al., 1993) have convincingly examined the effects of coaching feedback
on young athletes, but what about the impact of these behaviors on the coaches
themselves? How is the type and delivery of feedback inﬂuenced by a coach’s cognitive
processes (such as efﬁcacy)? Further, investigating shifts in these coaches’ feedback
patterns due to both contextual (e. g., season events) or cognitive (coaching efﬁcacy)

factors is an important addition to research in youth sports.

12

 

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaching efﬁcacy, feedback, and
practice behaviors change during different intervals (preseason, season, postseason) of
the season, how inexperienced head coaches are affected by season events, such as win or
loss streaks, and how coaching behaviors may be affected by a coach’s educational and
experiential background. Speciﬁcally, how are these variables manifested in a developing
head coach? Another question is how these changes in coaching efﬁcacy and feedback
are perceived throughout the season by the coach and athletes. In order to investigate the
interplay of these variables, two research questions were addressed in this study:

1. How do the variables of coaching efﬁcacy, feedback, and practice
behaviors change during different intervals (preseason, season,
postseason) of the season;

2. How are these changes in coaching efﬁcacy and feedback perceived
throughout the season by the coach and athletes?

For this study a developing coach was operationally deﬁned in the following manner:

Developing Coach. A developing coach is deﬁned as an individual who has between
one and three years Of head coaching experience in a high school varsity setting in the
Sport. The individual may have more years as an assistant coach but this will be

minimized through selection Of participants.

13

 

CHAPTER TWO
Review of Literature

In organized athletics, a coach plays a variety of roles such as teacher, role model,
and leader (Clark, 2001 ). Throughout a young athlete’s development, the impact of
signiﬁcant adults, such as coaches, can have a dramatic inﬂuence on young athletes.
Because of this potential inﬂuence on developing athletes, the behaviors and beliefs of
the coach are important areas of investigation. How a coach views his or her ability to
impact the sport experience of young athletes could inﬂuence that coach’s behavior,
feedback style, and overall effectiveness. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss and
highlight pertinent literature in the role and development of coaches, coaching behaviors,
systematic Observation of coaches, and coaching efﬁcacy. Speciﬁcally, the literature is
examined in light of the developing or inexperienced coach. A second purpose of the
chapter is to use existing coaching science and sport psychology literature in illuminating
the purpose of the present study: to investigate how the variables of coaching efﬁcacy,
feedback, and practice behaviors change over the season in a developing coach and how
certain season events are perceived by both coach and athletes.
The Role of Coaching

Understanding the role of the coach has become a major area of research within
the study Of sport pedagogy. Because of this focus, a body of literature examining both
the process a coach goes through while developing as well as how this process impacts
outcomes such as effectiveness and behaviors has started to emerge (Abraham & Collins,
1998; Cushion, Armour, & Jones, 2003; Douge & Hastie, 1993; Woodman, 1993). How a

coach views his or her ability to impact the sport experience of young athletes could

l4

 

inﬂuence that coach’s behavior patterns, communication style, and pedagogical
techniques. In turn, the range or valence Of skill within these traits can affect perceptions
of coaching effectiveness by both the coach and athletes (Smith & Smoll, 2002). The
ability to simultaneously teach, motivate, plan, execute, and lead a group of learners
requires not only an understanding of the role and inﬂuence of the coach, but also a belief
in one’s capability to accomplish these tasks. The conﬁdence that coaches exhibit both
internally and externally, through thoughts and behaviors, can greatly impact their overall
behaviors throughout a season. Examination of the impact of this belief on feedback type,
pedagogical technique, and coaching behaviors could greatly add to the body Of
knowledge in coaching science. To truly capture the subtle changes in coaching
conﬁdence, feedback type, coaching behaviors, and athlete perceptions of the coach, a
season-long, systematic Observation is advantageous.
The Coaching Profession

The coaching profession has been investigated throughout the Sport pedagogy
literature. For example, Schinke and colleagues have examined the career stages Of elite
basketball coaches (Schinke, Bloom, & Salmela, 1995). A follow-up to this study
examined the development Of communication skills in elite basketball coaches (Bloom,
Schinke, & Salmela, 1997). However, to fully understand different types of coaches, it is
important to look at the role and occupation of coaching. For example, most students
pursuing a career in coaching have beneﬁted from earlier sport participation (Dodds et
al., 1991). While this prior experience is invaluable, participation in sports does not
necessarily prepare young professionals for the role demands of coaching. Sage (1987,

1989) has described how even though both personal experience with sport and observing

15

other coaches are beneﬁcial to learning how to coach, most new coaches ﬁnd their new
occupation a shock and are not prepared for the demands placed on them by this new
position. For example, numerous studies have identiﬁed barriers to novice coaching
effectiveness such as inadequate sport knowledge and skills (Weiss, Barber, Sisley, &
Ebbeck, 1991), working hours and time demands (Everhart & Chelladurai, 1998), and
type of school (Wang & Ramsey, 1998).

Traditionally, novice coaching recruits have come from the ranks Of physical
education teaching recruits. However, it is important to note that coaching and teaching
may not necessarily be analogous roles. Several studies have examined the professional
roles of coaching and teaching, ﬁnding differences in how teacher/coach recruits viewed
the two professions. One line of research found that teaching and coaching were
fundamentally different in both task and perception (Chelladurai & Kuga, 1996;
Chelladurai, Kuga, & O’Bryant, 1999). For example, undergraduate students found
coaching to provide a greater variety Of job offerings while teaching provided one with a
greater sense of control over his or her occupation (Chelladurai et al., 1999). While
coaching and teaching may have some different roles and responsibilities, teacher
preparation has transferable skills that some other professions may not (e. g., developing a
practice/lesson plan, developing learning objectives, analyzing needs Of student-athletes).
This interplay of professional preparation and coaching is interesting when scholastic
sports organizations are reporting shifts in those coaches who are faculty members and
contract-hire coaches; schools are starting to hire a majority of contract-hire coaches (J.R.
Johnson, personal communication, October 7, 2005). Attention towards this shift in the

predominance of the teacher-coach is even more imperative when one considers the

16

impact of differing education on coaching knowledge. Stewart and Sweet (1992) have
reported that as many as 2.5 million of the 3 million coaches in this country have no
formal training in Sport science. While this may be an alarming statistic, it draws
consideration to how the type of educational experiences that coaches have coming into
the profession affect the roles and baniers previously discussed;
Coaching Development

Coaching science literature has devoted much time studying the elite or expert
coaches in order to glean “best practices” for coach effectiveness. For instance, Bloom
and Salrnela (2000) examined personal characteristics of elite coaches and found these
experts possessed a strong desire for constant growth, learning, and development in their
respective sport. Research has also investigated expert coaches’ perceptions of the
importance Of mentoring (Bloom, Durand-Bush, Schinke, & Salmela, 1998), team-
building strategies (Bloom, Stevens, & Wickwire, 2003), pre- and postcompetition
routines (Bloom, Durand-Bush, & Salmela, 1997), as well as impact of sport knowledge
on effectiveness (Hardin, 2000; Jones, Armour, & Potrac, 2002; Saury & Durand, 1998).
Professional characteristics of experienced coaches have also been compared to that of
inexperienced coaches in several studies (Ahlgren, Housner, & Jones, 1998; Griffey &
Housner, 1991; Jones, Housner, & Komspan, 1995). In one study (Jones, Housner, &
Komspan, 1997), coaches were given time to plan a 30-minute practice session. During
the practice session experienced coaches provided more technical instruction while
inexperienced coaches exhibited more silence during the actual practice session.
Inexperienced coaches also exhibited more behaviors not relating to the practice session

(Jones et al., 1997). While these studies provide interesting contrasting behaviors

l7

between experienced and inexperienced coaches, more research needs to be done in this
area of sport pedagogy and coach development.

Much research has investigated coaching development and the process of
becoming a competent and effective coach (e.g., Jones et al., 2002; Potrac, Brewer,
Jones, Armour, & Hoff, 2000). Several interesting case studies have also examined the
process a coach goes through as he or she is navigating the barriers and unforeseen
obstacles Of a season (De Marco, Mancini, & Wuest, 1997) or reﬂecting on a career in
coaching (Templin, Sparkes, Grant & Schempp, 1994). The present study adds to the
current knowledge base in several distinct ways. First, while most of the coaching science
literature has focused on expert or elite coaches, this study examines the characteristics
and behaViors of inexperienced coaches. Through both quantitative analysis Of practice
behaviors and coaching efﬁcacy as well as qualitative analysis of coaches’ reﬂections Of
the seasons, a better understanding of what inexperienced coaches go through in one Of
their ﬁrst years is examined. Secondly, this examination Of inexperienced coaches takes
place over the course of an entire season, investigating possible shifts in both coaching
efﬁcacy and practice behaviors. Knowledge of these shifts could aid researchers and
coaching educators in better understanding Obstacles and concerns of these novice
coaches.

Coaching Behaviors

The behaviors that a coach exhibits during a practice session can greatly impact
how the coach is perceived by his or her athletes. Further, coach-athlete interactions
during these practice sessions have been linked to coaching effectiveness (d’Arripe-

Longueville, Foumier, & Dubois, 1998; Schempp et al., 2004), and overall compatibility

18

of coaches and athletes (Horne & Carron, 1985; Kenow & Williams, 1999). It is
important to understand the scope and valance Of coaching behaviors that are exhibited
during instruction and learning. Within the sport psychology literature, coaching
behaviors have been associated with numerous outcomes that impact not only coach-
athlete interactions, but the entire sport experience for members of the team and coaching
staff.

Coaching behaviors are an important, if not the most important, determinant of
effectiveness in instruction and associated outcomes in athletes. On a fundamental level,
Stewart (1993) states:

Behavior is the “window” to the true philosophy Of any coach. While most

coaches can talk a “good game”. . .the real answer to what type of coach and

person we are is the speciﬁc behaviors we exhibit in game situations or behind

closed practices (p. 23).

While it is quite accepted that a coach acts as a model of instruction during practice
(Hodges & Franks, 2002), Stewart raises an interesting point: a coach’s behaviors during
interactions with athletes may knowingly or unknowingly inﬂuence athletes’ perceptions
of the coach. Behaviors are a crucial part Of a coaching philosophy; however, this raises
concern for an inexperienced or developing coach. At a time when coaching philosophy
may not yet be formulated, these coaches may struggle with exhibiting both desired and
effective behaviors during practices.

The literature on coaching behaviors has been quite extensive within sport
science. Interestingly, studies on coaching behaviors are usually Viewed through the

perceptions of athletes. Anshel and Straub (1991) found in interviews with both athletes

19

and coaches an inconsistency between perceived behaviors. While this may raise a
concern within the research, it also draws attention to the need for analogous measures Of
coaching behaviors and attitudes for both coaches and athletes. Coaching behaviors have
been found to correlate with group cohesion (Gardner, Shields, Bredemeier, & Bostrom,
1996; Westre & Weiss, 1991), athlete satisfaction (Baker, Yardley, & Cote, 2003; Feltz,
et al., 1999; Weiss & Friedrichs, 1986), and athletes’ sport anxiety (Baker, Cote, &
Hawes, 2000; Kenow & Williams, 1992). These last two studies highlight the impact of
coaching behaviors on coach-athlete interaction. Baker et al. (2000), for example,
reported that a negative rapport with the coach was a Signiﬁcant indicator of Sport anxiety
in athletes. This line of research indicates a clear link between coaching behaviors and
psychosocial outcomes such as group cohesion, athlete satisfaction, and athletes’ sport
anxiety.

During practice sessions, a primary behavior exhibited by a coach is the feedback
that he or she provides to an athlete; this feedback impacts the learning and development
Of athletes. Feedback provides athletes with a sense Of their ability and skill at a given
task (Allen & Howe, 1998; Amorose & Weiss, 1998). Allen and Howe (1998) found that
those players who rated coach feedback as incorporating both praise and information
reported higher perceived competence in ﬁeld hockey and a greater satisfaction with the
coach. While perceived ability is an important component of satisfaction and efﬁcacy,
Solomon and colleagues have found that coaches’ feedback may differ based on a
coach’s expectation for individual players on a team; this gives rise to ﬂexible and
differential feedback based on coach perceptions (Solomon & Kosmitzki, 1996;

Solomon, Golden, Ciapponi, & Martin, 1998). Sinclair and Vealey (1989) found that

20

- those athletes ranked highly by coaches received more feedback than athletes ranked
lower in ability.

An important factor in feedback is the impact Of nonverbal communication. It is
estimated that roughly 70% of communication is nonverbal in nature (Martens, 2004).
This is interesting, considering that most of the previously reviewed articles focused
solely on verbal feedback given to athletes by coaches. Crocker (1990) studied the
congruency of facial and verbal messages in coaching. Regardless of the actual intent of
the message, any negative stimuli, be it facial or verbal, was rated as negative by
participants in the study. The lack of attention to nonverbal communication warrants a
closer look into nonverbal communication patterns by coaches when providing feedback
to athletes.

The impact of time on feedback has been found to be an important determinant in
the effectiveness Of instruction and performance (Curtner—Smith, Wallace, & Wang,
1998, 1999). For instance, using the Physical Education Teacher Assessment Instrument
Curtner-Smith et al. found changes in coaching feedback over the course of the season.
Speciﬁcally, high school basketball coaches were found to begin the season focused on
skill development and exhibit more strategy feedback as the season progressed. Further,
these coaching behaviors were related to athlete performance. Immediate coaching
feedback has also been found to be negatively associated with the amount of practice and
repetition of skills in archery (van der Mars, Darst, & Sariscsany, 1991). Feedback has
also been found to differ based on situation and setting; coaches spend more time on
instruction and organization during practice and provide more encouraging remarks

during competition (Wandzilak, Ansorge, & Potter, 1988).

21

The present study extended the current literature on coaching behaviors and
feedback in several ways. First, there has been little investigation to date on how
educational background is associated with behaviors of coaches. Speciﬁcally, is there a
difference in regards to behaviors between faculty and contract-hire coaches in high
school athletics? Secondly, this study provides a season-long investigation of both verbal
and nonverbal feedback provided by coaches. This investigation also illuminates the
changes in behavior by developing high school coaches during the season.

Systematic Observation of Coaching Behaviors

To better understand coaching behaviors, the ﬁeld research method of systematic
Observation has been used in numerous settings. Systematic observation is a technique of
observing and recording behaviors using a guideline of predetermined categories
(Siedentop & Tannehill, 2000; van der Mars, 1989a). This form of research provides both
practitioners and researchers with a tool for analyzing behavior and interpreting
pedagogical techniques. Systematic observation has been found to be beneﬁcial as a tool
of analysis within sport pedagogy; mainly, recording and analyzing behaviors Of teachers
and coaches (De Marco, Mancini, Wuest, & Schempp, 1996). Lines of research using
different forms of systematic observation instruments (e.g., Coaching Behavioral
Assessment System; CBAS; Arizona State University Observation Instrument; ASUOI)
have provided both researchers and practitioners a better understanding of trends in
coaching behaviors.

One Of the ﬁrst applications Of systematic observation within sport science
literature was an observation of legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. In this

investigation (Tharp & Gallimore, 1976), coach Wooden was observed during the 1974-

22

1975 basketball season. Educational researchers recorded and categorized his behaviors
during practice. In all, 2,326 behaviors were recorded over a period of 30 hours; these
acts were categorized into 10 general categories of behavior. Coach Wooden spent the
largest amount of observed time giving instructions to his athletes (50.3%). Other
behaviors exhibited by coach Wooden included actions such as modeling (both positive
and negative), praising, scolding, nonverbal communication, and hustles (verbal
statements meant to quicken the pace or stimulate players during practice). Tharp and
Gallimore (1976) also noted the interaction of praise, scold, and instruction. Through
both verbal statements and nonverbal modeling, coach Wooden would sometimes
provide praise, negative modeling, and criticism within a single feedback statement. In a
follow-up to this study, Gallimore and Tharp (2004) interviewed John Wooden about his
use Of behaviors and instruction during practice. Coach Wooden was adamant about his
role as a teacher on the basketball court; this is evident by the large amount of time Spent
on instruction. During this interview, coach Wooden further discussed the interplay Of
modeling and instruction Observed in the earlier study. The examination of his use Of
modeling and verbal instruction gave invention to the “Wooden” behavior. This sequence
of behaviors would start with a scold, followed by positive modeling of desired behavior,
then a negative model of the athlete’s attempt, and ﬁnally, a positive model of the skill.
The observation and development Of the “Wooden” not only shows the interplay of both
verbal and nonverbal (instruction and modeling) coaching behaviors but also the
complexity of effective pedagogy within athletics and skill instruction.

Following the work of Tharp and Gallimore, research using systematic

observation has been greatly inﬂuenced by the work of Smith et a1. (1977) who

23

developed the Coaching Behavioral Assessment System (CBAS). The CBAS consists of
12 coaching behaviors categorized by both reactive and spontaneous behaviors. Early
research with the CBAS (Smith et al., 1977; Smoll et al., 1978) found that there was
reliability between coaching behaviors (perceived and actual) and researcher observation
of these behaviors. Thus, the CBAS was found to be an appropriate measure of coaching
behaviors. To ﬁrrther look at coaching feedback and behavior, player ratings Of coach and
team were used along with the CBAS Observational measure (Smith et al., 1979). In this
investigation, little league coaches were placed in either a group that was given Coach
Effectiveness Training (CET), in which coaches were taught about positive feedback,
providing contingent and information-based responses to players, as well as avoiding
punishment or a group that was not given this training. Observation of coaches using the
CBAS over a little league baseball season as well as measures Of satisfaction by the
athletes revealed the effect of the CET. Athletes who played for coaches who received
CET reported more enjoyment with their season and liking their coach and teammates
more than the players who had coaches not receiving CET. Further, those children who
started the season with lower self-esteem and played for a coach receiving CET showed a
greater increase in self-esteem over the season than those with lower self-esteem playing
for the control group coaches. Throughout the season, trained coaches provided more A
technical instruction, mistake-contingent instruction, positive encouragement, and lower
levels of punitive behaviors than non-trained coaches.

A study Of basketball coaches (Smith, Zane, Smoll, & Coppell, 1983) used the
CBAS and measures of self-esteem and enjoyment used in previous research (Smith et

al., 1977; Smoll et al., 1978) to investigate satisfaction with the season. In this

24

investigation, coaches in a youth league were chosen at random to be observed during
games. Coaches who displayed behaviors and provided feedback that included more
technical instruction, mistake-contingent encouragement/instruction, and positive
encouragement were better liked by their athletes and these athletes reported more
satisfaction with their season. This study supported previous research ﬁndings while
concluding that even without Coach Effectiveness Training, coaches who utilize a
positive approach to coaching are preferred by their athletes.

One of the most compelling results of these early studies of Smith, Smoll, and
colleagues was the effect of coaching interactions on self-esteem. Smith and Smoll
(1990) have discussed how those athletes who reported low self-esteem at the begimring
Of the season were greatly affected by coaches who were trained in “positive” coaching.
In a study similar to earlier work, Smoll et a1. (1993) found that, again, self-esteem was
greatly inﬂuenced by coaching styles that included positive encouragement, technical
instruction, and low levels of punishment. The ﬁndings showed that athletes who
reported low self-esteem had great regard and liking for their coach as well as a sense of
satisfaction with the season.

This type of coaching style has also been found to affect attrition rates in youth
sports as well. Following an earlier study (Smoll et al., 1993) it was found that those
athletes who played for an untrained coach reported an attrition rate of 26% whereas
those athletes playing for a CET trained coach reported rates Of only 5% (Barnett, Smoll,
& Smith, 1992). These ﬁndings corroborate the effect of positive coaching behaviors and

coach-athlete interaction on keeping youth active in sports.

25

While the CBAS has been widely accepted and popular in the sport psychology
literature, other investigations of coaching behavior using systematic observation have
added to the understanding of sport pedagogy. Inﬂuenced by the seminal work of Tharp
and Gallimore (1976), Bloom and his colleagues developed a modiﬁed behavior
recording instrument including revised behaviors of technical instruction, tactical
instruction, general instruction, and humor (Bloom et al., 1999). The researchers used this
revised instrument to observe coach Jerry Tarkanian over the course of a collegiate
basketball season. As with John Wooden, coach Tarkanian exhibited instruction (tactical)
as his highest Observed behavior (29%). Along with tactical instruction, hustles and
technical instruction, 16% and 14% respectively, comprised the coach’s highest three
Observed behaviors. Systematic Observation has also been used to examine coaching
behaviors in other populations such as youth football (Seagrave & Ciancio, 1990), ice
hockey coaches (Seabom et al., 1998), ice hockey referees (Trudel, Cote, & Sylvestre,
1996), and practice and game behaviors of youth soccer coaches (Wandzilak et al., 1988).

An important addition to the use of systematic observation in sport pedagogy
occurred with the creation of the Arizona State University Observation Instrument
(ASUOI; Lacy & Darst, 1984; 1989). Inspired by previous Observations of coaches
practice behaviors (e.g., Dodds & Rife, 1981; Tharp & Gallimore, 1976) Lacy and Darst
created an Observation instrument focused on teaching or instructive behaviors. This
instrument consists of 14 original behavior categories; use Of ﬁrst name, preinstruction,
concurrent instruction, postinstruction, questioning, physical assistance, positive
modeling, negative modeling, hustle, praise, scold, management, uncodable, and silence.

Unlike the CBAS however, these behaviors are not categorized by either reactive or

26

spontaneous behaviors Of a coach. The ASUOI is collected in the same marmer as
previously discussed literature, with two or more researchers observing and recording an
individual’s behaviors during a predetermined duration of time. However, one addition
made by this instrument is its versatility; it can be recorded and analyzed in two distinct
ways. First, behaviors can be recorded using an event recording procedure. This method,
traditionally used with instruments such as the CBAS, consists Of totaling each behavior
with the use of tally marks and calculating the rate per minute (RPM) and percentage of
each behavior. Interval recording, however, consists of observing behaviors and
recording a discrete behavior for a predetermined segment of time (usually 5-10
seconds). This procedure allows for analysis of timing during the observation session and
the recording of silence. Neither of these examinations of behaviors are available with
event recording procedures. The ASUOI has been analyzed using both the event
recording and interval coding procedures within sport pedagogy research.

The ASUOI has been used in an extensive line of research examining coaching
behaviors in numerous populations. Speciﬁcally, the ASUOI has been used to investigate
behaviors of winning high school football coaches (Lacy & Darst, 1985), winning tennis
coaches (Claxton & Lacy, 1986), elite women’s soccer coaches (Vangucci, Potrac, &
Jones, 1997), collegiate volleyball coaches (Lacy & Martin, 1994), teaching versus
coaching behaviors of physical education teachers (Jones, Potrac, & Ramalli, 1999), and
an examination Of behavior differences in more and less successful tennis coaches
(Claxton & Lacy, 1988). This last study is Of note because the methodology employed
both the event and interval recording procedures. Results of the event recording indicated

that less successful coaches (records of winning less than 50% over the previous three

27

- years) used postinstruction and praise twice as Often as more successful tennis coaches
(records of winning 70% or higher over the previous three years). These coaches also
engaged in less questioning of athletes during practice. When the behaviors were
analyzed using interval recording, it was also found that more successful coaches
engaged in silence and management more than less successful coaches. However, the
interval analysis revealed that the more successful tennis coaches exhibited these
behaviors in shorter durations of time compared to the other group. The use of more
praise by less successﬁrl coaches is an interesting ﬁnding; however, the researchers did
not record if this praise was either accurate or skill-dependent. Lacy and Goldston (1990)
observed male and female high school basketball practices during two phases of the
season: preseason phase and inseason phase. Verbal instruction (pre-, concurrent, and
postinstruction) accounted for the majority of all coaching behaviors across genders and
both phases of the season. Female coaches displayed more praise and hustle behaviors
than the male coaches over the course of the season. Female coaches also used ﬁrst
names more, especially in preseason, than male coaches. Finally, male coaches displayed
more modeling and questioning behavior than female coaches. This study examined not
only the gender of the coach but how behaviors differ during Speciﬁc times of the season.
Systematic Observation has been shown to be a valuable and reliable tool for
recording and examining coaching behaviors in a sports context. While the Coaching
Behavioral Assessment System (CBAS) and Arizona State University Observation
Instrument (ASUOI) are arguably the two most popular tools in this line of research,
several key factors differentiate the instruments. First, the CBAS does not take into

account a coach’s nonverbal communication (e.g., modeling, physically assisting athletes

28

with movements) while the ASUOI assesses behaviors such as positive and negative
modeling and physical assistance. Further, the ASUOI (using the interval recording
procedure) provides the Opportunity to Observe the amount Of silence exhibited by a
coach. Using the CBAS in an event recording manner does not take into account at what
time of the session a behavior occurred or the duration of the behavior. For example, with
event recording a 5-second scold and 20-second scold would both be recorded as simply
one discrete behavior, discounting the duration or length Of the Observed behavior. Using
the ASUOI with an interval recording method was warranted for the purpose of this
study. Understanding the patterns and changes in behavior over the course of the season
can be accomplished with this instrument and data collection method. Further, the
ASUOI provided insight into nonverbal communication and silence exhibited by the
coach. The interval method allows for analysis of time during the practice and duration of
behaviors. In keeping with the research questions Of the present study, the ASUOI
provided the researchers with more accurate data and insight into duration and type of
verbal and nonverbal communication.
Self-Eﬂicacy and Coaching Eﬂicacy

How an individual views or judges his or her ability to perform a certain skill is
an important determinant in sport as an achievement domain. Bandura’s (1977) self-
efﬁcacy theory helps in explaining this cognitive appraisal process. Self-efﬁcacy is
deﬁned as one’s belief in his or her ability to perform a task (Bandura, 1977, 1986).
While self-efﬁcacy will later be shown to have a relationship with performance, this
construct is a person’s judgment that may or may not be accurately congruent with

performance outcomes. Bandura argues that this cognitive View of one’s ability, i.e., self-

29

efﬁcacy, could help to explain a wide array of facilitative or debilitative behaviors in
performance (Bandura, 1982). Bandura posits four sources of self-efﬁcacy: performance
accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal. These
sources of self-efﬁcacy inﬂuence one’s expectations about performance on the task. The
interplay of these four sources and the inﬂuence on expectations leads to an individual’s
behaviors towards and cognitions about one’s ability. In essence, the information that one
possesses from internal and external sources about ability directly relates to not only the
consequences of the performance but how he or she Views success or failure on a task
(Bandura, 1977).

Because Of its explanatory nature of performance and cognitive judgments
(Bandura, 1982), self-efﬁcacy has greatly inﬂuenced Sport psychology literature. Feltz
(1982, 1988) has examined the impact of self-efﬁcacy on performance on a high
avoidance motor task (back-diving). She found that past performance was the primary
indicator of overall performance and that gender differences were found in the
relationship between self-efﬁcacy and performance (F eltz, 1982; 1988). McAuley (1985)
examined the impact of modeling on self-efﬁcacy in learning a gymnastic skill. Students
were provided with either aided participant modeling (providing physical assistance),
unaided participant modeling (with only verbal description), or only Shown a short
instructional ﬁlm Of the skill. Those students receiving modeling and physical assistance
provided higher efﬁcacy scores for the skill and performed better than those in the control
group. These early Studies(Fe1tz, 1982, 1988; McAuley, 1985) began to show the link
between one’s self-efﬁcacy and performance as well as the use of the self-efﬁcacy theory

within the sport psychology literature.

30

The theory of self-efﬁcacy has been used in numerous studies to explain
determinants of performance in a variety of achievement domains. Speciﬁcally, the self-
efﬁcacy/performance relationship has been examined in regards to tennis (Barling &
Abel, 1983), baseball (George, 1994), equestrian (Beauchamp & Whinton, 2005), as well
as the motivation to continue participation (Schunk, 1995), and conception of ability with
gender (Lirgg, George, Chase, & Ferguson, 1996). A meta-analysis review of literature
related to the self-efﬁcacy/performance relationship found that the correlation between
self-efﬁcacy and performance was .38 over 45 studies examining this relationship
(Moritz, Feltz, F ahrbach, & Mack, 2000).

While a substantial line Of research has investigated the relationship between self-
efﬁcacy and performance, a recent addition to this investigation is the construct Of
coaching efﬁcacy. Coaching efﬁcacy is deﬁned as the extent to which coaches believe
they can affect the learning and performance of athletes (Feltz et al., 1999). Feltz and
colleagues have developed a conceptual model of coaching efﬁcacy containing four
coaching efﬁcacy dimensions: game strategy, motivation, teaching technique, and
character building. T 0 test these dimensions of coaching efﬁcacy, Feltz et a1. (1999)
constructed the CES. High school coaches representing multiple Sports were used for an
exploratory factor analysis of a 41-item efﬁcacy instrument for coaches. A second sample
of coaches was then given a revised version of 24-items for the conﬁrmatory factor
analysis. Through further reliability testing it was found that coefﬁcient alphas with test-
retest coefﬁcients were between .88 and .77 for character building, .89 and .78 for
technique, .91 and .83 for motivation, and .88 and .84 for strategy; these four factors

resulted in a coefﬁcient alpha of .95 to .82 for the CES (Feltz et al., 1999).

31

A second phase of this initial study (Feltz et al., 1999) was to examine the sources
and outcomes of coaching efﬁcacy. For this study, 30 high school coaches (15 scoring the
highest CE and 15 scoring the lowest CE out of an initial pool) were assessed during
several practice sessions using the CBAS (Smith et al., 1977). A post-season
questionnaire was also given to coaches and athletes assessing commitment and
satisfaction respectively. Results of the questionnaires found sources of coaching efﬁcacy
to be win-loss record, years Of experience, perceived team ability, and support of
community and school (See Figure 1). This study also found that reported coaching
efficacy was associated with several outcomes; high-efﬁcacy coaches had higher winning
percentages, were more satisﬁed with players, and exhibited more “positive” coaching
behaviors during practice such as contingent praise and encouragement. Those coaches
reporting lower coaching efﬁcacy provided more instruction and organizational behaviors
during practice. This seminal work examining a coach’s sense of efﬁcacy and its

relationship to sources and outcomes Of efﬁcacy has produced a fruitful line of research.

 

 

 

 

 

Sources of Coaching Outcomes
Efﬁcacx Coaching Efﬁcacy
Dim Coaching behavior
Coaching Experience
Game Strategy Player/team
Prior Success _ _ Satisfaction
Motivation
Perceived Skill of . Player/team
Athletes Technrque performance
School/Community Character Player/team
Support Building efﬁcacy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. Coaching Efficacy Model (F eltz et al., 1999).
With the development of the CES (Feltz et al., 1999) a line Of research has

examined how a coach’s efﬁcacy impacts numerous factors within sport. Speciﬁcally,

32

coaching efﬁcacy has been examined with regards to the interplay of coaching, team and
player efﬁcacy (Vargas-Tonsing et al., 2003), predicting leadership style (Sullivan &
Kent, 2003), and commitment (Kent & Sullivan, 2003), as well as the impact of
certiﬁcation and educational programs on efﬁcacious beliefs (Lee, Malete, & Feltz, 2002;
Malete & F eltz, 2000). What is surprising about the original coaching efﬁcacy model (see
Figure 1) is that the list Of proposed outcomes of coaching efﬁcacy did not include
coaching satisfaction. It stands to reason that overall satisfaction with the experience
would be a positive outcome of efﬁcacious beliefs. Paiement (2006) examined coaching
satisfaction in relation to coaching efﬁcacy. He found that both coaching experience and
social support were predictors of coaching satisfaction. Therefore, a revision of the
original coaching efﬁcacy model would include satisfaction as an outcome. Further
investigation into how coaching efﬁcacy and behavior are perceived by, and inﬂuence,
both coaches and athletes has elicited several interesting ﬁndings. An examination into
sources of coaching efﬁcacy with collegiate coaches found social support to be a stronger
source Of efﬁcacy for female coaches compared to males and gender of coach compared
to gender of athletes mediated outcomes of efﬁcacy (Myers, Vargas-Tonsing, & F eltz,
2005). An investigation into efﬁcacy-enhancing techniques found that coach and team
behaviors such as instruction, acting conﬁdent, and positive self-talk inﬂuenced efﬁcacy.
However, coaches and athletes were not found to be congruent in their perceptions of use
and frequency of these techniques (Vargas-Tonsing, Myers, & Feltz, 2004).

Within this line of coaching efﬁcacy research a comparison between coach and
athlete perceptions of coaching efﬁcacy has been limited. Short and Short (2004)

examined how football players perceived the coaching efﬁcacy of their position coach at

33

the end of the season as compared to the efﬁcacious beliefs of the coaches themselves.
While most coaches rated themselves higher than their respective athletes, perceptions of
coaching efﬁcacy were similar between athletes and coaches. While this study examined
both coach and athlete perceptions, further examination into shifts and reasons for similar
or dissimilar perceptions is necessary in understanding the effect of coaching efﬁcacy on
performance andteam climate.

One study that examined coaching efﬁcacy at differing points of the season
addressed the relationship of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching burnout in high school
basketball coaches over a season. Haugen, Short, Brinkert, and Short (2004) found
coaching efﬁcacy and coaching burnout to be negatively correlated across the season.
Further, coaches had a higher sense Of burnout and lower coaching efﬁcacy at the end of
the season. While this study investigated coaching efﬁcacy changes at the beginning and
end of the season and its association to burnout, it did not take into account shifts Of
efﬁcacy throughout the season or the events that inﬂuenced these scores.

An interesting extension of the CES has been the development of the Coaching
Competency Scale (CCS; Myers, Feltz, Maier, Wolfe, & Reckase, 2006). The purpose of
this instrument is to assess athletes’ evaluative perceptions of a coach’s behavior, judging
the coach’s competence in the areas Of coaching efﬁcacy. This scale is analogous to the
CES; it is a 24-item scale assessing 4 subscales (motivation efﬁcacy, game strategy,
character building, and teaching technique). Instead of the CES question stem, “How
conﬁdent are you in your ability to. . .,” the CCS asks athletes tO score their coach’s
competence with the stem, “How competent is your head coach in his or her ability

to. . .,” Athletes respond to items such as “understand competitive strategies” (game

34

: strategy competence); “motivate his/her athletes” (motivation competence); “develop
athletes’ abilities” (technique competence); and “instill an attitude Of respect for others”
(character building competence). Myers et al. (2006) provided initial validity for this
instrument with a sample of intercollegiate men’s and women’s ice hockey and soccer
teams, ﬁnding that the CCS can be used to gain further knowledge of athletes’
evaluations and perceptions of coaching behaviors.

The present study extended current knowledge in coaching efﬁcacy in several
ways. First, in keeping with the research questions, coaches were assessed over the
course of the season; this will aid in understanding how efﬁcacy changes over the course
of the season instead of taking one or two measurements as most studies have done. This
season-long approach allowed for coaches to rate efﬁcacy beliefs at milestones during the
season, speciﬁcally, beginning, middle, and end Of season. To date, no study has
investigated efﬁcacious beliefs of developing or inexperienced head coaches. This study
provided, at least at the case study level, an understanding of these coaches’ changes in
efﬁcacy over the course of a season. Finally, this study used both the CCS and CBS to
gauge not only coaching efﬁcacy but athletes’ sense Of coaching competence. This is an
important addition to knowledge in coaching efﬁcacy because it provides, not only
further validation for the CCS, but a richer understanding of how both coaches and
athletes view a coaches’ perceived and actual efﬁcacious beliefs over the season.
Summary

This chapter has discussed the pertinent literature in coaching development and
impact Of coaching behaviors on both coach and athlete. While numerous studies have

investigated the behaviors Of expert coaches (e.g., Jones et al., 2003; Schinke et al., 1995;

35

Tharp & Gallimore, 1976), few studies have examined the development of coaches
during one Of their ﬁrst seasons as a head coach. Further, while research has shown the
importance of a coach’s efﬁcacious belief on numerous outcomes (e.g., Feltz et al.,
1999), few have examined the impact of efﬁcacy throughout an athletic season. Finally,
research using systematic Observation has provided invaluable insight into coaching
behaviors (e.g., Claxton & Lacy, 1988; Lacy & Goldston, 1990). Using this research
method along with assessment of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency as well as
qualitative inquiry into perceptions of the season could provide a comprehensive

understanding of the developing coach.

36

CHAPTER THREE

Research Design and Methods

Participants

Participants for this study were 3 high school varsity lacrosse coaches and their
respective teams. All lacrosse programs were in the ﬁrst year of varsity status but had
previously sponsored club status programs. Coach 1 was a 29-year-old Caucasian male
beginning his ﬁrst season as a high school coach of any kind. Team 1 consisted Of 26
male athletes (25 participated in the study) with an average age of 17.2 years (SD = .89);
96% of the team members reported Caucasian ethnicity and 1 athlete reported ‘
Asian/Paciﬁc Islander ethnicity. Athletes on this team had an average of 1.8 (SD = .41)
years of experience with the club lacrosse program. Coach 2 was a 46-year-old Caucasian
male beginning his third season as a high school lacrosse coach and ﬁrst year as a head
varsity coach. Team 2 consisted of 24 male athletes (22 participated in the study) with an
average age of 17.1 years (SD = .85); 100% reported Caucasian ethnicity. Athletes
reported an average Of 1.8 (SD = .38) years of experience with the club lacrosse program
and this head coach. Coach 3 was a 31-year-old bi-racial female beginning her third
season as a high school lacrosse coach and ﬁrst year as a head varsity coach. Team 3
consisted Of 23 female athletes (19 participated in the study) with an average age Of 16.5
years (SD = .69); 95% reported Caucasian ethnicity, while one athlete did not report
ethnicity. Athletes reported an average of 1.95 years (SD = .23) Of experience with both

the club lacrosse program and this head coach.

37

Instrumentation

Demographic Questionnaire. A demographic questionnaire was distributed tO
coaches who served as participants in the study (see Appendix A). General demographic
information such as age, gender, and race was collected as well as more speciﬁc
information regarding education background (e.g., education level and emphasis,
certiﬁcations, workshops). Athletes were also given a demographic questionnaire in order
to collect descriptive information about the sample (e.g., race, ethnicity, playing
experience) (see Appendix B).

Coaching Efficacy Scale. The Coaching Efﬁcacy Scale (CES; see Appendix C) is
a 24-item scale designed to measure a coach’s perception of coaching efﬁcacy and the
four subscales that comprise the model of coaching efﬁcacy: game strategy efﬁcacy
(GSE), motivation efﬁcacy (ME), teaching technique efﬁcacy (TE), and character
building efﬁcacy (CBE) (Feltz et al., 1999). A 10-point Likert scale ranging from “not at
all conﬁdent” (0) to “extremely conﬁdent” (9) was used to assess coaching efﬁcacy. Each
scale item began with the stem “How conﬁdent are you in your ability to. . Examples of
questions are “How conﬁdent are you in your ability to motivate athletes?” (ME); and
“How conﬁdent are you in your ability to maximize your team’s strengths during
competition?” (GSE). Feltz et a1. (1999) reported coefﬁcient alphas of .88, .89, .91, and
.88 for the subscales of character building, technique, motivation, and game strategy,
respectively.

Coaching Competency Scale. The Coaching Competency Scale (CCS; Myers, et
al., 2006; see Appendix D) is a 24-item scale that measures athletes’ perceptions of their

coach’s competency as well as four subscales that comprise coaching competency: game

38

strategy (GSC), motivation (MC), technique (TC), and character building (CBC). This
measure is analogous to the Coaching Efﬁcacy Scale (CES; Feltz et al., 1999). For the
present study a lO-point Likert scale ranging from not at all conﬁdent (0) to extremely
conﬁdent (9) was used to score coaching competency as assessed by athletes. Each scale
item began with the stem “How competent is your head coach in his or her ability to. .
Examples of questions are “How competent is your head coach in his or her ability to
build the self-esteem Of his/her athletes?” (MC); and “How competent is your head coach
in his or her ability to adapt to different game situations?” (GSC).

Observation Instrument. The Arizona State University Observation Instrument
(ASUOI; Lacy & Darst, 1984; Lacy & Goldston, 1990) was used for the Observational
component of this study. The ASUOI assesses 14 behaviors (both verbal and nonverbal;
see Table 1) recorded in a systematic interval method. This measure was chosen for two
reasons: (a) it enables one to accurately assess a combination of verbal and nonverbal
behaviors and to establish a systematic observation schedule for the coaches’ behaviors
during practice; and (b) the ASUOI records the amount of silence or non-feedback given
by the coach. These two instrument characteristics enabled Observation of both feedback
type and behaviors throughout a practice session. Researchers conducting the video
analysis took part in numerous training sessions to become familiar with the measure and
Observer reliability was calculated throughout the season to ensure accuracy amongst the
recorders. Three researchers conducted video analysis, two per each team, over the
course Of the season. The inter-observer reliability over the season was 83.5% which
exceeded established standards for interval recording research (Siedentop & Tannehill,

2000; van der Mars, 1989b).

39

Table 1

Arizona State University Observation Instrument Behaviors and Deﬁnitions

 

 

 

 

 

Behavior Definition
1. Preinstrnction Information given before execution of the skill.
2. Concurrent Instruction Information given during skill execution or
play.
3. Postinstruction Instruction given after execution of skill.
4. Questioning Questions posed to the athletes regarding any

aspect of the sport or skill.

 

 

 

 

5. Physical Assistance Physically moving a player through a skill
sequence or range of motion.

6. Positive Modeling Demonstration of correct skill or movement.

7. Negative Modeling Demonstration of incorrect skill or movement.

8. Hustle Statements made by the coach intended to

produce increased effort.

 

9. Praise Verbal or nonverbal signs Of appreciation or
satisfaction with performance.

 

 

10. Scold Verbal or nonverbal Signs of dissatisfaction with
performance.
11. Management Statements regarding details Of practice not

having to do with skills or play.

 

 

12. Uncodable Behavior could not be distinguished or
recorded.
13. Use of ﬁrst name Use Of ﬁrst name during verbal interaction.

(This is a dependent behavior and is only
recorded in combination with other behaviors.)
l4. Silence Silence by the coach.

 

 

 

 

 

Interview Guides. Three semi-structured interview guides (See Appendices E-G)

were used. Pre- and post-season interviews were conducted with the coaches. The

40

preseason interview focused on general coaching beliefs and behaviors, while the
postseason interview focused on the subscales of coaching efﬁcacy and on speciﬁc
observations from the season. A sub-sample of athletes from each team was also
individually interviewed postseason. These athletes were chosen based on their overall
CCS responses over the season; those interviewed represented varying scores over the
season. Post-season interviews used speciﬁc examples obtained from different events
during the season to capture athlete perceptions of contextual feedback and behaviors.
Further, coaches and athletes were asked about their individual patterns of responses to
CBS and CCS scores across the season. The semi-structured nature of these interviews
was designed to facilitate the use of probes and follow-up questions when appropriate
(Patton, 2002).
Procedures

After the Institutional Review Board gave approval for the project (see Appendix
H), the lead researcher contacted high school athletic directors within one conference to
solicit names Of coaches of team sports who had less than 3 years Of scholastic coaching
experience. Coaches identiﬁed as meeting the experience criteria were then contacted
with permission of the athletic directors. Coaches were telephoned or emailed and given a
description of the study, their level Of responsibility if participating in the study, the
purported beneﬁts Of participating, and their level of interest in participating was
ascertained. If the coaches were willing to participate, they were emailed further
information about the project and preliminary materials (Consent Form, Demographic
Questionnaire, and CES). Keeping with the research design, it was desirous to have

participants with the same amount of experience but different educational backgrounds.

41

- In all, 7 coaches were contacted Via email or telephone call, 3 were sent further
information and preliminary materials, and those 3 agreed to participate in the study for
the duration of the season. These coaches all had less than 3 years of varsity head
coaching experience and represented different educational backgrounds (education,
business, and social work).

Participants chosen as case studies were observed for the entire athletic season.
Before the season, coaches were interviewed (preseason interview) and assent/parental
consent was obtained for athlete participation (see Appendices I-K for all consent/assent
forms). In all, 20 practices were observed over the course of the season (Team 1, 6; Team
2, 7; Team 3, 7). Observational ﬁeld notes and video/audio recordings of the practices
were compiled during the practices by two trained Observers. During practice, the coach
was videotaped and audio-taped via a lapel microphone and digital voice recorder. This
recording process was as unobtrusive to the practice as possible. The camera was located
in a position where visual contact was obtainable and interference Of practice could be
avoided. To aid in this positioning, at the beginning of practice the coach was consulted
as to advantageous locations for video and ﬁeld note recording. Prior to each practice the
coach was given the digital recorder and microphone. The coach carried the digital
recording device in a small belt pack and the microphone was attached with a lapel clip
on his or her shirt or jacket. The recording device was tested at the beginning Of and once
during the practice at a convenient time for the coach.

At different intervals of the season (preseason, middle of season, post/end of
season), the CBS and CCS were given to both coaches and athletes, respectively. For this,

the coaches were contacted and asked to provide 10 minutes for survey completion at the

42

beginning of the next practice. The athletes completed the demographic form with the
ﬁrst measure during the season. The coaches were given the CES, usually via email per
their request, and completed it within a timely manner. The full CBS and CCS were used
for the ﬁrst and last measure of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competence respectively.
For middle Of the season measure only the game strategy and motivation subscales were
collected for the CBS and CCS. With an attempt to collect CES/CCS data several more
times throughout the middle of the season, the researchers decided to use a shorter
measure to allow more data collection opportunities. It was decided that, out of the 4
CES/CCS subscales, GSE/GSC and ME/MCC would be most likely to change, therefore
TE/T C and CBE/CBC would not be used during the middle of the season. Due to the
teams’ competition and practice schedule, however, only one middle of season collection
was possible.

Video and audio data were analyzed using the interval recording method with the
ASUOI. The protocol for this methodology followed traditional systematic Observation
literature (Lacy & Darst, 1989; Siedentop & Tannehill, 2000). Researchers ﬁrst loaded
the audio and video ﬁles from the practice onto a computer and the ﬁles were
synchronized so that both could be viewed/heard simultaneously. The recorders Viewed
the practice and recorded the behaviors using the interval method. For this, another audio
ﬁle played along with the practice and every 8 seconds the recorders heard a prompt to
“record”. At this time they recorded whatever behavior was dominant in the previous
interval using a predetermined list of behaviors (see Table 1 for behavior categories). The
researchers did not differentiate between behaviors that were reactions to athletes’

behaviors or those that were spontaneous. The number assigned to the desired category

43

was recorded vertically on a grid laboratory sheet (see Appendix L for an example). Each
behavior had its own designated number; the use of ﬁrst name behavior was coded as a
dependent behavior and therefore was coded only with other behaviors. Every 5 intervals,
the recorders ensured they were synchronized on the grid sheet. Behaviors were recorded
for the entirety of the practice. The overall calculated percentages of behaviors were
based on the entire time of the practice session.

At the end of the season, coaches and a sub-sample of athletes on their respective
teams took part in an individual post-season interview. In all, interviews were conducted
with all 3 coaches and 11 athletes (4 from Team 1, 3 from Team 2, 4 from Team 3).
These interviews lasted roughly 30-minutes and focused on idiosyncratic perceptions of
the season, coaching behaviors, and changes/patterns in measure scores over the season.
The interviews were transcribed verbatim by two researchers for analysis. Qualitative
interview data were divided based on subjects of the semi-structured interview script.
Speciﬁcally, quotes were grouped based on the subscales of coaching efﬁcacy and
competence (game strategy, motivation, teaching technique, and character building),
coach and athlete explanation of their respective scores on collected measures, and views
on speciﬁc season events. Quotes for these different topics were grouped by two
researchers and assertions were developed for support of the themes (Bogdan & Knopp
Biklen, 2003). A third researcher served as a reliability check by independently analyzing

the data and conﬁrming assertions developed from the data.

44

CHAPTER FOUR
Results and Discussion
Overview of Data Management

The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaching efﬁcacy, feedback, and
practice behaviors change during different intervals (preseason, season, postseason) of
the season, how head coaches are affected by season events, such as win or loss streaks,
and how coaching behaviors may be affected by a coach’s educational and experiential
background. More speciﬁcally, how are these variables manifested in a developing head
coach? Another question was how these changes in coaching efﬁcacy and feedback are
perceived throughout the season by the coach and athletes. In order to investigate the
interplay of these variables, two research questions were addressed in this study:

1. How do the variables Of coaching efﬁcacy/coaching competency, feedback,
and practice behaviors change during different intervals (preseason, season,
postseason) of the season? and,

2. How are these changes in coaching efﬁcacy and feedback perceived
throughout the season by the coach and athletes?

TO investigate changes in the study variables across the season, coaching efﬁcacy
scores and coaching competency scores as rated by the athletes were collected at the
beginning, middle, and end of the season. In order to compare the athletes’ sense of their
coach’s competency with the coach’s sense of efﬁcacy (at the subscale level), a series of
one-sample t-tests were conducted using the coach’s mean score (total efﬁcacy or
subscale score divided by number of scale/subscale items) as the test value for

comparison. The one-sample t-test was an appropriate statistical procedure because of the

45

desire to compare one group (mean athlete scores) with a known value (coach score), the
coach score having no variance (Howell, 2002). In order to investigate the athletes’
changes in perceptions of coaching competency over the season a one-way repeated
measures ANOVA was conducted for each subscale (GSC, MC, TC, CBC) within groups
by team over the three data collections over the season. Further, practices were observed
and practice behaviors of the coach were recorded over the course of the season.

' The second research question for this study investigated the perceptions Of the
coach and athletes with regards to the season, changes in practice behaviors and
feedback, and coaching efﬁcacy/coaching competency. Both the coach and selected
athletes were interviewed to ascertain their perceptions on these topics. Qualitative
interview data were divided based on topics Of the semi-structured interview script.
Speciﬁcally, quotes were grouped based on the subscales Of coaching efﬁcacy and
competency (game strategy, motivation, teaching technique, and character building),
coach’s and athlete’s explanations Of their respective scores on collected measures, and
views on speciﬁc season events. Quotes for these different topics were grouped and
assertions were developed for support of the themes (Bogdan & Knopp Biklen, 2003).
See Appendices V-X for qualitative data grouped with assertions for each team.
Qualitative interview data are presented based on these themes and assertions in
conjunction with the other forms of data to provide a more complete picture of the
developing coach.

The results are presented in a case study discussion of three developing coaches.
The case study design was inﬂuenced by all forms of data in the research framework.

Patton (2002) supports this multi-source method of case development, stating that this

46

process provides a holistic, context sensitive, and layered approach to data analysis. Yin
(2003a, 2003b) discusses this analytic strategy for case study development as a way to
understand a phenomenon within real-life context, often using multiple sources Of
evidence. Developing these case studies provides an in-depth understanding of the
variables over the course of the season. The frame for this study also allows for a possible
pattem-matching approach in investigating the experiences of these coaches across a
season. While comparison between three case studies cannot form generalizations of a
population, examining these case studies as individual units of analysis can aid in
understanding the inﬂuence of the variables on coach development.
Overview of Case Studies

The three case studies for this study were high school varsity lacrosse coaches.
The sport of lacrosse became an Obvious choice while contacting area school systems
about appropriate participants. Lacrosse was beginning its ﬁrst year as a varsity sport
sanctioned by the state’s governing athletic association; this would also be the ﬁrst year
for a postseason tournament. Of all sports Offered by area high schools, lacrosse had the
greatest number Of inexperienced coaches and teams. Table 2 provides a demographic
description of each of the three lacrosse coaches. The names of the coaches and teams

have been changed in order to protect conﬁdentiality.

47

Table 2

Demographic Description of Case Study Coaches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coach: Coach 1 - Mark Coach 2 - Rob Coach 3 - Jen

Gender Male Male Female

Team Highland Bears — Oak Hills Tigers Highland Bears —
Boys’ Varsity —Boys’ Varsity Girls’ Varsity

Ethnic Afﬁliation Caucasian Caucasian Caucasian &

Asian-American

Age in Years 29 46 31

Occupation Teacher Business Owner Social Worker

High School Sport Soccer, Lacrosse Hockey Cheerleading

Experience

College Sport Lacrosse Lacrosse Lacrosse (club)

Experience

Years Coaching Club O 2 2

Program

 

 

 

 

48

 

CASE STUDY 1

Overview of Coach 1

Mark was the head coach of the Highland Bears Boys’ varsity lacrosse program.
He was a 29—year-old Caucasian male. He had experience as both a high school and
college athlete, playing soccer and lacrosse in high school and varsity lacrosse in college.
Mark was beginning his ﬁrst year as a high school varsity coach and inherited a club
program that was three years old. He was assisted by a volunteer assistant coach who
attended the ﬁrst part of the season. After the assistant stopped attending, Mark then
conducted practice sessions on his own for the remainder of the year. Mark’s educational
and occupational background was in education; he was a teacher in the school system in
which he coached.
Overview of Highland Bears Practices and Data Collection

The Bears practiced at a local junior high school close tO the high school. Both
varsity and junior varsity squads practiced directly after school (3:30-5:30 pm.) but on
separate areas Of the ﬁeld. The team was observed for a total of 6 practice sessions over
the course of the season, the last practice representing postseason preparation. Measures
of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency were given three times during the season,
representing beginning, middle, and end of season.
Coaching Efficacy and Coaching Competency

Little research has examined how a coach’s sense of efﬁcacy changes during a
season. Further, no study has examined the relationship between a coach’s sense of
coaching efﬁcacy and his or her players’ perceptions Of coaching competency. Since not

all subscales of the CES and CCS were collected over the entire season what are

49

presented are results of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency at the subscale level
(Game Strategy, Motivation, Teaching Technique, and Character Building). Tables 3-5
show the results of one-sample t-tests of the CES/CCS subscales over the season.

In order to investigate the athletes’ perception of coaching competency over the
season, a series Of one-way repeated measures ANOVA were conducted for the different
CCS subscale scores. There was no statistically signiﬁcant difference in athletes’
perceptions of coaching competency. The results were: game strategy competency,

F (2,24) = .395, p >.05; motivation competency, F (2,24) = .471, p >.05; teaching
technique competency, F (1 ,24) = .063, p >05; and character building competency,

F (1,24) = .008, p >.05. These results indicate that there were no statistically signiﬁcant
changes in the athletes’ views Of the coach’s competency when investigated over the

length of the season.

Table 3

Team 1—- Beginning of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Efﬁcacy and
Perceived Coaching Competency

 

 

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived
giaching Competency
Item M M SD t
Game Strategy 6.57 7.62 .89 5.75**
Motivation 6.29 7.19 .87 5.28**
Teaching Technique 7.50 7.90 .71 2.87*
Character Building 7.75 8.33 .75 3.77**

 

*p < .05, **p < .005

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.

50

Table 4

Team 1 -- Middle of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Eﬂicacy and Perceived
Coaching Competency

 

 

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived
Coaching Competency

Item M M SD t
Character Building -- -- -- --
Teaching Technique -- -- -- --
Game Strategy 5.33 7.73 .98 12.00“
Motivation 4.83 7.16 .84 13.53“

“p < .005

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.
Table 5

Team 1 -- End of the Season: One—Sample T -tests of Coaching Efficacy and Perceived
Coaching Competency

 

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived
Coaching Competency
Item M M SD t
Game Strategy 6.00 7.63 1.30 4.68**
Motivation 5.00 7.35 1.30 6.75**
Teaching Technique 7.00 7.90 1.15 2.95**
Character Building 7.25 8.30 1.07 3.68**

 

**p < .005

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.

Game Strategy. The subscale of game strategy efﬁcacy (GSE) and game strategy
competency (GSC) was measured at the beginning, middle, and end points of the season.
Mark followed the same trend in his GSE scores as TCE, decreasing from the beginning

Of the season (M = 6.57) to the middle of the season (M = 5.33) and then increasing his

51

score at the end of the season (M = 6.00). The athletes’ scores of GSC showed an

increase from beginning of the season (M = 7.62, SD = .89) to the middle of the season

(M = 7.73, SD = .98) and then a decrease to the original score at the end of the season (M

= 7.63, SD = 1.30). Statistical analysis of the GSE and GSC scores found signiﬁcant

differences between athletes’ and coach assessment across the entire season. See Tables

3-5 and Figure 2 for scores across the season and one-sample t-test results.

9.5 ~

8.5 .

7.62

 

7‘
or

q

 

 

EfflcacyICOTn potency Score

5.5 4'

 

 

 

 

7.63

.’_"“"'_‘—_""'—I
3 -o- Antlers I

 

Beginning

TlmootSouon

End

Figure 2. Team 1 — Changes in Game Strategy Eﬂicacy and Game Strategy Competency

over the Season.

Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

One of the reasons for the changes in the coach’s GSE and GSC scores was the

introduction of offensive and defensive plays. During the preseason interview the coach

52

discussed this strategy for his ﬁrst year, “My focus is going to be for the most part of this
year on getting probably 2 or 3 offensive formations and 2 defenses in there. And
working with those and getting the players comfortable with that” (Appendix V, 4).
However, the decrease in GSE could have come from the coach becoming frustrated with
his inability to strategize during the game due to coaching inexperience:
I think if I was sitting up in the stands and watching things go on, I’d be much
better at strategizing. But, so far it’s been hard for me to do it right on the spot.
So, what I’m starting to do is, I wrote down a few things like, if this team is
playing this kind of Offense, then do this on defense. If they’re playing this type Of
defense, do this on offense (Appendix V, 8).
One athlete echoed this fact that the coach seemed to struggle with game strategy when
the team would be losing in a game:
He wasn’t always sure what to do when we got down because he was always used
to winning, because he played college and he won then. That was a new
experience for him; I could see. I felt bad for him, more than us. When we started
losing I think the players felt bad, but you could just see that he wanted to win so
badly and he was just ready to win. That was probably the worst part—him not
knowing what to do when we’re losing to get us back up (Athlete 1, Appendix V,
23).
The increase in GSC scores at midseason by the athletes could be due to the
introduction to a sense Of game strategy. While the coach was frustrated with strategy,

before this season the players did not even learn any strategy:

53

I’ve been playing for 3 years so I know how to play the game, but we learned a lot
of plays this year. I’ve never been involved in lacrosse plays. The program we had
before we just didn’t do that. SO, I learned a lot Of that kind of stuff. He taught us
positioning, where we should be in certain situations. Things like-what we need to

do in the off-season to become better lacrosse players (Athlete 3, Appendix V,

220).

By the end of the season, the coach’s score increased because he saw that learning of
game strategy had occurred by the end of the season. However, the athletes’ sense of
GSC decreased due to the overall frustration of the season; the team was losing so game
strategy, while increasing skill and knowledge, was not effective.

Motivation. The subscales Of motivation efﬁcacy (ME) and motivation
competency (MC) were measured at the beginning, middle, and end Of the lacrosse
season. Both coach and athletes followed the same trend Of decreasing from beginning to
middle Of the season and then increasing at the end of season measure. The scores for the
coach were beginning of the season (M = 6.29), middle Of the season (M = 4.83), and end
Of season (M = 5.00). The MC scores of the athletes were higher with beginning of the
season (M = 7.19, SD = .87), middle of the season (M = 7.16, SD = .84) and end of season
(M = 7.35, SD = 1.30). It is also Of note that this subscale had the lowest score of the
efﬁcacy subscales across the entire season. Results of the two-tailed one-sample t—tests
were beginning of the season, t (24) = 5.28, p > .005, middle of the season, t (24) = 13.53,
p < .005, and end Of season, t (24) = 6.75, p < .005. See Tables 3-5 and Figure 3 for

results Of ME and MC scores over the season.

54

7.16 /“‘""'ﬁ 7.35
7.19

 

 

+Coech
+A1hlete

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beginning Mddle End
Time of Season

Figure 3. Team 1 — Changes in Motivation Eﬂicacy and Motivation Competency over the
Season.
Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.
Based on the middle of the season ME and MC scores, it is evident that the coach
struggled with maintaining motivation during the season:
That’s probably one of the harder things for me. I try to get them to play for a
sense of respect for themselves. You know, everyone go out there and play hard. I
think with me, as a player, my motivation came from within. So, I tend to leave a
lot of that up to the kids, probably more than I should (Appendix V, 53).
Several of the players discussed how the coach’s sense of frustration and tone of voice

would actually motivate them to try harder:

55

You can tell when he gets frustrated or aggravated in his eyes or the tone of his
voice. He would call a timeout and talk to the whole team. If that didn’t motivate
you, then nothing else would have. He’d say to the team, “We’re not playing the
way we should.” You know, how to play better and stop making so many
mistakes. If that didn’t motivate you, then nothing else would (Athlete 2,
Appendix V, 70).

Another athlete recalled the same effect, “And the disappointment tone kind of motivated

us. You know, we don’t want this, this is his ﬁrst year. You know we wanted to be

successful. He’s a nice guy, he’s good to us” (Athlete 1, Appendix V, 86).

While motivating the players was a challenge to the coach, he did notice by the
end of the season that trying tO instill a sense of pride and self-motivation in the team had
paid off:

To really see them realize that they can play well and they are capable of success

and, to me, that’s a great place to be. TO have kids who are hungry to be better

and know that they can get there. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I feel like that’s where

most of them are at (Appendix V, 58).

One athlete remarked that, while the season was disappointing, the coach’s attempts at
motivating the athletes to keep going did pay off, “[The season was] frustrating because
we kept losing, but it was fun too because the coach made it fun. He didn’t get really
down on us like if we were losing the game, he kept trying and trying” (Athlete 4,
Appendix V, 102).

Teaching Technique. The CE and CC subscale Of teaching technique was

measured at the beginning and end of the season. Mark’s scores of teaching technique

56

decreased over the season from M = 7.50 at the beginning of the season to M = 7.0 at the
end of season. The athletes’ scores of teaching competence actually did not change over
the season with beginning (M = 7.90, SD = .71) and end of the season (M = .790, SD =
1.15) scores being the same. It is of note that, like all subscales, the standard deviation for
teaching technique did increase across the season. One-sample t-tests did reveal that the
scores of TE and TC were statistically different at both beginning and end of the season:
beginning of the season, t (24) = 2.78, p < .05 and end of the season, t (24) = 2.95, p <

.05. See Tables 3-5 and Figure 4 for t-test results and changes in TE and TC over the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

season.
9.5 1
I
91
I
I
, .5 I I
O
3
i
i 8 +Coach l
g 7 90 7 90 +Athlete
s
8
E
7 7.00
0.5 .
Beginning End

Time of Season

Figure 4. Team I — Changes in Teaching Technique Eﬂicacy and Teaching Technique

Competency over the Season.

Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

57

Being a teacher-coach was important to Mark. He believed that his occupation as
a teacher gave him insights into how to effectively teach skills. Further, he saw his role as
a teacher in the school system as an opportunity to teach both sport and school discipline.
He explained, “I think that if they’re going to be a good student of the game, they’re
going to be a good student in school too. SO it’s trying to develop both of those aspects”
(Appendix V, 110). Mark further explained that he could use management techniques
from the classroom on the lacrosse ﬁeld:

I guess I treat it similar to a class where I only have them doing a certain activity

for a certain amount of time, because I’ve found after that they’ll get seriously

distracted. Things are only good for 20-30 minutes and then move into something
different. And really try to point out things to them that will really make them
better players, smarter players. Little things about where they should stand, where
they should be looking and really getting them to get a feel for the game

(Appendix V, 136).

One of the reasons why Mark’s scores on TE decreased over the season could
have been the result of how he struggled as a ﬁrst-year coach. For instance, while he was
conﬁdent in his role as a teacher, he was unprepared for the level of unlearning that
needed to occur:

Deﬁnitely the challenges are unlearning things they have learned in the past,

because I’m ﬁnding that they’ve been coached by people who don’t play the

game and don’t have a real good understanding Of it and that makes it really hard.

If you’re starting from scratch it’s easier to teach them good things but when you

gotta go back and unleam it, it’s a real struggle...They think they’ve played

58

lacrosse for 3 or 4 years and they’ve got it. What they’re really missing is the

basics (Appendix V, 114).

Along with trying to teach correct skills to the athletes, Mark struggled with learning how
to teach skills he was unfamiliar with as a player:

I played defense so I’m a lot more comfortable teaching them defensive stuff than

offensive stuff. I have stuff that I’ve printed Off the intemet because I don’t know

where they should be. I tell them that and they laugh when I pull out my cheat

sheet. That’s the kind of stuff that no one ever taught me and most of the people I

played with, someone taught them along the way, and you just get comfortable in

knowing what you should do in certain situations (Appendix V, 151).

The athletes did point out that sometimes it seemed as if Mark struggled as a ﬁrst-
year coach. While he did bring a wealth of knowledge to these inexperienced players,
there were times that he was unsure Of how to teach a certain drill or concept:

It was frustrating at times and sometimes it was fun. Frustrating in a sense of, a

couple times, he would not know what to do for a couple Of people drill-wise. SO,

we’d be doing the same thing. But, at the same time, we were learning more about
the sport than we ever had. He brought that to us and he brought how well he
knows the sport to us. So, that was a good thing that he knew the sport and he
brought it to us. He deﬁnitely tried to make us a better team (Athlete 2, Appendix

V, 213).

Another athlete noted his dissatisfaction would be visible when Mark became frustrated

during teaching:

59

His body language. He’d be tense. And then his tone Of voice. If it was really,
really important, he’d almost get quieter to make sure we’d listen and if it was
something we were doing bad, you could just hear disappointment in his voice
and that was worse for us than getting yelled at (Athlete 1, Appendix V, 257).
When asked what Mark could do to become a better teacher of lacrosse, the
athletes had several suggestions. One athlete spoke about increasing the variety of
teaching methods:
Also, coming up with more creative methods Of teaching the game and things like
that, like I said it was a lot of repetition. We did the same thing over and over
again. And that helped because we learned different parts of the game, but once
we do learn that and we keep doing it, it’s not making us any better. I think we
need a couple of more creative areas where we can learn the game in different
ways and learn different aspects Of the game (Athlete 3, Appendix V, 235).
Another athlete discussed introducing strategy earlier in the season:
Start working on the plays right away, because only about half the guys knew the
plays at the end of the season. And start working on those right away and keep the
competitive atmosphere in the practice because we didn’t do that so much at the
beginning Of the year and at the end and it really was helping us (Athlete 1,
Appendix V, 262).
While Mark did struggle with teaching skills and tactics during the season, several
of the athletes pointed out his willingness to teach and help athletes. One athlete

mentioned his approach to individualized instruction:

60

He taught me a lot about the sport and how to play it right...He’s able to
understand each kid’s individual personality and he works with that. He works
with kids one-on-one before practice, during practice, and after practice. He does
what is comfortable for the kids. If a kid’s not getting something, he’ll try
something else, another way to explain it. SO, he understands what he has to do

with individual kids (Athlete 2, Appendix V, 195).

Mark seemed to struggle over the season with teaching lacrosse skills and tactics.
While his skills as a teacher were evident through setting up practice plans, using short
bouts of instruction, and individualized focus, he was not prepared for effectively
coaching a team who had inherited poor skills and discipline. He also found it difﬁcult to
teach skills that he found innate as a player. It is interesting that, while the players
pointed out this struggle, they rated his teaching competency relatively high over the
course of the season. Perhaps it was because they could see him trying to improve
throughout the season. Several of the athletes did mention that they understood he was a
ﬁrst year coach and accepted that both coach and team were in a learning phase of
development.

Character Building. The subscales of character building efﬁcacy (CBE) and
character building competency (CBC) were assessed at the beginning and end of the
season. Overall, Mark’s score of CBE decreased from M = 7.75 to M = 7.25 over the
season. The athletes’ decreased slightly from beginning (M = 8.33, SD = .75) to end Of
the season (M = 8.30, SD = 1.07). There were statistically signiﬁcant differences in
perceptions of CBE and CBC at both times of the season. See Tables 3-5 and Figure 5 for

two-tailed one-sample t-test results and changes in CBE and CBC over the season.

61

9.5 .

 

 

+A1hloto

 

 

 

 

i
g

 

7.75

 

7 .25

 

Beginning End
Tlme of Season

Figure 5. Team 1 — Changes in Character Building Eﬂicacy and Character Building
Competency over the Season.
Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.
Mark used lessons from his past coaches to guide his view of developing
character in athletes:
When Ithink back to my coaches, the ones that made an impact on me, were the
ones that taught me a lot, but that I also really looked up to them as people -- as
far as character, what they do for us, how they treated other people, stuff like that
(Appendix V, 291).
For the most part, athletes felt that Mark’s demeanor and interaction with them was a
positive model of character. One athlete discussed how Mark stressed that lacrosse was a

part of their lives and that other priorities were equally, if not more, important:

62

He’s tried making me a better person by the fact that we have to know our

responsibilities, either at home or at school and it’s not just about athletics or

lacrosse, we have other responsibilities. Most of us won’t play lacrosse in the
future. It’s about getting your future prepared and making sure that everything is
okay at home ﬁrst. I mean if something came up with a family member, he makes
it so family is more important than the Sport. If we tell him that we can’t make it,
he understands that. Basically, he understands that you need to do the things that

you do ﬁrst, and lacrosse isn’t the most important thing (Athlete 2, Appendix V,

314)

One issue that did arise during the season that related to character was developing
rules that were fair and consistent. Mark pointed out that this was an issue he struggled
with throughout the season:

I think there were times when if a kid got in my dog house, it was hard tO get out.

Or some Of the kids who I think maybe should have been reprimanded, I didn’t

always do that. It was hard dealing with the personal relationship with kids versus

the ones I didn’t know; it was easier to be hard on them (Appendix V, 296).
When discussing the coach’s management Of rules and team structure, one athlete
discussed how the coach’s inconsistencies in team rules affected the overall team climate:

I think it’d just be the fact that he’s just a little inconsistent with his rules and

setting rules. He started rules late in the season and he really didn’t follow all of

them. Just the fact that you’re going to set rules and make sure that everyone’s on
the same ﬁeld. If you’re going to set them, set them early on. He said, ‘Well, if

you miss practice because of academic reasons, you sit out the ﬁrst quarter. If you

63

miss because of another reason, it’s the ﬁrst half.’ But that didn’t come in until

2/3’s of the season was already over with. SO, I mean people weren’t too sure on

how to take him, if he was serious or not. There were a couple of times where

people missed the practice because they were sick, yet they still went in the ﬁrst
half after those rules were set. I think the rules are good because last year
everyone was skipping practice whenever they wanted to and we had a little bit of
that in the beginning of this year. But, just set them early and everyone knows

them and they’re like written down (Athlete 2, Appendix V, 322).

The character building Efﬁcacy/Competency subscales patterned the same trends
as the teaching technique subscales. While Mark had the best intentions, and did provide
some lessons of character tO his athletes, he struggled with how to develop a fair and
consistent set of rules. This could have been a reason for his scores dropping. By the end
of the season he witnessed the effects of this inconsistent discipline.

Explanation of Efﬁcacy/Competency Scores. An interesting discussion during
postseason interviews focused on the coach and athletes’ respective scores on coaching
efﬁcacy and coaching competency measures given throughout the season. Mark’s scores
of coaching efﬁcacy ﬂuctuated throughout the season, dropping at the middle assessment
and then increasing at the end. He offered this explanation for the ﬂuctuating score:

I remember feeling like I was kind of ﬂuctuating a little bit. But, you know it was

a lot of emotions for me. Days feeling like I didn’t know at all what I was doing,

and then days where I felt really good about what I was doing. . .I think I went out

there with really high expectations and I think the kids really did too. And then,

that just crashed right in on us. Then, I saw some of the changes that they were

64

making as they started to improve a little bit and they started to play as a team.
So, that probably made me feel a little bit more conﬁdent. By the end of the
season, there were still some disappointments, but there wasn’t the same kind of
pressure as maybe there was in the beginning (Appendix V, 378).

One athlete, whose scores of coaching competency decreased over the season, discussed

how speciﬁc instances during the season impacted his scores:
Earlier on I was excited for the year, and then I noticed that there was just a
couple of instances later on where he had set rules or we did something. Like
when we ran, we didn’t know what we were running for till after the practice,
which is kind of frustrating and mentally draining because you don’t know what
you’re running for. . ..As far as game strategies go, towards the end of the year we
had a lot of teams where it could have been pretty close, if not win, and half-time
he’d sit there and say, ‘We have to do this, have less turnovers, and move the ball
more. We have to come out in the second half and perform better.’ SO, we’d have
half of the half time, and we weren’t really learning anything as far as like making
adjustments on the ﬁeld. I think he got frustrated with how we were performing
because he expected us to play better. He’d call a timeout and say, ‘Look up when
you’re running down the ﬁeld, you have people wide open.’ He wouldn’t say,
we’re going to make these adjustments or anything. He didn’t really experiment
with changing up lines, as far as how other people would work together and see
what would work, because some people are stronger at certain things. So, he
didn’t really try that. The whole mental aspect for me just wasn’t there anymore

(Athlete, 2, Appendix V, 390).

65

Another athlete, whose scores decreased and then increased at the end of the season,
summed up that the coach’s behaviors and speciﬁc instances affected overall perceptions
of coaching competency:

Yeah, I went up and down a couple times during the season. I guess it was just

moments like maybe in the season that changed my opinion throughout it. Maybe

games that we won or things that we saw even in games that we lost that I saw
things that I liked about him, or that I disliked. SO my opinion changed quite a bit

(Athlete 3, Appendix V, 411).

Examining the motives and perceptions behind a coach’s sense of efﬁcacy and
athletes’ views on coaching competency is valuable in understanding shifts and changes
in scores over the season. It is interesting that both Mark and the athletes used general
trends and speciﬁc incidents of the season in their assessment Of efﬁcacy and
competency.

Systematic Observation of Practices

It was of interest to this study how practice behaviors and type of feedback
changed during different intervals of the season. Further, the coach and athletes were
asked to respond to Speciﬁc season events or behaviors. Systematic Observation
methodology was employed in order to View changes in behaviors and Observe speciﬁc
events 00curring during practice. In total, 6 practices were Observed over the season
representing beginning of the season (practices 1 and 2), middle of the season (practices 3
and 4), and end of the season (practices 5 and 6). Further, practice sessions were divided
into three segments; beginning, middle, and end of practice. Attempts were made to

observe practices every week, however, team schedule and contests conﬂicted with

66

weekly observations. Data from Speciﬁc behaviors discussed in this section, including
number and percentage of each behavior, can be seen in Table 6; data from all observed
behaviors over the season for this team, as well as segments of each practice, can be seen
in Appendices M-O.

A total of 1,434 behaviors were recorded at the beginning of the season (see Table -
6 and Appendix M). The behavior of silence represented the highest Observed category
with 21.9% of recorded behaviors. Of the three forms of instruction, preinstruction and
Concurrent instruction were highest, 14.3% and 14.2% respectively. Postinstruction
followed with 12.6% of recorded behaviors. During these two observed practices the
coach never provided negative modeling and provided physical assistance only 0.1% Of
behaviors.

A total of 2,236 behaviors were recorded during the middle of the season (see
Table 6 and Appendix N). The behavior of silence doubled from the beginning Of the
season, representing 44.4% of recorded behaviors. Management also increased from 10.5
to 16.6% Of behaviors, making it the highest recorded behavior during the middle of the
season. Positive modeling increased from no recorded incidents in the beginning of the
season to 12.9% at the middle. All forms of instruction decreased at the middle of the
season with preinstruction, concurrent instruction, and postinstruction accounting for
5.9%, 8.7%, and 3.1% of behaviors respectively. During the middle of the season the
three motivator behaviors (hustle, praise, and scold) were low, representing only 3.2% of

total behaviors.

67

Table 6. Team 1 — Observed Practice Behaviors Over the Season

 

 

Beginning Middle End
No. % No. % No. %
Prcinstruction 205 14.3 131 5.9 41 2.4
Concurrent Instruction 204 14.2 195 8.7 270 15.8
Postinstruction 181 12.6 69 3.1 33 1.9
Questioning 15 1.0 28 1.3 25 1.5
Physical Assistance 2 Q] 0 0.0 0 0.0
Positive Modeling 78 5.4 288 12.9 132 7.7
Negative Modeling 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0
Hustle 67 4.7 37 1.7 16 0.9
Praise 28 2.0 24 1.1 38 2.2
Scold 22 1.5 10 0.4 14 0.8
Management 151 10.5 371 16.6 376 22.1
Uncodable 13 0.9 2 0.1 5 0.3
Use of First Name 154 10.7 88 3.9 139 8.2
Silence 314 21.9 993 44.4 616 36.1

 

 

 

Note. Due to decimal place rounding of percentages not all columns add up 100%.

A total of 1,705 behaviors were recorded during the end of the season (see Table
6 and Appendix 0). The behaviors of silence and management continued to be the
dominant recorded behaviors, accounting for 36.1% and 22.1% respectively. Out of the
three forms of instruction, preinstruction and postinstruction continued to decrease while
concurrent instruction increased to 15.8%. The motivator behaviors continued to remain
low with hustle, praise, and scold accounting for 0.9%, 2.2%, and .08% of all recorded
behaviors.

Several interesting trends in practice behaviors were observed over the course Of
the season. First, Mark’s primary behaviors were silence and management. This could be
due to his inexperience as a coach and running practices by himself; he could be

constantly thinking and planning what needed to occur next. The three forms of

68

instruction ﬂuctuated throughout the season. For instance, at the beginning of the season
pre-, concurrent, and postinstruction were all relatively high for observed behaviors. By
the end of the season, only concurrent instruction remained high. This pattern of behavior
could be due to Mark’s decreasing score in teaching technique efﬁcacy. As he struggled
to instruct, he ﬁnally ended up relying on instruction regarding what was going on at that
minute, decreasing instruction before and after drills. It is of note that the behaviors of
physical assistance and negative modeling were hardly ever seen over the season, the
only record of either was physical assistance representing 0.1% of behaviors at the
beginning of the season. Finally, it was also of interest that the three behaviors associated
with motivation (hustle, praise, and scold) remained relatively low over the season.
Perhaps this helps in explaining both Mark’s and the athletes’ ﬂuctuations in motivation
efﬁcacy/competence.

Views on Season Events. One purpose Of this study was to examine how the coach
and athletes perceived behaviors and changes in CE/CC throughout the season. As part of
this research question speciﬁc season events and idiosyncratic coaching behaviors were
discussed in order to understand how the coach and athletes viewed these in light of the
season. The ﬁrst event for this team was the beginning of the year record. This team spent
several of the ﬁrst weeks without a win and then had one week with a 3-game win streak.
Of interest was how the coach and athletes viewed this sudden streak Of wins after a
series of losses. Mark discussed how he noticed a considerable change in attitude during
this point of the season:

Well, getting to that point was really frustrating because we lost a couple Of

games that I think the kids were expecting to win and I deﬁnitely was expecting

69

to win. I think that they improved a lot at the beginning of the year and I was
teaching them some things that were new to them so they were Optimistic, and
then to go in and lose 6 in a row was pretty tough. Then, when we won those 3
games, it was just a complete reversal of those kids and I could see it even after
winning one of them. Their attitudes changed and everything. It was really neat to
see. They went from thinking really negatively to thinking really positive. I think
they got a taste of what it was like to win. They won a couple of those games
pretty handily. They saw what they were capable of and a little bit of what it takes
to do that. Two of those 3 wins they really played as a team and that was the
biggest difference with just about every other game we played all year (Appendix
V, 442).

One athlete discussed that, while important for the conﬁdence of the team, the winning

could have impacted the rest Of the team’s season:
Well, both me as an athlete, and the team, it gave us conﬁdence and conﬁdence is
a big thing. . .We were playing well and we thought we could go on and win more
games. We could have probably won a couple more and went on a 5 or 6 game
win streak. It’s just high school sports where you play bad one game and it just
affects us. And we don’t prepare all the time for home and away games. I mean it
was an up and down season, I would say. It’s all about conﬁdence and how you
mentally prepare and how you prepare during practice. You practice how you
play and when that goes toward games, we got maybe a little too conﬁdent and
we started gooﬁng off during practice and it would show during the game and it

just affected the rest of the season (Athlete 2, Appendix V, 463).

70

Another athlete viewed this beginning of the season as impacted by their learning;
however, he also alludes to a dangerous attitude shift in the team:

I think at the beginning of the year we were learning the system and trying to

ﬁgure things out. How we all came together as a team and how he worked as a

coach. And then those 3 games where we started winning everything had clicked

for us. Then, for whatever reason, after that we played some better teams and we
got too cocky about what we were doing and started not running the Offense or

doing what he said and that’s when it fell apart (Athlete 1, Appendix V, 488).

It is important to understand these Views on how the 3-game win streak affected
the team’s attitude because the second season event discussed is the fact that the
Highland Bears did not win a single game for the rest Of the season. This is even more
discouraging when it is taken into account that they played 3-4 games per week during
the season. Mark talked about that, by the end Of the season, it was easy to focus on the
off-season and future Of his new program:

Seeing some kids who really weren’t enjoying playing and stuff was very

frustrating. And they didn’t like losing, it hurt. They were teased by other kids at

school, and they heard about it there. SO, it wasn’t any fun for them and I think
some of them, I mean it does take the fun out of the game when you’re losing all
the time. A big group Of kids took their licks and they were looking towards the
future and I started doing that towards the end too; really trying to think about the
process that we’re in and building a team, and not so much worrying about the

losses (Appendix V, 508).

One athlete discussed the impact of the losses on team motivation and frustration:

71

I felt like the whole team was just giving up. We had already lost so many games
that it really didn’t matter anymore. SO, I feel like people really weren’t maybe
playing as hard as we should. We were just out there playing a game, it wasn’t
anything really serious and it was kind of frustrating. I guess we had a pretty
frustrating season (Athlete 3, Appendix V, 525).
Another athlete added that this overall record affected players’ interest in going to
practice and working on improvement:

It’s frustrating and kids were quitting and just didn’t want to come to practice

because we were always losing. It just wasn’t good because no one wanted to be

there and people were saying that they didn’t want to go to practice because
there’s no point of practice because we’re just going to lose the next game. So, it

just was not ﬁrm for a lot Of kids (Athlete 4, Appendix V, 535).

Understanding this coach’s practice behaviors and how he and the athletes viewed
certain season events adds to the richness of this coach and team as a case study
observation. Identifying trends in behaviors, both positive and negative, can help to
appreciate the ebb and ﬂow of the season as well as how certain events affected this
coach and team. For instance, the coach’s use of motivating behaviors and different types
of instruction decreased over the season. Perhaps the overall record impacted those
behaviors. Further, as the season progressed and the team kept losing, perhaps the coach
was unsure of how to properly teach and strategize, this could explain increases in silence
and management, the coach feeling overwhelmed at practice sessions. Another
explanation could be that as the season progressed the coach allowed more Open play that

allowed the athletes’ responsibility for strategy and tactics.

72

CASE STUDY 2

Overview of Coach 2

Rob was the head coach of the Oak Hills Tigers Boys’ varsity lacrosse program.
Rob was a 46-year-Old Caucasian male. He played hockey in high school and lacrosse in
college. During the observed season, Rob was beginning his third year as the boys’
lacrosse coach. He had helped the school develop a club lacrosse team and, because the
club was transitioning into a varsity team, this was his ﬁrst year as a high school varsity
coach. Other than being a parent in the community, Rob had no afﬁliation with the school
system. The varsity squad has several volunteer assistant coaches who attended practice
on an irregular basis. He opted to volunteer his time as varsity lacrosse coach and donate
his coaching salary to the program. Rob’s educational and occupational background was
in business, being a small business owner in the community.
Overview of Oak Hill Tigers Practices and Data Collection

The Observed practices of the Tigers were held at a local park adjacent to the high
school sports complex. The varsity squad practiced directly after school (3:30-5:00 pm.)
followed by the junior varsity squad. Practice sessions were Observed a total Of 7 times
over the season, the last two represented post-season preparation and play. Measures of
coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency were given three times during the season,
representing beginning, middle, and end of season.
Coaching Efficacy and Coaching Competency

As part of the ﬁrst research question, it was of interest how coaching efﬁcacy and
perceived coaching competency changed over the season. Because not all subscales of

the CBS and CCS were collected over the entire season, what are presented are results Of

73

coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency at the subscale level (Game Strategy,
Motivation, Teaching Technique, and Character Building). The results of one-sample t-
tests of the CES/CCS subscales over the season are presented in Tables 7-9.

In order to investigate the athletes’ perception of coaching competency over the
season, a series of one-way repeated measures ANOVA were conducted for the different -
CCS subscale scores. There was no statistically signiﬁcant difference in athletes’
perceptions of coaching competency. Results were game strategy competency, F (2,2 1) =
3.05, p >.05; motivation competency, F (2,21) = 1.11, p >.05; teaching technique
competency, F (1,21) = 3.44, p >05; and character building competency, F (1,21) = .337,
p >.05. Thus, there were no statistically signiﬁcant changes in the athletes’ views of the
coach’s competency when investigated over the length Of the season.

Table 7

Team 2 -- Beginning of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Efficacy and
Perceived Coaching Competency

 

 

 

Coaching Athletes’ Perceived
Efﬁcacy Coaching Competency
Item I
M M SD

Game Strategy 7.29 7.75 .72 2.94*"‘
Motivation 7.14 7.51 .74 2.37*
Teaching Technique 7.67 7.74 .77 .439
Character Building 9.00 8.22 .78 -4.71*"‘

 

*p < .05. **p < .005

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.

74

Table 8

Team 2 -- Middle of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Efficacy and Perceived
Coaching Competency

 

 

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived
Coaching Competency

Item M M SD t
Character Building -- -- -- --
Teaching Technique -- -- -- --
Game Strategy 7.67 7.44 .93 -1.15
Motivation 6.00 7.15 1.4 3.98“

**p < .005

Note. The coach’s ‘efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.

Table 9

Team 2 -- End of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Efficacy and Perceived
Coaching Competency

 

 

 

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived
Coaching Competency
Item M M SD t
Game Strategy 6.86 7.56 .88 3.82**
Motivation 6.17 7.39 1.1 5.48**
Teaching Technique 6.60 7.36 .96 3.81 **
Character Building 8.00 8.25 .83 1.45

 

**p < .005

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.
Game Strategy. The efﬁcacy/competency subscale of game strategy efﬁcacy

(GSE) was measured at the beginning, middle, and end of the season. Although the coach

rated himself highly over time, his score on GSE did decrease over the season. The

athletes also rated the coach highly on Game Strategy Competency (GSC). Of interest is

75

that at the rrriddle of the season, the coach actually increased his score from the beginning
(M = 7.29 versus M = 7.67) at the same time the athletes’ scores decreased (M = 7.75
versus M = 7.44). Further, at the beginning and end of the season the relationship
between coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency were found to be statistically
signiﬁcant, but not at the middle of the season. See Tables 7-9 for one-sample t-test

results and Figure 6 for changes over the season.

8.5 .

A

 

+ Coach
+Athlete

 

 

 

 

Eﬂicecleompetency Score
g
'or

 

\l

 

 

6.5 .

 

 

Beginning Mddle End
Time of Season

Figure 6. Team 2 — Changes in Game Strategy Eﬂicacy and Game Strategy Competency
over the Season.
Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

To help explain the ﬂuctuations in GSE and GSC scores, perceptions of the coach
and athletes were ascertained through post-season interviews. Overall, the coach felt he

was competent in game strategy stating, “I would say in the game, and strategy within the

76

game, I am conﬁdent that I know how to think the strategy of the game” (Appendix W,
32). However, he did caution that the teams’ experience impacted their ability to
successfully learn and use certain tactics:

We have been at this so short of time that there are many, many strategies I would

like to implement that either we’re not there yet skill wise or you can’t always

seem to get new minds around so many things. I would love to have half a dozen
plays and Offensive sets and clears in there. But we, we have to get the basics

down before we do it (Appendix W, 5).

One of the athletes spoke of how the coach changed his game strategy over the season
and how this changed the athlete’s scores on coaching competency:

Yeah, his game strategy I think changed throughout the year. At the beginning I

think I rated him kind of low, but we hadn’t played many games so I didn’t have

much to go Off of. But it got better because the speciﬁc case that I know, he
doesn’t like to play zone defense. But, then as we needed it, as we came across
teams that we needed tO play zone defense, even though he didn’t like it, he
thought that we could win with a zone defense. So, I think that it shows his
competitive drive to win and not his selﬁsh. . ..SO he did what he needed to do to

win (Athlete 3, Appendix W, 51).

The change in the game strategy subscale scores could be a product Of the season
unfolding over a 3.5 mOnth period. At the beginning Of the season it may be difﬁcult for
coaches and athletes to evaluate game strategy when the majority Of time is still devoted
to practicing fundamental skills and preparing for upcoming competition. As competition

started and both coach and athletes experienced the coach’s game strategy behavior,

77

' scores tended to decrease. Perhaps this was simply the reality of the success and failure of
certain strategies during the games leading up to the second data collection period. There
do seem to be differences in how the coach and athletes perceived game strategy over the
season. For instance, the coach relates his use of strategies as related to the skill level and
experience of the team while the athletes related the coach’s game strategy to speciﬁc
changes witnessed over the season. Clearly, the coach has a broader view of the game
and all the potential strategies than do the athletes. The athletes View the coach’s ability
more in the moment.

Motivation. The subscale of Motivation Efﬁcacy (ME) and Motivation
Competency (MC) was measured three times during the season; beginning, middle, and
end of season. As seen in Tables 7-9 and Figure 7, both the coach’s score of ME and
athletes’ score of MC decreased from beginning to middle of the season and then
increased from middle to end Of the season. Further, at all intervals Of the season one-
sample t-tests showed statistically signiﬁcant differences in efﬁcacy and competency
scores. Results of the two-tailed t-tests for the beginning of the season were, I (21) = 2.37,
p<.05, middle Of the season, t (21) = 3.98, p< .005, and end of season, t (21) = 5.48,
p<.005. This difference in perceptions of motivation may be due to the tactics used by the
coach. For instance, the coach Often played with the athletes during drills and
scrimmages. While the coach saw this as a necessity due to lack of staff, the athletes
viewed his playing as motivational. Of interest is that the athletes rated the coach higher
on MC across the season than the coach rated himself on MB. This difference in
perception could be due to how the coach and players perceived season events such as

playing together during practice; the coach viewed it as having enough players for a

78

scrimmage while the athletes saw some of the coach’s practice techniques as having a

motivational effect.

 

+C00ch
+AM

 

 

 

 

 

E 7.51
g 7.5 . (\ ‘ ’ 7.39
i.

" 6.17

 

 

5.5 .

 

Beg'nning Middle End
Tlme of Season

Figure 7. Team 2 — Changes in Motivation Efficacy and Motivation Competency over the
Season.
Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.
One of the motivational techniques used during the season was competition
during practices. Rob viewed this as a technique to keep drills interesting:
Well, in practices we try to have ﬁm. I mean we have fun with games; groups of
guys versus each other. We do play the freshmen and sophomores versus juniors
and seniors. You try to do something that, while going through just the dull drill,
would try to make some competition of it. We’d have fast break drills where I’d

put defense against offense. . .ﬁrst one to get to 10 won, we had some incentive.

79

You know I think that’s the type of thing you gotta throw them so that’s what we
tried (Appendix W, 87).
One athlete echoed this approach to motivation during practices:
We do a lot of competitions like relay races or whatever in practice. He says if
you win, then the other group has to do sprints or whatever. You know, nobody
likes doing sprints. . ..He gives that competitive drive not only in practice but in
games (Athlete 3, Appendix W, 106).
One Of the behaviors noticed over the season was that the coach would join in a drill with
the athletes during practices. One of the athletes discussed how this teaching technique
was actually quite motivational:
I think it [playing with athletes during practice] was a big motivational technique
because you see that he’s willing to get in there with you, get in there with us and
take hits. He’s not afraid tO do whatever it takes to coach us. It was a motivational
technique whether it was intentional or not (Athlete 2, Appendix W, 135).
This behavior was one often Observed over the course of the season. While this speciﬁc
behavior will be discussed later in the case study, the athletes’ response to this behavior
was certainly related to their sense Of the coach’s motivational competency. Athletes
regarded this behavior, that the coach believed was simply a necessity due to stafﬁng, as
developing team camaraderie.
Teaching Technique. The subscales Of Teaching Efﬁcacy (TE) and Teaching
Competency (TC) were assessed at the beginning of the season and end of the season.
Overall, the coach’s rating of his TE decreased from M = 7.67 to M = 6.60 over the

season. Further, the athletes’ sense of the coach’s TC decreased from M = 7.74 tO M =

80

7.36 over the season. See Tables 7-9 for mean scores and one-sample t-test results for
TE/T C and all subscales. While the overall scores are still high for a lO-point scale, this
is the only subscale where both coach and athlete scores decreased over the entire season.
See Figure 8 for changes in TE/T C over the season. This decrease could be due to the
coach’s overall perception of his effectiveness as a teacher. As the season wore on,
perhaps the coach and athletes both perceived the coach’s frustration with his teaching
capability. Through both his behaviors and interview data, this coach really took to heart
his role as a teacher. Unfortunately, it was also this role as a teacher that was the coach’s
greatest disappointment Of the season:

I felt like in many ways I lost a year of improving kids individually. I do think

that just 5 days a week practicing everything got them better. I don’t know that I

was able to move a kid a whole lot further. I think that was some of it that

disappointed me (Appendix W, 188).

81

8.5 - Tr

 

+Coech
+Athlete

 

 

 

7.36

 

 

6.60

 

6.5 4

 

 

Beginning End
Time at Seeeon

Figure 8. Team 2 — Changes in Teaching Technique Eﬂicacy and Teaching Technique

Competency over the Season.

Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

The difﬁculty with this individual improvement was compounded by the team’s lack Of

assistant coaching. This point was discussed by the coach:
If I had’2 assistants it would be much easier. What I’d like to do, ideally, is have
someone running the drills and me coaching individuals, as you see something
ﬁom the kid -- pull them over and say this is what I’d like you to do. What you
end up doing when there’s just one, like there was yesterday, you gotta stop and
you gotta coach in front of everybody because you don’t have the time otherwise.

You’re stretched thin. When it’s just one of me there, when the other coach is not

82

able to be there, you just don’t. . .you have to give up on saying I am going to
teach a lot today, you hope to drill it (Appendix W, 162).
While this coach struggled with teaching without assistant coaches, athletes did point out
positive teaching tactics that he employed throughout the season. One athlete mentioned
the coach (Often through necessity) demonstrating skills and playing with athletes during
scrimmage, “It’s nice to have them out there and demonstrate; it shows players they
actually played the game, they are not just a text book coach. It just makes it easier to
relate to the players themselves” (Athlete 1, Appendix W, 201). Along with this
demonstration, the coach would use other players as peer-models when showing skills.
One athlete mentioned this as a helpful technique:
He also uses the better players he has on his team to his advantage because there
are certain players who have the skills already and he uses them to demonstrate
those skills to the rest of us. SO, if there is anything that he can’t do, he isn’t afraid
to use them to Show us how to do it (Athlete 2, Appendix W, 226).
Another athlete discussed how the coach’s interaction with athletes affected the overall
learning environment Of practice:
He likes to almost discuss it. You know, a lot Of coaches will yell to get their
point across or something like that, but he just likes to get the team together
around him and just tells them what we need to do. It’s less like a parent and more
like a boss, he’s not yelling at us to do something or giving us chores; he’s like--
this is the task that needs to be ﬁnished and this is what we need to do, let’s go do

it (Athlete 3, Appendix W, 245).

83

The type Of feedback that the coach would give during teaching, as described in the
above quote, might be different than the stereotypical yelling coach. In his preseason
interview, this coach described how he was used to giving feedback to workers as a
supervisor; however, he faced several challenges using the same technique with high
school athletes:

I’ve got to try different ways to communicate because no matter how great you

are, it’s a lS-year-old kid and in some ways they’re going to receive things

differently. This is a new challenge for me communicating with a high school
athlete... It’s a different mindset, not quite as mature as the work place that I am
used to.

Both Rob and the athletes reported a decrease in teaching efﬁcacy/competency
over the season. For Rob, it was apparent that not having consistent coaching help
affected his sense of effectively teaching. Further, he struggled with addressing the
individual learning needs of the athletes. This could have contributed to the athletes’
decreased perception of teaching technique competency.

Character Building. The subscales Of Character Building Efﬁcacy (CBE) and
Character Building Competency (CBC) were assessed at the beginning and end of the
season. The coach rated his CBE score at M = 9.0 at the beginning of the season. The
athletes scored CBC at M = 8.22, making the one-sample t-test relationship, t (21) = -
4.71, signiﬁcant at a .005 level. At the end of the season the coach’s CBE had decreased
to 8.0 and the athletes’ CBC score had increased to 8.25. A one-sample t-test Of the CBE
and CBC scores revealed no signiﬁcant difference in coach and athlete perceptions at the

end of the season. See Figure 9 for changes in CBE/CBC over the season. As apparent by

84

the high CBE and CBC scores, the role of coach as a role model and character builder
was taken very seriously by this coach. He saw the possibility Of inﬂuencing his athletes
beyond the lacrosse ﬁeld: I
I don’t have to be the reason why they want to play lacrosse, I want to be just part
of their reason. . .looking back I have the fondest memory of my high school
hockey coach. I have a fond memory of my college lacrosse coach. To this day I

still call him and meet with him. I have a lot of respect for the person (Appendix

W, 257).

9.5 ~

9 < 9.00

.0
on
A—

_.

825 ' can“ ‘

8‘22 \I . +Athlete
8.00

 

 

 

EMcacyICompetency Score
a:

 

 

7.5 4
. .. .I

 

 

Beginning End
Time of Season

Figure 9. Team 2 — Changes in Character Building Eﬂicacy and Character Building

Competency over the Season.

Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

85

This coach would stress the importance of being respectful to the game and opponents.

He discussed the value of having character while playing lacrosse:
We got great kids that competed hard, never really gave up and were gentlemen.
I won’t call lacrosse a Violent game, but it is a very physical game and yet our
guys are classy. I am proud of that and we worked at that. I mean I coached to
that. One thing I keep coaching is, “you will be gentlemen” and they were good
about it (Appendix W, 282).

One athlete spoke about how the coach would use his skills as a teacher to impact both

the lacrosse player and developing young person:
He’s really an upstanding guy. I noticed he really had a lot of integrity and outside
of lacrosse he seemed really trustworthy and really honest. And in lacrosse he’s
just, he knows what he’s talking about. He knows the basics Of lacrosse and he
knows how to coach us and make us better and it shows. Especially in high school
you know, you can tell that he knows it’s more about developing us than it is
about winning. He doesn’t ignore winning; he just really cares about the players
(Athlete 1, Appendix W, 307).

Another athlete discussed the lesson Of commitment to both team and self that he learned

from the coach’s direct and indirect modeling:
He emphasizes sportsmanship and commitment too. Commitment to the team but
also commitment to everything else you do in life and hard work. He emphasizes
a lot of like the skills that you teach in sports. He emphasizes using those outside
of sport; so a good mentor in that way I guess and role model for the players in

that way (Athlete 3, Appendix W, 320).

86

The subscale of character building was viewed by the coach and athletes as the
coach’s greatest strength in efﬁcacy and competency. Through both his actions and
words this coach would focus on creating a team of competitive, yet respectﬁrl, athletes.
To achieve this, the coach saw himself as a model. For instance, one of the team’s rules
was to always use clean language. During observations throughout the season (7 in total)
the coach was never observed using foul or inappropriate language.

Explanation of Efﬁcacy/Competency Scores. During the postseason interview, the
coach and athletes were asked about their coaching efﬁcacy/competency scores over the
season. For instance, the coach was asked about why his scores in coaching efﬁcacy
tended to decrease over the season. His explanation of the scoring echoed his concern for
effective teaching and practice conditions:

I think mine went down because I felt the effects Of being alone. And I felt I was

not doing all I could do if I had more help. And 80 I didn’t think I was doing a

great job. You know, with the appropriate amount of help I could do a great job.

Alone it was difﬁcult SO I felt I was not reaching what I could do. That’s

probably, that’s where I kind of started knocking myself a little. That’s all right

(Appendix W, 326). 1
One of the athletes on this team consistently rated his coach high on all subscales Of
coaching competency. When asked about this he discussed how he viewed speciﬁc
aspects of coaching competency:

Yeah, I think it was pretty stable. His motivation, it comes back to giving athletes

credit where it’s needed. He didn’t do that very well I don’t think throughout the

year. But, everything is pretty stable except for that his game strategies got higher

87

as we had more games. I saw what he did differently in other games (Athlete 2,
Appendix W, 343).

Another athlete scored the coach high at the beginning Of the season, low at the middle of

the season, and back up at the end Of the season. When asked about this trend, the athlete

spoke about the ebb and ﬂow of the season and his views on the coach:
Thinking back to the season it seems like towards the middle of the season, I just
got, I think personally I think I graded harder then. I just graded ridiculously, like
I must Of put 2 or 3 points lower than normal and I just was a lot tougher on
Coach. . .probably mad at him for something. I don’t want to say I was sick Of him
but like it seemed like in the middle of the season there was a low. I don’t know if
it was just me but I got tired of Coach because he really is strict about not
swearing and I don’t swear all the time but its part Of my regular speech. It was
just things like that where you were just getting irritated at him so I was probably
mad at him about some things and I graded him for it (Athlete 3, Appendix W,
348)

When asked about why his scores at the end Of the season increased, this athlete

responded:
Oh I probably realized that I was being an idiot. Just because he doesn’t want us
to swear is no reason to call him a bad coach or grade him badly on our surveys.
And that even if I do grade him badly on the surveys, I do really need to support
him. I feel like the more I got back into lacrosse, the more I relearned the
strategies, the more I realized that he was a good coach and liked him. I could

appreciate the way he’s coaching. Not knowing the sport very well, it’s hard to

88

judge somebody else’s knowledge of the sport if you don’t know it. So, when I
learned it more, my appreciation for his knowledge of the sport grew (Athlete 3,
Appendix W, 359).

Examining the motives and perceptions behind a coach’s sense of efﬁcacy and
athletes’ views on coaching competency is valuable in understanding shifts and changes
in scores over the season. For instance, Athlete 3 provided a candid appraisal of why his
scores ﬂuctuated over the season. However, if his perception of coaching competency
was not assessed over the entire season these ﬂuctuations could not be addressed. Rob’s
decreasing scores were greatly affected by coaching the team and running practices by
himself for most of the season. As addressed in other areas of the results, this feeling
affected his sense of teaching effectiveness, motivational behaviors, and strategy.
Systematic Observation of Practices

Systematic observation methodology was employed in order to View changes in
behaviors and Observe speciﬁc events occurring during practice. In total, 7 practices were
Observed over the season representing beginning of the season (practices 1 and 2), middle
of the season (practices 3, 4, and 5), and end of the season (practices 6 and 7). Further,
practice sessions were divided into three segments; beginning, middle, and end Of
practice. Attempts were made to Observe practices every week; however, team schedule
and contests conﬂicted with weekly Observations. Data from speciﬁc behaviors discussed
in this section, including number and percentage of each behavior, can be seen in Table
10; data from all Observed behaviors over the season for this team can be seen in

Appendices P-R.

89

A total of 1,237 behaviors were recorded at the beginning of the season (see Table
10 and Appendix P). The behaviors of silence and management represented the highest
Observed categories, 28.5% and 26.3% respectively. In general, the frequency of these
behaviors decreased over a practice session. Of the three forms of instruction, concurrent
instruction was the highest observed form with 11.6% of behaviors, compared to 4.5%
for preinstruction and 6.3% of postinstruction. Modeling only occurred 3.2% over all
behaviors at the beginning of the season, positive modeling being the only observed
behavior. Also, this coach did not scold players, this accounting for only 0.4% of
behaviors.

Table 10. Team 2 a Observed Practice Behaviors Over the Season

 

 

Beginning Middle End
NO. % No. % NO. %
Preinstruction 56 4.5 125 7.3 105 7.9
Concurrent Instruction 144 1 1.6 315 18.5 193 14.6
Postinstruction 78 6.3 5 1 3.0 14 1 .1
Questioning 52 4.2 72 4.2 35 2.6
Physical Assistance 0 0,0 0 0.0 2 0.2
Positive Modeling 40 3.2 17 1.0 66 5.0
Negative Modeling 0 0,0 0 0,0 1 0.1
Hustle 18 1.5 9 0.5 23 1.7
Praise 39 3.2 31 1.8 18 1.4
Scold 5 0.4 2 0.1 7 0.5
Management 325 26.3 449 26.3 302 22.8
Uncodable 4 0.3 l 0.1 2 0.2
Use of First Name 124 10.0 192 11.3 146 11.0
Silence 352 28.5 442 25.9 411 31.0

 

 

 

Note. Due to decimal place rounding of percentages not all columns add up 100%.
A total of 1,706 behaviors were recorded during the middle Of the season

(practices 3, 4, & 5) (see Table 10 and Appendix Q). Again, silence and management

90

were the highest observed behaviors, 25.9% and 26.3% respectively. However, these
behaviors showed no pattern by segment of practice. Concurrent instruction continued to
be the highest form of instruction with 18.5% of behaviors as compared to 7.3% for
preinstruction and 3.0% for postinstruction. Interestingly, concurrent instruction was
shown to increase during the practice session. Positive modeling accounted for 1% of
Observed behaviors over these three practice sessions. Physical assistance and negative
modeling were not observed. During the middle of the season the coach provided little
hustle, praise, and scold behaviors; these represented 0.5%, 1.8%, and 0.1% of observed
behaviors respectively.

A total of 1,325 behaviors were observed during the end of the season, practices 6
and 7 (see Table 10 and Appendix R). Silence and management continued to be the
highest observed behaviors, 31% and 22.8% respectively. Concurrent instruction
continued to be the highest form of instruction with 14.6% Of all behaviors.
Preinstruction was found to increase over the season and account for 7.9% of behaviors at
the end of the season. Conversely, postinstruction decreased over the course of the
season. While modeling and physical assistance remained low, at the end of the season,
positive modeling increased to 5% Of total Observed behaviors. Other trends included
both praise and scold behaviors decreasing over the season and use Of ﬁrst name
remaining relatively stable at 10-11.3% Of behaviors.

There are several interesting trends in this coach’s behaviors over the season.
First, the highest observed behaviors were silence and management (those behaviors not
having tO do with skills or play). Perhaps this is a product Of the coach having to Often

manage practice by himself, being silent while thinking about drills and teaching to come

91

' in the session. Further, he could be spending a large amount of time on non-practice
related information (e.g., team administration, travel plans) that other coaches may
delegate to assistant coaches. As the season progressed, this coach’s use of preinstruction
increased. This could be due to practice shifting into competition preparation as the
season continued. The behaviors of praise and scold could have remained low due to the
coach attending to too many players at one time; correct and incorrect skills were simply
missed due to the ratio of players to coach. Lastly, it was interesting that modeling and
physical assistance remained low during the season. While the coach did tend to model
through scrimmaging with the athletes, his overall physical assistance with athletes could
be low due to the ratio of athletes to coach at most observed practice sessions. Trends in
Observed behaviors could also be due to lack of training in pedagogy and how to
effectively teach both groups and individual learners.

Views on Season Events. One purpose of this study was to examine how the coach
and athletes perceived behaviors and changes in CE/CC throughout the season. AS part of
this research question Speciﬁc season events and idiosyncratic coaching behaviors were
discussed in order to understand how the coach and athletes viewed these in light of the
season. The ﬁrst aspect of the season discussed was the team’s up and down record. This
team never had a long win-streak or loss-streak. The coach reacted to the record by
discussing how strength of schedule impacts the overall view of success:

Well, there are some games that you walk into that we have no business winning.

At this stage we had no business beating Big Varsity High School. But you

schedule them, and you don’t want to do them all at once, but yet you need to ﬁnd

the victories that are within there. I mean we played [team name] and lost 8-6 or

92

6-4 whatever it was. It was a 2-goal game against a very, very good team. Our
guys felt tremendous after that and they should’ve. Who cares? Who cares if we
won? I mean they do, but as far as I am concerned, if you give it all, if you focus
and give all the effort you have, what if you don’t win? At least you can say you
gave it your all. I am not going to say winning is over rated because I love to win.
But I had no problems; I think the ones that hurt you are the ones you should’ve
won, that you saw slip away, but we beat some teams that not many other people
beat either (Appendix W, 371).

One athlete discussed some frustration with this up and down record:
I think as a team everybody felt the same about the frustration and stuff. Then the
coaches they were conﬁdent every game that we could win if we just played our
game and played to the best of our ability and stuff. So they kept a good head
about it, but we all just got frustrated and some Of us got down on ourselves
(Athlete 2, Appendix W, 398).

Another athlete discussed how the style Of scheduling in high school lacrosse actually

helped keep spirits up during the early part of the season:
In a way it’s kind Of, it’s nice because 2 years ago in football, we lost our ﬁrst
eight games. That’s a lot worse because by about the 5WI or 6th game, you’re just
like “what am I doing here”? Where as with the lacrosse season, I don’t think we
lost more than 3 games in a row ever. With 2 or 3 games a week that means you
didn’t go a week or week and a half without a win. So, it kind Of helped lift your
spirits up but at the same time you never got on that roll (Athlete 3, Appendix W,

403).

93

A second season event discussed in the postseason interviews was the coach
running with the athletes. For instance, if the coach was scrimmaging with the team or
running through a drill because of participant numbers, if his team or group lost, he
would run along with the athletes as a consequence. While the scrimmaging with the
athletes was already discussed as affecting motivation and teaching technique, it was of
interest in how the coach and athletes Viewed the coach actually accepting punishment
when playing. The coach discussed this behavior in the following way:

I’m going to play, I’m going to pay. I would’ve surely made everyone of them

run. . .You’re a team and just because I am middle aged and fat doesn’t mean that

I don’t have to do that. I don’t want to be their buddy, but I want to say “hey for

this moment I was a teammate and I am going to, you know, you got to run, I’d

run”. That’s ﬁne. Otherwise, how can I ask everyone else to do it? (Appendix

W, 419).

One athlete succinctly summed up the coach’s behavior by stating, “Just a team sport,
shows team unity. Win together, lose together” (Athlete 1, Appendix W, 428). However,
one of the athletes saw this event as a critical lesson of commitment and modeling by the
coach:

He’s big into commitment and he’s saying if we commit to being a team under

him, he’s committing himself in the same way to be our coach and do whatever it

takes to make us the best team we can. He takes the wins with us and the losses
with us so. .. It’s a good feeling tO know that your coach is there to back you up if
something happens, being there to help you out if you need help Off the ﬁeld.

He’s actually there for you (Athlete 3, Appendix W, 437).

94

Understanding this coach’s practice behaviors and how he and the athletes View
certain season events adds to the richness of this coach and team as a case study
Observation. Identifying trends in behaviors, both positive and negative, can help to
appreciate the ebb and ﬂow of the season as well as how certain events affected this
coach and team. For instance, it would be very easy for a new team to become frustrated
by an “up and down” season record. While some of the athletes discussed ﬁ'ustration, it is
important to understand that the coach could see beneﬁt in providing a challenging
season to his team. Because the coach sets the tone, with feedback and strategy, his

ability to discuss with and explain to his team shined through.

95

Case Study 3

Overview of Coach 3

Jen was the head coach of the Highland Bears Girls’ varsity lacrosse team. Jen
was a 31-year-Old bi-racial (Caucasian and Asian American) female. She was a
cheerleader in high school and became involved in the sport of lacrosse through her
husband, playing for his club team in college. During the observed season, Jen was
beginning her third year as the girls’ lacrosse coach. She had helped the school develOp a
club lacrosse team and, because the club was transitioning into a varsity team, this was
her ﬁrst year as a high school varsity coach. Jen had no afﬁliation with the school system.
Jen’s educational and occupational background was in social work. The varsity squad had
no assistant coaches; a junior varsity coach would help with the team on occasion.
Overview of Highland Bears Practices and Data Collection

The Bears practiced at a local junior high school close to the high school. Both
Varsity and junior varsity squads practiced directly after school (3:30-5:30 pm.) but on
separate areas of the ﬁeld. The team was Observed for a total of 7 practice sessions over
the course of the season, the last two practices representing postseason preparation.
Measures of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency were given three times during
the season, representing beginning, middle, and end Of season.
Coaching Efficacy and Coaching Competency

Little research has examined how a coach’s sense Of efﬁcacy changes during a
season. Further, no study has examined the relationship between a coach’s sense of

coaching efﬁcacy and his or her players’ perceptions Of coaching competency. Because

not all subscales of the CES and CCS were collected over the entire season, what are

96

presented are results of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency at the subscale level
(Game Strategy, Motivation, Teaching Technique, and Character Building). Tables 11-13
Show the results of one-sample t-tests of the CES/CCS subscales over the season.

In order to investigate the athletes’ perception of coaching competency over the
season, a series of one-way repeated measures ANOVA were conducted for the different
CCS subscale scores. There was no statistically Signiﬁcant difference in athletes’
perceptions of coaching competency. Results were game strategy competency, F (2,1 8) =
.208, p >.05; motivation competency, F (2,1 8) = .025, p >.05; teaching technique
competency, F(1,18) = .447, p >05; and character building competency, F (1,1 8) = 2.24,
p >.05. These results indicate that there were no statistically signiﬁcant changes in the
athletes’ views of the coach’s competency when investigated over the length of the

8638011.

Table l 1

Team 3 —- Beginning of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Efficacy and
Perceived Coaching Competency

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived
Coaching Competency

 

 

Item M M SD t
Game Strategy 7.43 7.55 .82 .634
Motivation 7.57 7.10 1.0 —1.93
Teaching Technique 8.33 7.32 1.0 -4.29**
Character Building 8.00 7.68 1.3 -l .01
**p < .005

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.

97

Table 12

Team 3 -- Middle of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Eﬂicacy and Perceived
Coaching Competency

 

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived
Coaching Competency
Item M M SD t
Teaching Technique -- -- -- --
Character Building -- -- -- --
Game Strategy 7.57 7.71 .99 .547
Motivation 6.86 7.22 1.3 1.08

 

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.

Table 13

Team 3 -- End of the Season: One-Sample T -tests of Coaching Efficacy and Perceived
Coaching Competency .

 

Coaching Efﬁcacy Athletes’ Perceived

 

 

Coaching Competency
Item M M SD t
Game Strategy 7.00 7.47 .83 2.19*
Motivation 7.00 6.78 1.2 -.666
Teaching Technique 7.50 7.12 .90 -1 .61
Character Building 7.75 7.55 1.0 -.764

 

*p < .05

Note. The coach’s efﬁcacy score was used as the test value in the one-sample t-test.

Game Strategy. Both Jen and the athletes exhibited the same ﬂuctuation in game
strategy efﬁcacy (GSE) and game strategy competency (GSC) over the season. Jen
increased her GSE sore from the beginning of the season (M = 7.43) to the middle of the
season (M = 7.57) and decreased at the end of the season (M = 7.00). The athletes

followed the same trend but reported higher scores of GSC with beginning of the season

98

(M = 7.55, SD = .82), middle of the season (M = 7.71, SD = .99), and end of the season
(M = 7.47, SD = .83). See Figure 10 for changes in GSE and GSC over the season. One-
sample t-tests of Jen’s GSE scores and the athletes’ scores on GSC were signiﬁcant only
at the end of season measure, t (18) = 2.19, p < .05. See one-sample t-test results in

Tables 11-13.

91

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7-57 ’ ' +Atnlete

7.43

 

 

 

Efficacy/Competency Score
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7.00

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TirneolSeeeon

Figure 10. Team 3 — Changes in Game Strategy Eﬂicacy and Game Strategy Competency
over the Season.
Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

Both Jen and the interviewed athletes were ﬁ'ustrated with the use of game
strategy over the season. Jen explained:

The frustrating part is that you can strategize all you want but if your team does-

not buy into it, the strategy goes right out the window. That is something that I

99

have really tried to work with the girls, letting them know that I have faith in their
abilities and they need to show me that they have faith in themselves. That is the
hard part with strategy, knowing that your team is capable of doing something but
actually getting the girls to do it is that work in progress (Appendix X, 4).
One athlete suggested that Jen work on incorporating more strategy into preparing for
opponents. Apparently, this athlete did not feel adequately ready for certain game
situations:
Another thing to work on is probably focusing on the other team’s strategies; we
never really focused on what the other team was doing. Like if the other team was
rolling the crease, we never really looked at what they were doing and I think
that’s what killed us. The other team kept doing the same play over and over
again, and our defense really didn’t notice that, because our coach really didn’t,
we weren’t really paying attention. SO, I think if we would have noticed, that she
could have helped us point that out. . .and we could have planned that out and
maybe shifted and noticed that and got more on top of them and maybe that
would have helped us a little bit (Athlete 1, Appendix X, 11).
The trend in game strategy scores and opinions over the season is not surprising. At the
beginning Of the season game strategy may not have been fully introduced and a regular
part of practice. At the middle of the season game strategy is critical as teams are in the
middle Of the competition season. For instance, it was not uncommon for this team tO
play 3-4 games per week, a main focus of practices was preparing for upcoming games.
As seen by the frustration Of both Jen and the quoted athlete, by the end Of the season the

lack of game strategy could have caused the decline.

100

Motivation. The subscales of motivation efﬁcacy (ME) and motivation
competency (MC) were measures at three points during the season. Jen’s motivation
efﬁcacy initially decreased from beginning of the season (M = 7.57) to the middle of the
season (M = 6.86) and then increased at the end of the season (M = 7.00). The athletes’
ratings of Jen’s motivation coaching competency actually followed the opposite pattern
with an increase from beginning (M = 7.10, SD = 1.0) to middle (M = 7.22, SD = 1.3) and
a decrease at the end of the season measure (M = 6.78, SD = 1.2). Results of one-sample
t-tests showed no signiﬁcant differences across the season in perceptions of ME and MC.
See Tables 1 1-13 for t-test results and Figure 11 for changes in ME and MC over the

season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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g 8.86 r 6.78
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Beginning Mdde End
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Figure 11. Team 3 -- Changes in Motivation Efficacy and Motivation Competency over

the Season.

Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

101

When asked about motivational strategies used, at the preseason interview, Jen
spoke about the importance of self-motivated athletes:
I think this year the motivation is going to be a little bit easier. By setting up these
three groups, I have my varsity, transition team, and junior varsity, the girls that
are in the transition need the most motivation. By putting them in their own
category I think I am putting the responsibility more on their shoulders, they
know that where I put them for playing depends on how hard they work. I think
that self-motivation will be the focus this year (Appendix X, 34).
By the end of the season, Jen spoke about how getting the athletes motivated was harder
than anticipated, “It was unintentional, but I think some of that communication was
missing. Some of that more positive aspect, like ‘Let’s pump up and have a great
practice’ was lacking on some days” (Appendix X, 41). When asked about motivational
strategies used by the coach, most Of the athletes interviewed mentioned a certain type of
speech that they found beneﬁcial for motivation during games. This was coined the “You
Suck” speech. One athlete discussed how this Speech was used during the season to
motivate the athletes during halftime:
Oh, it depends on how we played, like if we have this famous speech when we
played Big Varsity High the ﬁrst time. She’s like, “You guys are sucking.” Not
really being serious, but then we came back and we won. So now if we’re doing
badly, she’s like ‘Yeah, you suck’, but it’s a joke (Athlete 2, Appendix X, 68).
Another athlete discussed how this speech was motivational for her and the team

throughout the season:

102

She’d always give us a speech, like the “you suck” speech, you might have heard
that, and she’d, whenever we’re playing bad it would always get us angry, but we
wanted that speech. So, she’d always tell us that and it’d get all of us really
motivated to keep playing better and she’d tell us that and we’d go out there in
practice and we’d really hustle and work our butts Off and we’d do really good.

SO, we just needed that little pep talk and then we made it really far and that’s

why we made it as far in the season as we did. That was the main motivation that

she gave us (Athlete 1, Appendix X, 88).

While this motivational technique may have been Viewed as beneﬁcial, perhaps it
became so common that it took the place of other positive motivating behaviors. For
instance, one athlete spoke about the motivating effect of the “you suck” speech but also
mentioned that her coach could provide more positive encouragement as motivation:

There are coaches that really, really compliment the girls and she does that, but

not as much as I’d like to see her do it. Because in a sport you love to hear your

coach say good things about you and sometimes she doesn’t always recognize
your strengths. She motivates us as best as she can, maybe that’s the best she can

do, but she could motivate us a little more I think (Athlete 4, Appendix X, 131).

Teaching Technique. The subscales of teaching technique efﬁcacy (TE) and
teaching technique competency (TC) were measured at the beginning and end of the
season. Both Jen’s TE and the athletes’ ratings Of TC decreased over the season.
Teaching efﬁcacy scores decreased from beginning (M = 8.33) to end (M = 7.50) while
TC scores decreased from beginning (M = 7.32, SD = 1.0) to the end Of the season (M =-

7.12, SD = .90). One-sample t-tests of TE/TC scores revealed a statistically Signiﬁcant

103

relationship at the beginning of the season, t (18) = .4.29, p < .005. This test shows that
Jen and the athletes differed signiﬁcantly in perceptions of TE/T C at the beginning of the
season but not at the end of season. See Tables 11-13 for t-test results and Figure 12 for

changes in TE/TC over the season.

8.5 i

8.33

7.5 T 7.50

7.32 ,
+Aliiete
, 7.12

 

 

 

 

Efﬂcacleompeteney Score

 

8.5 4

 

 

 

Beginning End
Time of Season

Figure 12. Team 3 - Changes in Teaching Technique Efficacy and Teaching Technique
Competence over the Season.
Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

When asked about how she viewed teaching lacrosse skills, Jen talked about
creating an environment where effort was rewarded when trying new skills:

I try to create an environment where I do not care if you go out there and make a

mistake as long as you are trying something, that is a message I am constantly

104

sending. Just show me that you are trying it. It’s all about trying new things,
trying new skills, and seeing what works for you (Appendix X, 160).
Further, she relates her work as a social worker to being an asset in communicating and
teaching as a high school coach:
With teaching skills, with my experiences, with training, my education, and
working with refugees where English is not the ﬁrst language where you have to
become real creative with how to send messages, those experiences have been a
real asset. You have to use all those skills in coaching (Appendix X, 168).
Jen also discussed in her postseason interview how the emergence Of lacrosse in the area
has impacted her knowledge and approach to the game:
I think this new growth of lacrosse, it was deﬁnitely a growing year with the
Ofﬁciating and the coaching, the teams we played against. 1 think it really even
drove the point home Of how much better it is for players and teams to be a good
educator and to teach them to dO things the right way. I think its deﬁnitely, I think
the girls got an appreciation of it because they would run off the ﬁeld and go,
“You taught us this way, but they aren’t doing [it] this way” And having this
dialogue Of why is what you’re teaching us different from what we’re
experiencing. And being able to have that, and even sometime second guessing
myself and having to go back and say Okay let me make sure that’s the right way.
In that aspect, this season has pushed me to be a better educator because there
were so many inconsistencies (Appendix X, 182).
When asked about Jen’s teaching competency and techniques, the athletes

mentioned that She uses a varied approach such as demonstration, individualized

105

- instruction, and drills. However, some of the athletes complained that the practice session

would focus on a certain drill and then the team would go through that drill for the

majority of a 2 hour practice:
She’d just keep, if she wanted to teach us a skill, she’d keep doing it over and
over. She just makes us do it over and over until we get it. She focuses on one
thing until we get it. I really like how she does that, but sometimes it can be hard
because we do it like the whole practice. Some practices we focus just on one
thing. One practice we were focusing on quick sticks and we had to do that the
whole practice until we could get to 30, and that was just to 30. Some practices
we’d do it like 40 or 50 and we couldn’t even get 30. SO, she’d make us do that
the whole practice because we couldn’t get it. SO, I mean some Of it is hard, but
she wants us to get it right and that’s good because she wants us to get better
(Athlete 1, Appendix X, 230).

Another athlete spoke about how she would use a combination of demonstration, drills,

and individualized instruction in teaching:
We do mostly drills and she’ll show us how to do it. Then she’ll put it into a drill,
and then we learn the skill. Like if we’re doing ﬂip passes she shows us how to do
it then we just pass and catch. I mean she can’t just Show you. And she’ll also
come around and help you individually if it’s something you’re having trouble
with (Athlete 2, Appendix X, 219).
While this combination of demonstration, drills, and individualized instruction

seemed to be effective for most skills, one athlete discussed that Jen should focus more

on individual players’ effort and needs:

106

She always had us practice with the team, which is what you’re supposed to do,
but sometimes she’d tell everyone that they weren’t doing the ground balls right,
but there were people doing it right. SO you really wouldn’t know if you were the
one doing it wrong or right. She didn’t really single out people as much. Like if
she would have come up to me individually and said you need to do this better, it
could have made me learn quicker how to dO something. Instead of just saying as

a whole team, you’re not doing it correctly. Then, she would say whenever I say

something it applies to the whole team, but sometimes you didn’t really know if it

did or not (Athlete 3, Appendix X, 256).

Character Building. The subscales of character building efﬁcacy (CBE) and
character building competency (CBC) were assessed at the beginning and end of the
season. As with teaching technique, both CBE and CBC decreased over the season. Jen’s
CBE scores decreased from M = 8.00 to M = 7.75. The athletes’ rating of CBC decreased
from beginning of the season (M = 7.68, SD = 1.3) to end Of the season (M = 7.55, SD =
1.0). Figure 13 shows changes in CBE and CBC scores over the course Of the season.
One-sample t-tests Of the relationship between CBE scores and CBC scores found no
statistical signiﬁcance at the beginning or end of the season assessment. See Tables 11-13

for t-test results over the season.

107

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8.5 .

 

 

Bednnlng End
Time of Season

Figure 13. Team 3 — Changes in Character Building Eﬂicacy and Character Building
Competency over the Season. '
Note. Vertical lines across Athlete mean scores represent standard deviation.

Jen spoke about how her job as a coach was important for teaching lessons both
on and off the ﬁeld. She had a more global View of the coach as teacher and character
builder:

I do thoroughly believe that you have an impact both on the ﬁeld and off the ﬁeld

and it’s not only about the sport of lacrosse, but it’s about character building. It’s

about instilling some things that I’m ﬁnding that you assume that kids know about
respect and sportsmanship and you learn that it’s not common place and just
really holding true to that. Your job just isn’t during the game, but, it’s using

those teaching moments that occur after the game, during the game when they’re

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not in play, but if you’re not constantly staying on your toes you can miss out on a
lot of things or you can overlook a lot of negative things that if they are not
corrected, even though they may not directly impact your team, I think it directly
impacts the fact that, that person may leave the experience with some pretty
negative behaviors (Appendix X, 292).
During the postseason interview one athlete discussed how she was concerned with some
of Jen’s behavior during games. When there were bad calls or mistakes made by the
referees, Jen would get upset and yell. This athlete was bothered by what she saw as
unsportsmanlike behavior:
Stuff like during our games, this really bothered me, she wasn’t being
sportsmanlike, she’d yell at the refs or something like that. I think it reﬂects
poorly on the team when she does that, but that’s about it. . .sportsmanship
towards the other team and the refs because of the way it affects how people lOOk
at our team. I think she’s a good coach besides that (Athlete 2, Appendix X, 303).
This athlete went on to talk about how these behaviors went against lessons She had been
taught and how that affected her View of Jen:
I don’t think it bothered any of the other girls because they were all like, “Yeah
that was a stupid call.” It really bothered me but that’s just because my dad raised
me that way I guess. I lost a little bit Of respect for her, but I still think she’s a
good coach (Athlete 2, Appendix X, 317).
When asked during her postseason interview about these behaviors, Jen again mentioned
the impact of lacrosse being a new sport. Speciﬁcally, the differences between girls’ and

boys’ lacrosse made quite an impact on the quality of Ofﬁciating and coaching during the

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team’s ﬁrst varsity year. In boys’ lacrosse a player can check another player with his
stick; in girls’ lacrosse any contact is illegal. Jen said that Ofﬁcials and coaches who were
used to the boys’ game were misinterpreting the rules of girls’ lacrosse. Because the
girls’ rules are all that Jen has known, she became quite upset as incorrect and unsafe
playing was allowed or ignored. It is unclear if Jen shared these discrepancies with her
team, explaining why she was frustrated; perhaps that discussion could have allowed the
athletes to understand the motivation behind her behavior.

Another area of character building that was discussed by one of the athletes was
how the coach and team atmosphere teach life lessons. One of the interviewed athletes
had never, as a high school junior, played on any sports team before. In her interview she
discussed how the coach instilled some valuable lessons:

I think it was the whole experience Of being on a team just affected me because

I’ve never had that before. Of course, being a coach, she taught us things we

could use in everyday life. Like not giving up, or even just like listening skills,

because you have to listen in order to be able to understand what she’s talking

about. SO, that kind Of stuff applies to life (Athlete 3, Appendix X, 354).

This same athlete also learned about teamwork and responsibility from Jen and her
teammates over the season:

I learned a lot about being on a team, and teamwork. If we were playing bad, you

can’t just single out one person and say you’re playing bad. You have to work at

it as a team and ﬁgure out ways to not play as bad. You can’t just blame it on one
person and call it good. If you think about a job, everything relies on everyone in

order to work well and that’s how it was on the team. It’s on everyone’s shoulders

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and you can’t single out one person and say their playing bad so let’s kick them

Off the team. It kind of helps you get along with people, even though you might

not like them as much (Athlete 3, Appendix X, 360).

Inconsistencies in character building ideals and exhibited behaviors could have
deﬁnitely led to a decrease in perceptions of character building efﬁcacy/competency. Jen
could have been frustrated with the lack Of competence in referees and other coaches
while the athletes could have witnessed her interactions and perceived them as
unsportsmanlike. As with other subscales, understanding the context of the coaching
behavior and athlete perception helps in understanding scores over the season.

Explanation of Efficacy/Competency Scores. As part Of the postseason interviews
both Jen and the athletes were asked about their scoring of coaching efﬁcacy/competency
over the season. For instance, Jen’s scores of coaching efﬁcacy tended to ﬂuctuate or
decrease throughout the season. When asked about this pattern, Jen mentioned the
hardships and demands of the season in light of being pregnant:

I can deﬁnitely see it could have been a different season if, I feel like if I say this

it sounds bad, but if my attitude was more consistent. Because I know that it went

up and down, because of what I was able to do. You know there were days when I

was out there and I really didn’t want to be out there and feeling bad knowing that

girls understood, but at the same time feeling that in a sense I was kind Of
cheating them in a way, because I couldn’t give 100% and expecting them to

(Appendix X, 389).

One athlete, whose scores decreased over the season, discussed how at the end Of a long

season there are several factors that affected her perceptions Of coaching competency:

lll

Yeah, I like Jen don’t get me wrong. It’s just that, towards the end of the season
she got a little more edgy, well she’s pregnant yeah, but she’s just sterner I guess
you could say. She might have just been more serious about it. Because Of the
playoffs, stuff like that. But I think a lot of the girls lost some respect for her
because of the way she was coaching. Maybe it’s just that after you spend so

much time listening to someone, it just gets old (Athlete 2, Appendix X, 396).
Another athlete, whose scores ﬂuctuated throughout the season, discussed speciﬁc
behaviors or events that caused her perceptions to change:

I think that the stuff that bounced around score-wise was because it kind of

depended on the game that we had or the practices that she, like sometimes, she

did motivate us more to do stuff and other times she kind of just let us do our own

thing and that’s when it kind Of ﬂuctuated. I know it went down when it asked

about working with individuals or something. I just remember that at the
beginning of the year everything was going really well and by the end it was like
well she hasn’t really helped me individually and I didn’t know exactly if I was
doing it right and she never really said, so that went down. I think it just mainly
depended on the games or practices before that and what I had to compare it to

(Athlete 3, Appendix X, 416).

Understanding, not only the quantitative shifts in efﬁcacy and competency scores,
but the coach and athletes’ reasoning for those scores allows for a greater understanding
in the subtle shiﬁs and ﬂuctuations throughout a season. It is quite apparent that Jen’s
pregnancy affected her practice behaviors in several areas. However, most athletes did

not see this as a problem that affected her coaching. As with other observed teams, the

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- coach tended to View shifts in scores as related to overall behaviors and attitudes while
athletes would point to speciﬁc reasons or events for ﬂuctuating scores.
Systematic Observation of Practices

Systematic Observation methodology was employed in order to view changes in
behaviors and observe speciﬁc events occurring during practice. In total, 7 practices were
Observed over the season representing beginning of the season (practices 1 and 2), middle
of the season (practices 3, 4, and 5), and end of the season (practices 6 and 7). Further,
practice sessions were divided into three segments; beginning, middle, and end of
practice. Attempts were made to Observe practices every week, however, team schedule
and contests conﬂicted with weekly observations. Data from speciﬁc behaviors discussed
in this section, including number and percentage of each behavior, can be seen in Table
14; data from all Observed behaviors, including practice segments, over the season for
this team can be seen in Appendices S-U.

A total of 1,360 behaviors were observed at the beginning Of the season. The most
frequently observed behaviors were silence (32.5%) and management (30.1%). Of the
three forms Of instruction, concurrent instruction was the highest Observed with 15.5% of
behaviors. Jen had no Observed instances of physical assistance, and low Observed
positive or negative modeling, 2.1% and 0.4% respectively. In fact, she provided no
positive modeling the entire second observed practice. See Table 14 for Observed
behaviors over the season and Appendix S for a full illustration Of Observed practice

behaviors by segment.

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Table 14. Team 3 — Observed Practice Behaviors Over the Season

 

 

Beginning Middle End
NO. % NO. % NO. %
Preinstruction 68 5.0 79 2.8 43 3.5
Concurrent Instruction 211 15.5 505 17.8 229 18.5
Postinstruction 26 1.9 38 1.3 1 0.1
Questioning 21 1.5 78 2.7 74 6.0
Physical Assistance 0 0,0 0 0.0 0 0.0
Positive Modeling 29 2.1 18 0.6 4 0.3
Negative Modeling 6 0,4 0 0,0 0 0.0
Hustle 45 3.3 32 1.1 64 5.2
Praise 32 2.4 93 3.3 46 3.7
Scold 12 0.9 34 1.2 15 1.2
Management 409 30.1 525 18.5 405 32.7
Uncodable 1 0.1 0 0.0 0 0.0
Use of First Name 58 4.3 221 7.8 87 7.0
Silence 442 32.5 1214 42.8 269 21.7

 

 

 

Note. Due to decimal place rounding of percentages not all columns add up 100%.

A total of 2,837 behaviors were Observed during the middle of the season. See
Table 14 for observed behaviors over the season and Appendix T for a full illustration of
observed practice behaviors by segment. Silence and management were still the highest
Observed behaviors, 42.8% and 18.5% respectively. Concurrent instruction (17.8%)
continued to be exhibited over both preinstruction (2.8%) and postinstruction (1.3%),
with these two forms of instruction decreasing from beginning of the season. At the
middle of the season Jen’s use of questioning increased, possibly due to more tactical or
strategic drills in practice. The forms of assistance and modeling remained low with both
physical assistance and negative modeling never being observed and positive modeling

accounting for only 0.6% Of behaviors.

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At the end of the season a total of 1,237 behaviors were observed. At this point
management was the most frequent behavior, accounting for 32.7% of observations.
Silence decreased to 21.7% at the end of the season. Concurrent instruction continued to
dominate other forms of instruction and actually increasing at the end Of the season to
18.5% of all behaviors. The behavior of questioning continued to increase with 6% of
Observations. Finally, modeling and assistance continued to be low with no observations
of physical assistance and negative modeling and only 4 (0.3%) instances of positive
modeling Observed over the two postseason practices. See Table 14 for observed
behaviors over the season and Appendix U for a full illustration of observed practice
behaviors by segment at the end of the season.

Several interesting trends emerged in Jen’s observed practice behaviors over the
season. First, her modeling (both positive and negative) and physical assistance were very
low over the season. There were several occasions where she would sit on the ground for
most of practice and interact with the athletes through concurrent instruction during
drills. This could also explain why concurrent instruction dominated other forms of
instruction and actually increased over the season. However, it is Of note that all coaches
Observed over the season conveyed low levels of modeling and physical assistance.
Along with concurrent instruction, Jen’s use of questioning increased over the season. As
the team was learning more tactical strategy, she would Often question the athletes about
their position and how a certain play should progress. Finally, Jen’s use of motivating
behaviors such as praise and scold actually increased as the season progressed. Perhaps
because she could not physically aid the athletes as much through nonverbal behaviors

such as modeling and physical assistance, she relied more on verbal coaching behaviors.

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Views on Season Events. In order to understand both the coach and athletes’ views
of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching competency in light of the season, speciﬁc season
events and idiosyncratic coaching behaviors were discussed. Two speciﬁc events were
discussed with Jen and the interviewed athletes. The ﬁrst occurred early in the season.
The team began practice with a discussion of the previous night’s game. Apparently,
several athletes from the Varsity squad had to do push-ups during the J .V. squad’s game
for not paying attention. Jen discussed with her team the importance of supporting the
entire lacrosse program and why it was important to watch both games. When asked to
reﬂect on this team discussion, Jen talked about her motives for it:

Well, I think part of it was the respect issue of being supportive to their younger

teammates. It was kind of an ongoing problem and something we deﬁnitely had to

work on just because, I don’t think they realize it, but I know how much the
younger players look up to the older players, and are just enthralled when they
watch the varsity game. I wholeheartedly believe that you learn from watching
and when they would watch and they would encourage, I really think they got
something out of it. I think it was really to instill that respect, and letting them
know that their job as a teammate isn’t done when their game is done. They need
to be supportive and also use it as an opportunity to learn when they’re given it

(Appendix X, 451).

When the athletes were asked about this event, they all remembered it as an in important
message for the development of teamwork. One athlete discussed the impact of this talk,
“Because I know it was really important to her that we all stayed and watched. I think a

lot of us girls took it to heart and did stay and try to learn by watching” (Athlete 2,

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Appendix X, 485). Another athlete also discussed watching the other team and game as
important to her learning:
I never really thought about watching your own teammates play and try to learn
from that. I mean you watch the game, but maybe pick a person who plays the
same position as you and see how they do it. Or, to see if there’s anything that
you can do to change how you play. That’s how it kind of impacted me. Every
game after that I kind of picked up on the people that played my position and I
watched them. Even from just seeing where they were standing when the ball
wasn’t down there kind of helped me realize what I was doing wrong or if it
worked out better or not. But, it impacted me a lot (Athlete 3, Appendix X, 512).
The second event was also a pre-practice discussion. Right before the postseason
the team experienced a decrease in motivation for practice. This was further inﬂuenced
by end of the school year events such as graduation, open houses, and the team banquet.
Also, there was a heat wave and several of the athletes would complain about practicing
in the hot weather. Jen decided to discuss the importance of the postseason for this ﬁrst
year program. Because lacrosse was a new sport in the area, all teams were guaranteed a
ﬁrst-round game but this team had the opportunity to advance further into postseason
play. She addressed the lack of motivation, end of the school year activities, and the hot
weather. When asked about her main motivation of this event she responded:
First of all, that we hadn’t practiced for awhile and this was kind of a key
opportunity to have to kind of brush some of the dust off, get our heads in the
game, use this as an opportunity to feel out not only the weather, but how

everyone responded to the weather, because I knew that was going to be an issue.

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And for the girls to kind of mentally get prepared for the game. . .So, I was just
trying to get them motivated to do that. And with the weather as hot as it was, it
was going to be harder to get them motivated, so that was kind of the main
message. We have a lot to do and especially the end of the school year I know it’s
so hard for the girls. They’re already thinking about open houses and graduation,
and for the juniors, senior pictures. You just gotta get them refocused (Appendix

x, 539).

The athletes remembered this season event well. One athlete mentioned that the weather

was a main factor in her lack of motivation, “And even though it’s hot, we need to work

hard. Because I know we were really lazy that day. She would get really ticked at us, but

it was hot” (Athlete 1, Appendix X, 556). Another athlete viewed this pre-practice talk as

a motivating message to prepare her for postseason play:

So, she was just letting us know all these different things that are going to be
going on and what a challenging game it’s going to be. When she said that, I
really got kind of worried, because I was like its not going to be an easy game,
we’re going to have to work and if we’re not there, and our heads aren’t in the
game then we’re not going to win and I was getting worried at that point. So, she
was just letting us know that our heads have to be in it and you guys have to bring
your “A” game. She was just letting us know the challenge ahead of us (Athlete 4,
Appendix X, 578).

Understanding Jen’s practice behaviors and how she and the athletes view certain

season events adds to the richness of this coach and team as a case study observation. Jen

and her team faced some unique challenges over the course of the season. Most

118

noticeably, Jen’s pregnancy during the season did impact her perceptions of coaching
effectiveness in the areas of motivation and teaching technique. There were some days
when she lacked the motivation for coaching and it was difﬁcult to motivate her players.
What is interesting is that very few of the athletes on her team mentioned her pregnancy
as a hindrance to her coaching. In fact, several of the athletes mentioned in their
postseason interviews that, “Win it for Peanut!” was a favorite team cheer in honor of
Jen’s baby. Overall, compared to the two other observed coaches, even with being
pregnant during the season, Jen experienced the same types of experiences and exhibited
comparable practice behaviors.

As was seen with all three teams, these athletes tended to be more forgiving of
coaching behaviors than the coach’s were, based on trends in efﬁcacy and competency
scores. Perhaps the outcome would not be the same if Jen was coaching male athletes.
This unique issue was interesting to follow over the season and it was apparent, in this
case, Jen’s pregnancy was seen simply as an idiosyncratic trait of this team, it had very

little impact on season outcome and athlete enjoyment.

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~ Comprehensive Summary of Results and Discussion

The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaching efﬁcacy, feedback, and
practice behaviors change during different intervals (preseason, season, postseason) of
the season, how head coaches are affected by season events, such as win or loss streaks,
and how coaching behaviors may be affected by these case study coach’s educational and
experiential background. More speciﬁcally, how are these variables manifested in a
developing head coach? Another question was how these changes in coaching efﬁcacy
and feedback are perceived throughout the season by the coach and athletes. To
investigate trends and perceptions, the general results from the three case study coaches
and teams were compared.

Coaching Efficacy and Coaching Competency. Overall, the scores for the
subscales of efﬁcacy/competency for coaches and athletes tended to ﬂuctuate or decrease
over the season. Speciﬁcally, ﬂuctuating scores tended to decrease from beginning of the
season to the middle of the season and then increase again at the end of the season
measure. Haugen, Short, Brinkert, and Short (2004) found that, with a preseason and
postseason measure, coaches tended to decrease in their CES scores over the season.
Research in teacher efﬁcacy has also found that efﬁcacy tended to shiﬁ after ﬁrst year
experiences. For instance, those students who had not yet gone through their teaching
internship have a higher sense of efﬁcacy than those who have or who are current
teachers (Parker, Guarino, & Smith, 2002). Further, Plourde (2002) found that student
teachers decreased in conﬁdence after a ﬁrst year experience. However, this ebb and ﬂow
in scores shows how a coach’s sense of efﬁcacy and athletes’ sense of their coach’s

competency shifts based on season events and team culture. It could be that these

120

inexperienced coaches were just unprepared or surprised by the responsibility of being a
ﬁrst year varsity coach. Sage (1989) states that most novice coaches have a “reality
shock” when faced with the challenges and duties of coaching. It would be interesting to
investigate whether coaches and athletes, regardless of coaching experience, encounter a
decrease in efﬁcacy/competence at mid season. It is of note that the coaches tended to
attribute changes in efﬁcacy to more global events or situations affecting the season
while athletes tended to point out speciﬁc season events or behaviors that affected their
perception of their coach’s total coaching competency. Again, it is also important to
observe that when signiﬁcant differences were found between coaching efﬁcacy and
coaching competency, that athletes scores of coaching competency were almost always
higher. Overall, the athletes tended to be more forgiving or not take into account
behaviors than their coach’s rating of coaching efﬁcacy. This is also shown through the
consistent perceptions over the season based on the one-way repeated measures ANOVA.
While subtle shiﬁs occurred with coaching competency subscales, athletes’ views did not
show a statistically signiﬁcant change over the season.

Game Strategy Eﬂicacy and Game Strategy Competency. Across these three
coaches and teams, game strategy efﬁcacy/competency ﬂuctuated with no common trend.
While all coaches tried to implement more game strategies, most were unsuccessful in
reaching the level they desired. What was interesting is that they saw the use of game
strategy as a product of player development. For instance, both Jen and Rob discussed
how if their players were better skilled in fundamentals they could implement more game
strategy. Mark discussed how he needed to work on his athletes’ “unlearning” incorrect

fundamentals learned from previous coaches before focusing more on game strategy.

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Coaches and athletes appeared to view the use and effectiveness of game strategy
differently on all three teams. For example, Jen would be ﬁ'ustrated with trying to teach
strategy while several athletes commented that they did not remember using strategy
throughout the season. Mark struggled with what to do, in the moment, during game
situations. This ineffective use of tactics was echoed by athletes on his team. Perhaps
inexperienced coaches need to be taught, not only how to teach strategy during practice,
but how to implement it during game situations. It would be interesting to investigate .
how an inexperienced coach uses game strategy as a teaching tool during practices and
how he or she uses it tactically during games.

Motivation Efﬁcacy and Motivation Competency. This subscale of coaching
efﬁcacy and coaching competency tended to follow a ﬂuctuating score for both coaches
and athletes. There was a decrease in ME and MC from beginning to middle of the
season and then an increase at the end of the season measure. The case studies provided
the various ways in which these inexperienced coaches attempted to motivate their
athletes. Strategies included such motivators as running and playing with the athletes
during practice to giving motivation talks such as Jen’s “you suck” half-time messages.

Jen, speciﬁcally, was an interesting example in motivating her athletes. She used
differing techniques such as a task-oriented motivational climate during practices,
encouraged self-motivation of her players, and also used negative messages such as “you
suck”. Perhaps, due to her inexperience, she struggled with ﬁnding the right motivating
tactics. While task-oriented motivational climates have been advocated for player
development, the use of negative feedback has been linked to harmful outcomes (Weiss

& Ferrer-Caj a, 2002). While the athletes on her team downplayed the negative effects of

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“you suck”, Jen could have used other tactics during halftime talks. Coaching education
could aid all three of these coaches by helping them to incorporate consistent
motivational climates that focus on player development that are integrated throughout all
areas of coaching efﬁcacy, teaching techniques, character development, and strategy.

Teaching Technique Efﬁcacy and Teaching Technique Competency. The scores of
TE and TC tended to decrease over the season for both coaches and athletes. All three
case studies provided examples of struggling with teaching skills and tactics. For
instance, Mark struggled with how to use his skills and knowledge as a collegiate
lacrosse player to teach his athletes. Rob believed that he did not effectively teach skills
due to having an entire team and practice to manage. Because of this, he feared that he
had not helped players individually improve and learn. Jen struggled with teaching skills
during practice due to, not only managing a team and practice by herself, but also
sometimes battling feeling ill and being physically drained throughout the season. These
trends in decreasing teaching efﬁcacy aﬁer novice experiences are consistent with current
teaching efﬁcacy literature (see Parker et al., 2002; Plourde, 2002).

The educational backgrounds of these three individuals may come into play with
their views on teaching technique. Rob, while a teacher, believed that he needed to focus
more on his experience as a player than a teacher. Jen used her skills as a social worker to
connect with athletes and explain concepts, even though her use of physical instruction
was lacking. Finally, Rob, as a business manager, would focus on what the team needed
to do as a unit; he realized at the end of the season that he needed to focus more on

individual player development.

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Athletes on all of the teams suggested that their coaches use more individual
instruction. It is apparent that inexperienced coaches need help in developing strategies
for integrating individual and team teaching techniques as well as the use of modeling
skills and physically assisting athletes.

Character Building Eﬁ‘icacy and Character Building Competency. As with TB
and TC, scores on the subscales of character building efﬁcacy and character building
competency had a tendency to decrease over the season. This trend was interesting
because the coaches all talked about the life lessons they tried to impart and most athletes
reﬂected on lessons outside of lacrosse learned from their coach. Rob especially took to
heart his inﬂuence as a model for the young men on his team. This focus on positive role
modeling could have been in part because Rob was a father of teenage children; he saw
the impact that a signiﬁcant adult could have on developing young adults. Part of the
reason for decreasing scores could be from the speciﬁc season instances mentioned by
athletes. Mark struggled with developing a clear and consistent set of team rules. Jen’s
behaviors toward ofﬁcials and coaches also affected one athlete’s view of her coach’s
CBC. While the CBE/CBC scores decreased, it is important to remember that athletes did
mention positive lessons learned throughout the season.

All three of these coaches cared about impacting their athletes on and off the
lacrosse ﬁeld. Further, most athletes discussed the importance of feeling cared about and
respected by their coach. This is important because research points to the important
inﬂuence coaches can have on athletes. Throughout a young athlete’s development, the
impact of signiﬁcant adults, such as athletic coaches, can have a dramatic inﬂuence on

young athletes. In fact, the interplay between positive adult role models, non-parent adult

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relationships (such as a coach), and youth programs such as organized sports have been
found to greatly impact the developmental assets that a young person acquires during
early life (Scales & Leffert, 1999). Examples of these assets are fewer feelings of
loneliness, anxiety, or depression (Pretty, Andrewes, & Collet, 1994), enhanced identity
development (Shaw, Kleiber, & Caldwell, 1995), and better development of life skills
(Dubas & Snider, 1993). Further, we know from the work of Smith and Smoll (see Smith
et al., 1979; Smith et al., 1977; Smoll et al., 1993) that athletes are inﬂuenced by a coach
that cares about them as both an athlete and individual. While scores in CBE and CBC
decreased over the season, all three coaches understood and worked towards developing
this relationship with athletes.

Observed Practice Behaviors. Over the season these three coaches exhibited
several interesting trends in observed practice behaviors. The highest behaviors, across
the season for all coaches, were silence and management, supporting previous research in
behaviors of inexperienced coaches (Jones, Housner, & Komspan, 1997). However, it is
important to know what increased amounts of silence mean. Is it that these inexperienced
coaches are overwhelmed and do not adequately provide feedback to their athletes? Or, is
it that as the season progressed, these coaches provided coaching-free times in which the
athletes were responsible for making tactical decisions and running plays? The large
amount of management feedback seems due to the fact that these head coaches were
often the only leadership present at practices. Therefore, they were not only responsible
for laying out the practice plan and agenda, but for relaying logistics for travel and other
information not related to skill or play. These coaches all used concurrent instruction as

their highest form of instructing both the team and individual athletes. Lacy and Goldston

125

(1990) also found that, for both male and female coaches, concurrent instruction is used
more than pre- or postinstruction during practices. Finally, these coaches displayed low
amounts of modeling (both positive and negative) and physical assistance. In fact,
negative modeling and physical assistance were almost never observed over the course of
the season. Perhaps these inexperienced coaches need to develop more comfort with
teaching skills and tactics in order to increase their use of these behaviors. Another
concern for physical assistance is perhaps the coaches’ views on “touching” adolescent
athletes. Society’s views on “touching” could have made the physical assistance of
athletes deemed inappropriate. The overall ﬁndings of these observed practice behaviors
run counter to previous research in which more experienced coaches tended to have
consistent behaviors over the season and spent low levels of time passively observing
practice (Curtner-Smith et al., 1998).

What has been presented through these case studies are three different routes to
becoming a master coach. Through experiences such as a successful athlete, a member of
the community wanting to give back, and a coach who learned a sport later in life and
developed a passion for the game, these coaches came to being ﬁrst year varsity coaches.
It is interesting that even though they came from very different educational backgrounds
all mentioned how skills as a teacher, business owner, and social worker helped them in
their duties as a coach. Speciﬁcally, they mentioned the impact of communication and
management skills learned in the workplace as impacting their coaching behaviors. These
coaches’ expectations of the season and of coaching also impacted their behaviors and

perceptions of coaching efﬁcacy. For instance, Mark had an expectation of an easy

126

- transition from being a player to being a coach. However, he was unprepared for the
difference between being a player of lacrosse and a teacher of lacrosse:
What was surprisingly hard for me was you could be a good player, but making
the transition to a coach is a lot more difﬁcult than I thought. There are some
things that are kind of innate in your game that make you a good player. It’s
trying to ﬁgure out what you do that makes you successful and get the kids to
learn to think like that. Really, just trying to break down your game from, ‘Oh I
just know where to go, or Tom see this situation coming’ to, ‘Why do I know
where to go or why do I recognize certain situations?’ (Appendix V, 163).
This expectation impacted his views on teaching lacrosse skills and his overall
effectiveness in being a coach. Rob discussed his focus on being a player of good
character as an expectation for his athletes:
We got great kids that competed hard, never really gave up and were gentlemen. I
won’t call lacrosse a violent game, but it is a very physical game and yet our guys
are classy. I am proud of that and we worked to that. I mean I coached to that.
One thing I keep coaching to is, ‘you will be gentlemen’ and they were good
about it (Appendix W, 282).
This expectation was evident in Rob’s focus on character building as well as his high
scores on efﬁcacy and competency in this area.
These three coaches had struggles, frustrations, and successes as they navigated
their ﬁrst year as a varsity coach. It is important to understand that what inﬂuenced
ﬂuctuations in scores over the season were season events, while idiosyncratic to this team

and season, are the struggles faced by all new coaches.

127

CHAPTER 5
Implications

What has been presented in this dissertation is a season-long investigation of three
developing coaches as they navigated their ﬁrst year as a varsity head coach. Coaching
efﬁcacy, practice behaviors, and athletes’ ratings of the coach’s competency were
assessed over the season. Further, the perceptions of both the coach and athletes into
idiosyncratic season events and trends were examined. This chapter focuses on the
limitations of the present study, the implications of ﬁndings on coaching education, and
implications of this project on future research directions.
Limitations

While this study provided a comprehensive, season-long investigation of three
developing coaches, there are several limitations with the present study. First, while the
research design allows for examination across the season, a better season-long design
would have used more than 6-7 observations for a 3-month season. However, having
three teams to observe over a single season provided a richer understanding of the
multiple paths that exist and their inﬂuence on coaching behaviors. Another limitation
was the fact that teams played 3-4 games per week, limiting practice observation
opportunities. Ideally, each team would have been observed each week during the season.

One limitation of this study was associated with collecting the subscale measures
of teaching technique efﬁcacy/competency (TE/T C) and character building
efﬁcacy/competency (CBE/CBC) only at the beginning and end of the season. This data
collection decision was based on an assumption of collecting CES/CCS data several more

times throughout season (using a shorter scale for collection ease and voluntariness of

128

 

athletes and coaches); however, only one middle of season collection was possible.
Because of this decision, total coaching efﬁcacy and total coaching competency were
unable to be measured and reported. As past research has noted, coaches tend to decrease
in efficacy over the season when measured at beginning and end (Haugen, Short,
Brinkert, & Short, 2004). As was seen in this study, there was a decrease in these two
subscales over the season. However, perhaps if scores were taken more than at the
beginning and end, TE/TC and CBE/CBC would have ﬂuctuated in the same manner as
the other subscales. In a study that was sensitive to shifts over the season, this would have
been the better approach.

Lastly, this case study design does not allow for generalization to the greater
coaching population. While this study provides a rich understanding of the experiences of
these novice lacrosse coaches, applying these results to the experiences of all
inexperienced coaches is limited. As with all case study designs, the decision to
investigate a phenomenon in a rich, contextual manner is made over the importance of
generalizability to the group. What this study does provide is an in-depth investigation
that can be used as a catalyst for future research on the general experiences of developing
coaches.

Implications for Coaching Education

The season events and trends experienced by Mark, Rob, and Jen have several
implications for coaching education, speciﬁcally how to help inexperienced coaches as
they are developing. First, coaching educators need to explain that in the early years of
coaching, coaches might experience a midseason decrease in conﬁdence. Further, the

athletes may perceive a decrease in coaching competency at this time. To counter this

129

decrease, coaches could vary practice plans, allow athletes more decision about practice
sessions, or perhaps invite a trusted and experienced colleague to observe their practice.
This last strategy could aid in identifying ineffective strategies. Coaches need to be given
strategies for dealing with season-long responsibilities and stressors. Coaching education
programs need to provide examples of how usual coaching education topics, such as
motivation, goal-setting, skill development, etc., are impacted by the length of a season.

Secondly, inexperienced coaches need to be taught how to use modeling and
physical assistance in their teaching of skills and tactics. Master coaches use a variety of
pedagogical techniques and, while these three coaches varied their teaching approaches,
they did not effectively use modeling and physical assistance. Perhaps this is a section to
be added to a coaching education clinic on pedagogy or communication. Along with
modeling, inexperienced coaches should be given a variety of pedagogical techniques to
use when teaching skills. As the athletes mentioned in postseason interviews, varied and
creative techniques were both effective and motivating. Speciﬁcally, the use of individual
instruction should be stressed to inexperienced coaches. This was one of the main
suggestions by athletes for improvement with these three coaches.

The results of this study highlight the importance of mentoring. While previous
research has advocated this educational tool, few programs have been created (Bloom,
Durand-Bush, Schinke, & Salmela, 1997). Inexperienced coaches need help in dealing
with the ﬂuctuation in their efﬁcacy over the season. Providing developing coaches with
a more experienced coach could provide much needed support over the ﬁrst few seasons.
For instance, these mentor coaches can provide suggestions or techniques, observe

practice sessions, and a much needed sounding board for inexperienced coaches. This

130

 

assistance is even more imperative when coaches are handling the responsibility of
practice management alone.

This implication of mentoring new scholastic coaches also impacts the athletic
directors and school administration. Those that hire these novice coaches need to ﬁnd the
best ways to support them through their ﬁrst few seasons and beyond. For instance,
administrators need to understand that the conﬁdence and competency of the coach will
ﬂuctuate throughout the year. This ebb and ﬂow through the season could be aided by
mentoring with experienced coaches and administrators, more evaluation with support
throughout the season, and developing education and collaboration amongst all coaches
in the school system. This is even more important if a school system is hiring a large
contingency of contract-hire or non-faculty coaches. These individuals need to have
opportunities to connect to the school culture and understand the athletic department’s
role in the life of the high school scholar-athlete.

Implications for Future Research

The ﬁndings and implications of this study provide several interesting areas for
further research. First, while the season-long investigation of inexperienced coaches was
an addition to the literature, a more in-depth investigation needs to be conducted. This
methodology needs to be expanded to include subtle shiﬁs (perhaps weekly assessments)
and also needs to include a coach’s game behavior. As was seen in the athlete’s reaction
to Jen interacting with the ofﬁcials and coaches, much goes on at a game that needs to be
factored into a comprehensive investigation of the season.

While this study examined the interplay of coaching efﬁcacy and coaching

competency, additional research is warranted. While previous work has examined

131

 

athletes’ views of their coaches (Myers, et al., 2006) and even the congruence of
coach/athlete perceptions of coaching efﬁcacy (Short & Short, 2004), investigation into
both athlete and coach perceptions should include more qualitative analysis into why
signiﬁcant differences do exist between some coaches and teams and not for others. For
instance, what made Jen’s athletes have similar perceptions of coaching competency as
her coaching efﬁcacy while Mark and Rob’s athletes differed in many areas of
efﬁcacy/competency? As was seen with many examples given by the coaches and
athletes, usually the coach would focus on the bigger picture of the season while athletes
would focus on speciﬁc season situations.

There are several extensions to the ASUOI that would aid in more accurate
systematic observation research. First, the instrument does not take into account the
interpersonal aspect of coach-athlete interactions. There needs to be a development of
“general conversation” categories. This could include categories regarding academics,
personal issues, etc. The addition of these categories would aid in understanding the
interpersonal relationships developed as a high school coach. Further, researchers need to
distinguish between coaching behaviors that are reactions to speciﬁc athlete behaviors
and those that are spontaneous. The addition of this feature would allow researchers to
understand how coaches do or do not respond to speciﬁc athlete behaviors. This would
also add more insight into categories such as management and silence. Along with this
reactive and spontaneous addition, the behavior or silence needs to be further analyzed.
For instance, with the current version of the ASUOI, silence is categorized the same
whether it is in regards to practice activity or not. The silence category needs to be further

divided by whether the coach is watching practice/athletes while silent or is not paying

132

 

hang-m3: ._ _~ .—_ .. _

attention to the practice session. Dividing the behavior in this manner would allow

 

researchers to understand when a coach might be analyzing player skill or drills and when
coaches are not reactive to the practice session.

Finally, further investigation is warranted into the effects of being a contract-hire
coach. As outlined in Chapter 2, coaches are no longer coming predominantly from the
ﬁeld of teaching. As was seen in this study, two of the three coaches were contract-hires
without pedagogy training. However, they had similar experiences to Mark, who was a
teacher. Further, all of the coaches listed skills obtained from their occupations for
coaching. Future research should investigate what strengths or weaknesses contract-hire
coaches bring to high school sports. Also, a needs—assessment would allow coaching
educators and researchers to identify what these non-teacher coaches desire in order to
become better equipped as teachers, motivators, and role models. These investigations
will begin to meet the needs of a new generation of high school coaches that have found

that there are many routes and starting points to becoming a master coach.

133

Appendix A: Coach Demographic Questionnaire
Please check only one answer per question.

1. Gender:
1. Male
2. Female
2. Ethnic affiliation:

1. Caucasian/Non-Hispanic 6. Asian/Paciﬁc Islander (Asian

__ 2. African American/Non- American)

Hispanic __ 7.0ther Afﬁliation:
__ 3. Chicano/Mexican American

__ 4. Hispanic

 

5. American Indian or Alaskan

3. Age:

4. What sports have you coached at the high school level and at what level/position?

 

 

 

Sport: Level: Position: Position: Years in
Head Assistant this
Coach Coach Position
Example: Girl ’3 9m Grade X 2
soccer team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

134

 

Appendix A: Coach Demographic Questionnaire (cont.)
5. What educational experiences have you participated in? (please check all that apply)
PACE Level 1 (MHSAA, Legal Aspects, Medical Considerations) __
PACE Level 2 (Pedagogy, Sport Psychology) _
MHSAA Coaching Clinics _
Other Coaching Workshops __
Sport-Speciﬁc Coaching Certiﬁcation
Coaching Minor in College __

No Prior Training

6. Were you an athlete in:
a. High School? Yes No
b. College? Yes No

If yes, what sports/level?:

 

SJrort: Level: Years:

 

Example: Soccer High School Varsity 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

135

 

 

Appendix A: Coach Demographic Questionnaire (cont.)
7. What is the highest level of education you have attained? (please check):
__ High School
_ Some college

Completed college (specify degree and subject)

 

Some graduate school

Completed graduate school (specify degree and subject)

 

Other, please specify

 

8. Contact Information:

Name:

 

Mailing Address:

 

 

 

Preferred Phone Number:

 

Preferred Email:

 

I prefer to be contacted via (please check one): phone email

136

Appendix B: Athlete Demographic Questionnaire

Please check only one response to each question.

1.

95”.“???

Gender:
1. Male
2. Female

Birthdate (month/year)

 

Ethnic afﬁliation

Caucasian/Non-Hispanic

Aﬁ'ican American/Non-Hispanic
Chicano/Mexican American

Hispanic

American Indian or Alaskan
Asian/Paciﬁc Islander (Asian American)
Other Afﬁliation:

NQVPP’N!‘

ll||ll|

 

Years on this team:

 

Years under this coach:

 

Total years experience in this sport:

 

Number of coaches you have played for in this sport:

 

Position you usually play:

 

What other sports do you play at the high school level?:

137

Appendix C: Coaching Efﬁcacy Scale

Coaching conﬁdence refers to the extent to which coaches believe that they have the
capacity to affect the learning and performance of their athletes. Think about how
conﬁdent you are as a coach. Rate your conﬁdence for each of the items below. Your
answers will be kept completely conﬁdential.

How conﬁdent are you in your ability to—

Not at all Extremely
Conﬁdent Conﬁdent

I. maintain conﬁdence in your athletes? O 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

2. recognize opposing team’s strengths during 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
competition?

3. mentally prepare athletes for game/meet 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
strategies?

4. understand competitive strategies? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

5. instill an attitude of good moral character? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

6. build the self-esteem of your athletes? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

7. demonstrate the skills of your sport? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

8. adapt to different game/meet situations? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

9. recognize opposing team’s weakness during 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
competition?

10. motivate your athletes? O 1 2 3 4 S 6 7 8 9

11. make critical decisions during competition? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

12. build team cohesion? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

l3. instill an attitude of fair play among your 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
athletes?

14. coach individual athletes on technique? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

15. build the self-conﬁdence of your athletes? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

l6. develop athletes’ abilities? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

17. maximize your team’s strengths during 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
competition?

18. recognize talent in athletes? O 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

19. promote good sportsmanship? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20. detect skill errors? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

21. adjust your game/meet strategy to ﬁt your 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
team’s talent?

22. teach the skills of your sport? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

23. build team conﬁdence? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

24. instill an attitude of respect for others? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

138

 

Appendix D: Coaching Competency Scale

Coaching competency refers to the extent to which coaches affect the learning and
performance of their athletes. Think about how competent you believe your coach to be.
Rate his or her competence for each of the items below. Your answers will be kept
completely conﬁdential.

How competent is your head coach in his or her ability to-

Not at all Extremely
Competent _ Competent

1. help athletes maintain confidence in O 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
themselves

2. recognize opposing team’s strengths during 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
competition?

3. mentally prepare his/her athletes for game 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
strategies?

4. understand competitive strategies? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

5. instill an attitude of good moral character? 0 1 2 3 4 S 6 7 8 9

6. build the self-esteem of his/her athletes? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

7. demonstrate. the skills of his/her sport? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

8. adapt to different game/meet situations? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

9. recognize opposing team’s weakness during 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
competition?

10. motivate his/her athletes? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

11. make critical decisions during competition? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

12. build team cohesion? O 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

l3. instill an attitude of fair play among his/her O 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
athletes?

14. coach individual athletes on technique? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

15. build the self-conﬁdence of his/her athletes? O l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

16. develop athletes’ abilities? O l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

17. maximize his/her team’s strengths during 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
competition?

18. recognize talent in athletes? O l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

19. promote good sportsmanship? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20. detect skill errors? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

21. adjust his/her game strategy to ﬁt his/her O 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
team’s talent?

22. teach the skills of his/her sport? 0 l 3 4 5 6 7 8

23. build team conﬁdence? 0 l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

24. instill an attitude of respect for others? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

139

 

Appendix E: Coach Preseason Interview Guide

This interview guide was semi-structured and each question could have followed by
probing and follow-up discussion depending on the ﬂow of the interview. The exact
order of questions was determined by the coaches’ responses.

1.

2.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

What are the most important roles you play as a high school coach?

What experiences have you had that have helped your development in the
coaching profession?

As you are preparing for this season, what will your main focus be?
How do you usually plan for/schedule your preseason?

What do you look for as you are selecting the players for your team?
If you where to plan to teach a new skill, how would you go about it?

How would you describe a “positive coach”, how would you describe a “negative
coach”?

How do you usually interact with your players during practice?
How are these practice behaviors inﬂuenced by the “roles” you spoke to earlier?

How conﬁdent in are you in your ability to teach skills and strategy; how do you
know?

How conﬁdent are you in your ability to strategize during a match; what tactics
might you use to strategize against an opponent?

What strategies do you use to help motivate your players?
What do you want your athletes to remember about you in 10 years?

What are your expectations for this season?

140

Appendix F: Coach Postseason Interview
This interview guide was semi-structured and each question could have followed by
probing and follow-up discussion depending on the ﬂow of the interview. Speciﬁcally,
the coach was asked about his or her CES scores over the season and events occurring
over the season. The exact order of questions was determined by the coaches’ responses.
1. If you could sum up this season in one sentence, how would you do that?

2. How conﬁdent are you in your overall coaching ability?

3. How would you rate yourself as a teacher of Lacrosse, what strategies do you use to
teach skills?

4. What are some of the ways you use to get your point across to the team?
5. If you really needed to make a point, how would you do it?

6. What strategies do you use to motivate you during practices; what about during
games?

7. During the season happened. What was your reaction to the situation?

a. Season Event 1
b. Season Event 2

8. Over the season, your CES scores seemed to have pattern. Was this an
accurate portrayal of your coaching conﬁdence? What do you think affected these scores?

9. What is one thing that you could do to improve as a coach; how will you do that in
preparation for next season?

10. What pleased you most about the season; what disappointed you most about the
season?

11. At the beginning of the season I asked you what you thought the most important roles
of coach were. You said . Is there anything you would add to or amend on
that list?

 

141

Appendix G: Athlete Postseason Interview

This interview guide was semi-structured and each question could have followed by
probing and follow-up discussion depending on the ﬂow of the interview. Speciﬁcally,
the athlete was asked about his or her CCS scores over the season and events occurring
over the season. The exact order of questions was determined by the athlete’s responses.

1.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

Opening Questions
a. What grade are you in?
b. How many years have you been playing on the team?
c. What other sports do you play?
What was your reason for playing this year?
If you could sum up the season in a few sentences how would you do that?

Overall, what is your impression of your coach?

How would you rate your coach as a teacher of Lacrosse, what strategies does
she/he use to teach skills?

What are some of the ways the coach uses to get her/his point across to you, to the
team?

If your coach really needed to make his or her point, how would she/he do it?

What strategies does she/he use to motivate you during practices and/or games,
how effective are these strategies?

What are some ways that your coach has impacted you outside of being your
lacrosse coach?

During the season happened. What was your reaction to the situation?

a. Season Event 1

b. Season Event 2
Over the season, your CCS scores seemed to have pattern. Was this an
accurate portrayal of your coach’s competency? What do you think affected these

scores?

If you could tell the coach one thing that would improve her/his coaching, what
would it be?

Are you satisﬁed with your participation this year, why or why not?

What are your future plans for playing?

142

 

Appendix H: Institutional Review Board Approval

 

@L

E
?

 

 

 

CM
TI—

 

OFFICE OF
REGULATORY
AFFAIRS

BIOMEDICAL MiEALTH
INsTITUTIONAL REVIEW
BOARD (eras)

COMMUNITY RESEARCH
INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW
BOARD (CRIRB)

SOCIAL SCIENOEI
BEHAVIORAL I EDUCATION
INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW
BOARD (SIRE)

202 Olds Hail

East Lansing. Michigan
‘ 48824-1046
5170552180

Fax: 5174324503

wwhumanresearchmsuedu
SIRB 8 BIRB: lR8@msu.edu
CRIRB: crirb@msu.edu

MS U I: an afﬁrmative-action
eq rial—opportunity Institution.

Renewal
Application
Approval

February 7. 2006

TO: Martha E. EWING
138 W Sports Circle
MSU

Category: EXPEDITED 2-6

February 4, 2006
February 3. 2007

Re: lRB ii 05-089
Renewal Approval Date:
Project Expiration Date:

Title: THE DEVELOPING COACH: A SEASON-LONG INVESTIGATION OF EFFICACY, FEEDBACK,
AND PRACTICE BEHAVIORS

The institutional Review Board has completed their review of your project. I am pleased to advise you that the

' renewal has been approved.

The review by the committee has found that your renewal is consistent with the continued protection of the
rights and welfare of human subjects. and meets the requirements of MSU's Federal Wide Assurance and the
Federal Guidelines (45 CFR 46 and 21 CFR Part 50). The protection of human subjects in research is a
partnership between the IRS and the investigators. We look forward to working with you as we both fulﬁll our

responsibilities.

Renewals: IRB approval is valid until the expiration date listed above. if you are continuing your project. you
must submit an Application for Renewal application at" least one month before expiration. If the project is
completed. please submit an Application for Permanent Closure.

Revisions: The lRB must review any changes in the project. prior to initiation of the change. Please submit an
Application for Revision to have your changes reviewed. It changes are made at the time of renewal. please
include an Application for Revision with the renewal application.

Problems: If issues should arise during the conduct Of the research. such as unanticipated problems, adverse
events. or any problem that may increase the risk to the human subjects. notify the IRB ofﬁce promptly. Forms

are available to report these issues.

Please use the IRB number listed above on any forms submitted which relate to this project, or on any
correspondence with the iRB Office.

Good luck in your research. If we can be of further assistance, please contact us at 517-355-2180 or via email
at iRB@msu.edu. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Peter Vasiienko. PhD.

SIRB Chair

CI Ryan Hedstrom
1 IM Sports Circle
MSU

143

Appendix 1: Coach Consent Form
Dear Coach:

You are being asked to be a part of this study because your role as a high school coach.
This research project is looking at how coaches and athletes interact with each other
during an athletic season. For this project, athletes and coaches will be watched and
videotaped during practices throughout the season. Both you and the athletes will also be
asked to ﬁll out a few information sheets several times during the season. Filling these
forms out will take about 10 minutes. You will be asked to participate in preseason and
post season interviews lasting about 40 minutes each. Some of the athletes will be
chosen for an audiotaped interview lasting about 40 minutes at the end of the season.
Participating in this study is completely voluntary. You may choose to not answer
questions or stop participating at any time you wish.

During the study your conﬁdentiality will be protected. Only the researchers will have
access to any questionnaires, video, or notes. All participants will be assigned a number
and real names will never be used during review of the video. No names will be used
during any publication or presentation of the data. You also have the right to choose at
any time not to have video data including your image shown for educational purposes.
Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact Ryan Hedstrom,
205 IM Sports Circle, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: (517)
353-9196, or email: hedstro4@msu.edu or Martha Ewing, Ph.D., 201 IM Sports Circle,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: (517) 353-4652, or email:
mewing@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns regarding your rights as a study
participant, or are dissatisﬁed at any time with any aspect of this study, you may
contact—anonymously, if you wish—Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Chair of the University
Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS) by phone: (517) 355-
2180, fax: (517) 432-4503, email: uchrihs@msu.edu, or regular mail: 202 Olds Hall, East
Lansing, MI 48824.

You indicate your agreement to participate by signing below.

 

Coach (Print Name) Date

 

Coach (Signature)

You indicate your agreement to be videotaped by signing below.

 

Coach (Signature)

144

 

Appendix J: Parent Consent Form
Dear Parent:

Your child is being asked to be a part of this study because they are involved in high
school sports. This research project is looking at how coaches and athletes interact with
each other during an athletic season. For this project, athletes and coaches will be
watched and videotaped during practices throughout the season. Athletes will also be
asked to ﬁll out a few information sheets several times the season. Filling these forms
out will take about 10 minutes. Some of the athletes will be chosen for an audiotaped
interview lasting about 40 rrrinutes at the end of the season. Participating in this study is
completely voluntary. Your child may choose to not answer questions or stop
participating at any time they wish.

During the study your child’s conﬁdentiality will be protected. Only the researchers will
have access to any questionnaires, video, or notes. All participants will be assigned a
number and real names will never be used during review of the video. No names will be
used during any publication or presentation of the data. You also have the right to choose
at any time not to have video data including your child’s image shown for educational
purposes. Your child’s privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by
law.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact Ryan Hedstrom,
205 IM Sports Circle, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: (517)
353-9196, or email: hedstro4@msu.edu or Martha Ewing, Ph.D., IM Sports Circle,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: (517) 353-4652, or email:
mewing@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns regarding your rights as a study
participant, or are dissatisﬁed at any time with any aspect of this study, you may
contact—anonymously, if you wish— Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Chair of the University
Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS) by phone: (517) 355—
2180, fax: (517) 432-4503, email: uchrihs@msu.edu, or regular mail: 202 Olds Hall, East
Lansing, MI 48824.

You indicate your agreement for your child to participate by signing below.

 

Parent (Print Name and Child Name) Date

 

Parent (Signature)

You indicate your agreement for your child to be videotaped by signing below.

 

Parent (Signature)

145

 

 

Appendix K: Athlete Assent Form

Dear Athlete:

You are being asked to be a part of this study because you play high school sports. This
research project is looking at how coaches and athletes interact with each other during an
athletic season. For this project, athletes and coaches will be watched and videotaped
during practices throughout the season. Athletes will also be asked to ﬁll out a few
information sheets several times during the season. Filling these forms out will take
about 10 minutes. Some of the athletes will be chosen for an audiotaped interview lasting
about 40 minutes at the end of the season. Participating in this study is completely
voluntary. You may choose to not answer questions or stop participating at any time you
wish.

During the study your conﬁdentiality will be protected. Only the researchers will have
access to any questionnaires, video, or notes. All participants will be assigned a number
and real names will never be used during review of the video. No names will be used
during any publication or presentation of the data. You also have the right to choose at
any time not to have video data including your image shown for educational purposes.
Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact Ryan Hedstrom,
205 IM Sports Circle, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: (517)
353-9196, or email: hedstro4@msu.edu or Martha Ewing, Ph.D., IM Sports Circle,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: (517) 353-4652, or email:
mewing@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns regarding your rights as a study
participant, or are dissatisﬁed at any time with any aspect of this study, you may
contact—anonymously, if you wish— Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Chair of the University
Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS) by phone: (517) 355-
2180, fax: (517) 432-4503, email: uchrihs@msu.edu, or regular mail: 202 Olds Hall, East
Lansing, MI 48824.

You indicate your agreement to participate by signing below.

 

 

Athlete (Print Name) Date

 

Athlete (Signature)

You indicate your agreement to be videotaped by signing below.

 

Athlete (Signature)

146

Appendix L: Sample Systematic Observation Grid Sheet

 

 

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158

Appendix V: Team 1 Qualitative Results

Game Strategy
My focus is going to be for the most part of this year on getting probably 2 or 3 offensive

formations and 2 defenses in there. And working with those and getting the players
comfortable with that. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

I think if I was sitting up in the stands and watching things go on, I’d be much better at
strategizing. But, so far it’s been hard for me to do it right on the spot. So, what I’m
starting to do is, I wrote down a few things like, if this team is playing this kind of
offense then do this on defense. If they’re playing this type of defense, do this on offense.
I can look at that and remember this is going on, and don’t have to just focus for 10
minutes on it and say ok let’s see how this works. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

I tried to tell them that what they do in practice is going to be what they do in games.
Probably be physical, which I don’t know if that’s what I meant to really get across to
them but that’s what came out. (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

He deﬁnitely got more, he got higher up in my opinion as the season went on, because his
game strategies got more intense and he was more conﬁdent as a coach with what he was
saying and everything. That really helped me bring up his scores. (Athlete 2110)

He wasn’t always sure what to do when we got down because he was always used to
winning, because he played college and he won then. That was a new experience for him;
I could see. I felt bad for him, more than us. When we started losing I think the players
felt bad, but you could just see that he wanted to win so badly and he was just ready to
win. That was probably the worst part—him not knowing what to do when we’re losing
to get us back up. (Athlete 2110)

Motivation

I think when I was a player, when I felt conﬁdent was when I played well. To get them
motivated is really getting them to realize how good they are. I’ve found that when we
went into our game, and we talked about our ﬁrst few games, I found that they generally
have the expectation of losing because they’ve lost in the past. That’s all they know. So
it’s really trying to get them understand, ‘Hey, you guys are really good players, there is
no reason you can’t compete with this team’ What they need to do it is play how they
practice, or do things we practice, because like in our ﬁrst game once we got down like 3
goals, they’re just out there. I said to the guys on the bench a couple of times, ‘when have
ever practiced this stuff? It was bafﬂing to me that all of the sudden kids are just out of
it. It wasn’t something I expected at all. I think once they believe in themselves, once
they have some success, then that will really motivate them. The team we played in our
ﬁrst game we lost 13-1, but that’s a team from around here that’s had a program for a
long time, a little better at lacrosse than these kids, but not by leaps and bounds. We hung
with them until the kids really kind of gave up, at least you get that feeling from them.
What did the other team do different from us? Well they ran harder, they did this, and
they did this. One of the things that made them superior players was just they played the

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game better. So getting them to see if we do that, we can win -- getting them to be
conﬁdent in themselves. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

It’s really getting them to give their best effort and feel good about themselves. (Coach 1
Preseason Interview)

That’s probably one of the harder things for me. I try to get them to play for a sense of
respect for themselves. You know, everyone go out there and play hard. I think with me,
as a player, my motivation came from within. So, I tend to leave a lot of that up to the
kids, probably more than I should. (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

To really see them realize that they can play well and they are capable of success and, to
me, that’s a great place to be. To have kids who are hungry to be better and know that
they can get there. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I feel like that’s where most of them are at.
(Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

He likes to give speeches about things like what he would have done in high school and
they’re cool stories. You can kind of tell that he gets upset at times or frustrated which,
for me personally; I know that I’m not doing well so I need to perform better when I see
that in his eyes. As a team, he’s positive with us or uses positive reinforcement. Also, he
gets after us, but it’s in a positive way. Like, “Hey, nice job, but try this.” So, he’s always
trying to motivate us to become better as a team. (Athlete 2126)

You can tell when he gets frustrated or aggravated in his eyes or the tone of his voice. He
would call a timeout and talk to the whole team. If that didn’t motivate you, then nothing
else would have. He’d say to the team, “We’re not playing the way we should.” You
know, how to play better and stop making so many mistakes. If that didn’t motivate you
then nothing else would. (Athlete 2126)

Well, he always, before games and at the end of practices he’d tell us, he’d always say
that we are good lacrosse players and that we need to start believing that and he believes
in us. I don’t know if we ever really caught on to that, but he always had positive
motivation. He was telling us that we were good lacrosse players and if we did something
wrong he made sure that we knew what it was and he helped us ﬁx that. (Athlete 2108)

During games it’s just at half time. If we were doing really bad he’d get in there and
wake us up and make sure that we know that we’re doing bad and we need to ﬁx this, or
this isn’t the level of play we should be at. He stayed on top of it. (Athlete 2108)

Mostly the competitive atmosphere that he used was motivating. And the disappointment
tone kind of motivated us. You know, we don’t want this, this is his ﬁrst year. You know
we wanted to be successful. He’s a nice guy, he’s good to us. (Athlete 2110)

During practice it would be the competitive atmosphere that he’d create there. During

games he’d point out that we’re better than what were playing and we’d want to go out
and prove to everyone watching that we’re better than what we’re doing. (Athlete 2110)

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He just encourages you. He doesn’t get down on you. He just encourages you and teaches
you. He might pull you off and still teach you what you’re doing wrong, but then he’ll
put you back into the game. He won’t sit for the rest of the game because you did one
little thing wrong. So he encourages you and he yells at you, like not yells at you, its
more encouragement. (Athlete 2104)

He said when we’re playing good we’re the best part of the team, so that made us feel
good. (Athlete 2104)

Frustrating because we kept losing, but it was fun too because the coach made it fun. He
didn’t get really down on us like if we were losing the game, he kept trying and trying.
(Athlete 2104)

He does it good. Yeah, I’d say he does. Not yelling and getting down on the kids is the
best way. (Athlete 2104)

Teaching Technique
1 think that if they’re going to be a good student of the game, they’re going to be a good

student in school too. So it’s trying to develop both of those aspects. (Coach 1 Preseason
Interview)

Deﬁnitely the challenges are unlearning things they have learned in the past, because I’m
ﬁnding that they’ve been coached by people who don’t play the game and don’t have a
real good understanding of it and that makes it really hard. If you’re starting from scratch
it’s easier to teach them good things but when you gotta go back and unleam it, it’s a real
struggle...They think they’ve played lacrosse for 3 or 4 years and they’ve got it. What
they’re really missing is the basics.

(Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

I usually have them do it in slow motion. We walk through it if they’re learning where to
go on an offense. Or you know let’s just practice this individually. A lot of times with the
defense I ’11 have them work in a body position. I have them not use their sticks because
they can’t use that. I mean probably most coaches would say this but if you practice well
you’ll play well. And a lot of them still want to practice lazily. It’s trying to get them to
actually buy into going through those things and really say, “I need to do this for 5
minutes or 10 minutes to see what it’s like.” Then transition that to the full speed game.
But teaching individual skills has been probably one of the hardest things that I’ve done
this year because practice goes by so quick and it’s really hard to focus on all the kids on
a team. Especially with an assistant coach who comes 3 times a week if I’m lucky. So I
think if I’m not watching them they’ll get lazy really quick. So it’s hard for me to leave a
group of 15 of them to do a drill why I’m working over here with another group. (Coach
1 Preseason Interview)

I guess I treat it similar to a class where I only have them doing a certain activity for

certain amount of time, because I’ve found after that they’ll get seriously distracted.
Things are only good for 20-30 minutes and then move into something different. And

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- really try to point out things to them that will really make them better players, smarter
players. Little things about where they should stand, where they should be looking and
really getting them get a feel for the game. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

Interacting with them through little drills, talking to them one-on-one about what they can
do to improve, and then talking to them as a team. The hard thing for me is to ﬁt in time
where I can really talk to them about how they were practicing, how they can handle
certain situations and stuff like that. It’s hard to sit and take 20 minutes to do something
like that when you’ve only got 2 hours for practice. I try to use stories from when I
played to get them to understand the importance of practice and to do things right. So I
try to share a little personal stuff with them. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

I played defense so I’m a lot more comfortable teaching them defensive stuff than
offensive stuff. I have stuff that I’ve printed off the intemet because I don’t know where
they should be. I tell them that and they laugh when I pull out my cheat sheet. That’s the
kind of stuff that no one ever taught me and most of the people I played with, someone
taught them along the way, and you just get comfortable in knowing what you should do
in certain situations. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

I think showing the kids how it’s supposed to be played is probably what I was best at.
Getting them to play with respect for the game and respect for themselves were the
biggest things that I stressed, learning the basic skills and playing the game right. (Coach
1 Postseason Interview)

What was surprisingly hard for me was you could be a good player, but making the
transition to a coach is a lot more difﬁcult than I thought. There are some things that are
kind of innate in your game that make you a good player. It’s trying to ﬁgure out what
you do that makes you successful and get the kids to learn to think like that. Really, just
trying to break down your game from, ‘Oh I just know where to go, or I can see this
situation coming’ to, ‘Why do 1 know where to go or why do I recognize certain
situations?’ (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

1 do some one-on-one stuff. I try to treat the kids as a group based on position, which I
found convenient, but still pretty hard. Sometimes I would try to walk them through
scenarios and try to mimic game situations. But even then the thing that I found really
hard, and things I need to ﬁnd better ways of doing, is that it’s hard to practice against
kids you know, so when you want a real live situation and you know it’s your friend and
he knows it’s you and that kind of stuff on the team, it doesn’t quite come out the same
way. So, I try to get them to walk through some stuff at times. (Coach 1 Postseason
Interview)

Trying to delicately teach them, while at the same time making them realize that they’re

doing some things that aren’t necessarily correct. So, it was really, coaching is a real
challenge. (Coach 1 Postseason)

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Probably how hard it is to teach individual skills. I remember thinking of that about my
high school coach, like man this guy doesn’t know anything. He never, I thought all the
stuff that I learned, was never from our practices in high school. They were always from
our camps I’d go to in the summer and stuff. Now, coaching I realize how hard it is to
take an individual and really teach them a lot of individual skills and really you are trying
to coach the team and get them cohesive and to play the game together and it’s hard to
focus on one kid individually. (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

The practices were better when I had a set plan of what I was going to do and wasn’t
doing drills for too long. (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

I learned more how to play the game right. He taught me a lot about the sport and how to
play it right...He’s able to understand each kid’s individual personality and he works with
that. He works with kids one-on-one before practice, during practice, and after practice.
He does what is comfortable for the kids. If a kid’s not getting something, he’ll try
something else, another way to explain it. So, he understands what he has to do with
individual kids. (Athlete 2 126)

So, he was there before practice and after practice and if you needed him he would stay.
And you could go into his room and talk lacrosse, and anything that you needed to talk
about. So, he helped the kids who wanted to take advantage of the opportunities. (Athlete
2126)

He’ll either bring the whole team in and talk to us a group, or, when we’re doing
individual drills, he’ll pull you off to the side and talk to you. He’ll just make sure that
everyone’s attention is there, that everyone’s not talking. That’s about it. He talks to you
and tells you what you did wrong and what did you right and how to ﬁx it and
everything. (Athlete 2126)

It was frustrating at times and sometimes it was fun. Frustrating in a sense of, a couple
times, he would not know what to do for a couple of people drill-wise. So, we’d be doing
the same thing. But, at the same time, we were learning more about the sport than we
ever had. He brought that to us and he brought how well he knows the sport to us. So,
that was a good thing that he knew the sport and he brought it to us. He deﬁnitely tried to
make us a better team. (Athlete 2126)

I’ve been playing for 3 years so I know how to play the game, but we learned a lot of
plays this year. I’ve never been involved in lacrosse plays. The program we had before
we just didn’t do that. So, I learned a lot of that kind of stuff. He taught us positioning,
where we should be in certain situations. Things like what we need to do in the off-
season to become better lacrosse players. (Athlete 2108)

Repetition. We got in there and did a lot of it. If he saw things that were happening that
were wrong he made sure that he got in there and corrected it. Sometimes I felt that he
was a little too impatient. . .I say that because a lot of the times when we were doing the
plays people would drop passes and things and we’d get yelled at for that and after awhile

163

he’d just get impatient because it kept happening and happening. But now I realize that
really shouldn’t happen and he has a right to do that. We’re a varsity team you know, we
should be out there in the off-season practicing so at least everyone can at least pass and
catch, that’s ﬁrndamental. (Athlete 2108)

Also, coming up with more creative methods of teaching the game and things like that,
like I said it was a lot of repetition. We did the same thing over and over again. And that
helped because we learned different parts of the game, but once we do learn that and we
keep doing it, it’s not making us any better. I think we need a couple of more creative
areas where we can learn the game in different ways and learn different aspects of the
game (Athlete 2108).

I recall we did a lot of game situations like 6 on 6 so we could see how it actually would
happen in a game. He made sure that everyone all through the lines, 1”, 2nd, 3rd line,
everyone got in there and were doing these plays and knew what was going on because
we all have to play in the game. You know people might not get as much playing time.
So everyone knew what was going on. (Athlete 2108)

I’d give him an 8 out of 10. Because he’s still trying to ﬁgure out the best way to do it,
but you can tell he’s teaching us the right way and if we just did it we’d improve.
(Athlete 2110)

Just different drills and then games that we play and when we played 6 on 6 he started to
make it more competitive, so that we’d get more intense about it. There was a lot of
passing and catching, we’d just repetitively work on what we needed to improve, so we’d
get better at that. (21 10)

His body language. He’d be tense. And then his tone of voice. If it was really, really
important, he’d ahnost get quieter to make sure we’d listen and if it was something we
were doing bad, you could just hear disappointment in his voice and that was worse for
us than getting yelled at. (Athlete 2110)

Start working on the plays right away, because only about half the guys knew the plays at
the end of the season. And start working on those right away and keep the competitive
atmosphere in the practice because we didn’t do that so much at the beginning of the year
and at the end and it really was helping us. (Athlete 2110)

He knows it a lot and what he’s talking about and this was his ﬁrst year so it was kind of
a learning experience for him, so it’s gonna get better but it’s good. (Athlete 2104)

In practice he does different drills that he did when he was younger that helped him a lot
that he would think would help us. Then during the game if he sees something the next
day in practice he’ll do those types of drills, instead of other drills. Because you never do
the same thing like 2 days in row. So I think that’s the biggest thing he did, just switched
it up. (Athlete 2104)

164

Well, when he taught offensive plays I wasn’t around because I was on defense, but when
he taught ground balls there were a couple different drills we did. There were like 2 or 3
and we did a couple things but it was all pretty much the same for one topic or section of
lacrosse. (Athlete 2104)

Character Building

You know athletes and students and people outside of the sports ﬁelds. You know me
being a teacher, like the academic and how they are as a person is probably the biggest
thing I look for. And then, I think generally with a good athlete is that that stuff comes
with; they kind of go hand and hand. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

I guess trying to be someone who gives constructive criticism rather than just criticism.
Someone who listens to what the kids say, that they can come to with questions or advice.
Someone that they trust. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

That I respected them and they respected me. When I think back to my coaches, the ones
that made an impact on me, were the ones that taught me a lot, but that I also really
looked up to them as people -- as far as character, what they do for us, how they treated
other people, stuff like that. (Coach 1 Preseason Interview)

Probably learn how to treat all kids the same. I think there were times when if a kid got in
my dog house, it was hard to get out. Or some of the kids who I think maybe should have
been reprimanded, I didn’t always do that. It was hard dealing with the personal
relationship with kids versus the ones I didn’t know; it was easier to be hard on them.
(Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

A big group of kids, kind of took their licks and they were looking towards the future and
I started doing towards the end too; really trying to think about the process that we’re
going in and building a team, and not so much worrying about the losses. (Coach
Postseason Interview)

But really, and, maybe it’s because it’s something that we lacked in was the team focus,
getting kids to succeed in being part of the team is probably, I think, even more
important. I would rank that deﬁnitely above even teaching skills. I mean skills are
obviously important. Getting them to play as a team, I think we lost to groups of kids
who weren’t as good as us, but were a better team. Really getting that focus to the kids is
very important. (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

He’s tried making me a better person by the fact that we have to know our
responsibilities, either at home or at school and it’s not just about athletics or lacrosse, we
have other responsibilities. Most of us won’t play lacrosse in the future. It’s about getting
your future prepared and making sure that everything is okay at home ﬁrst. I mean if
something came up with a family member, he makes it so family is more important than
the sport. If we tell him that we can’t make it, he understands that. Basically, he
understands that you need to do the things that you do ﬁrst, and lacrosse isn’t the most
important thing. (Athlete 2126)

165 ,

I think it’d just be the fact that he’s just a little inconsistent with his rules and setting
rules. He started rules late in the season and he really didn’t follow all of them. Just the
fact that you’re going to set rules and make sure that everyone’s on the same ﬁeld. If
you’re going to set them, set them early on. He said, ‘Well, if you miss practice because
of academic reasons, you sit out the ﬁrst quarter. If you miss because of another reason,
it’s the ﬁrst half.’ But that didn’t come in until 2/3’s of the season was already over with.
So, I mean people weren’t too sure on how to take him, if he was serious or not. There
were a couple of times where people missed the practice because they were sick, yet they
still went in the ﬁrst half after those rules were set. I think the rules are good because last -
year everyone was skipping practice whenever they wanted to and we had a little bit of
that in the beginning of this year. But, just set them early and everyone knows them and
they’re like written down. (Athlete 2126)

When I had him as a teacher he was a really fun guy like I said he was kind of quiet but
he’d have days where he’d break out and start saying jokes and things. He just was a
really good teacher and made me want to work hard for grades and lacrosse. Just the kind
of person he was made me want to work harder (Athlete 2108)

He made sure that we had code of contact. Not only was he making us better lacrosse
players, but he was trying to make us better citizens, by watching our attitudes, the way
we carry ourselves in the community and our school, the actions that we take, just
making sure that were good people I guess as well and that is important. Sports builds
teamwork and also you know, self-esteem, character that kind of stuff. That part of it was
pretty important too. (Athlete 2108)

We have a lot of people on our team that are kind of rebellious I guess you could say.
They’re always getting into ﬁghts with someone else or you know yelling at someone
else for doing something wrong. We need to in some way bring our team together in that
aspect. You know, change those people somehow and maybe the rest of us be more
accepting of the kind of person they are. Just more team cohesion. We need to really pull
together as a team and I don’t know how you’d do that, but just focusing on that I think
would really help us as a team. (Athlete 2108)

Well he’s impacted me because of the way he interacts with people. He listens to them
and he’ll help people out when he needs to and I really like that. I h0pe people get that
same type of thing for me. I kind of strive to be more like him in that way. (2110)

He’s just taught me to be a better person because he’s really nice and he teaches us about
sportsmanship and stuff that’s not actually in the game, but part of the game. He was
talking about ﬁghting and you’ll be kicked off the team and bad penalties you’ll be
sitting. It’s just being fair and being nice and being kind to people is the most part.
(Athlete 2104)

Well, he was a teacher and he taught me to do good in school because I hadn’t really this
semester. He just says do well and he’s a good teacher too. (Athlete 2104)

166

Disciplining the kids. Because there were a couple of kids on the team who goofed off
and slacked off in practice and he just let him go. One kid, he wasn’t there one time, but
he suspended him for half of a game. But he should have got a lot more than that. So,
probably discipline and another one is taking control of a practice more. Kids are always
talking and gooﬁng around and he kind of controls it, but kind of just lets it go
sometimes. So some practices are serious and some practices are not. I say all practices
should be serious so I’d say that’s probably one of the biggest ones. (Athlete 2104)

Explgation for scores on mea_sures throghout the sew

F luctuated Throughout Season. I remember thinking that too. And then being unsure,
like, “Was I higher than this last time or how was it?” I remember feeling like I was kind
of ﬂuctuating a little bit. But, you know it was a lot of emotions for me. Days feeling like
I didn’t know at all what I was doing, and then days where I felt really good about what I
was doing. . .I think I went out there with really high expectations and I think the kids
really did too. And then, that just crashed right in on us. Then, I saw some of the changes
that they were making as they started to improve a little bit and they started to play as a
team. So, that probably made me feel a little bit more conﬁdent. By the end of the season,
there were still some disappointments, but there wasn’t the same kind of pressure as
maybe there wasin the beginning. (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

Decreasing Over Season. Yeah, towards the beginning of the year, the season got to be
long when you’re playing 40 or 50 games in a season, and we were on the road a lot, so
we wouldn’t get home till 11. Earlier on I was excited for the year, and then I noticed that
there was just a couple of instances later on where he had set rules or we did something.
Like when we ran, we didn’t know what we were running for till after the practice, which
is kind of frustrating and mentally draining because you don’t know what you’re running
for. I mean we ran at the beginning of the practice and you didn’t know what you’re
running for until the whole practice was done. So that kind of sticks with you. You know
what did we do, what was wrong? So, it kind of sticks with you, brings you down, loses
your focus. You know, like I said earlier, there was the rule with the practice policy
where I noticed a couple kids weren’t getting the same treatment. As far as game
strategies go, towards the end of the year we had a lot of teams where it could have been
pretty close if not win and half-time he’d sit there and say, “We have to do this, have less
turnovers, and move the ball more. We have to come out in the second half and perform
better.” So, we’d have half of the half time, and we weren’t really learning anything as
far as like making adjustments on the ﬁeld. I think he got frustrated with how we were
performing because he expected us to play better. He’d call a timeout and say, “Look up
when you’re running down the ﬁeld, you have people wide open.” He wouldn’t say,
we’re gonna make these adjustments or anything. He didn’t really experiment with
changing up lines, as far as how other people would work together and see what would
work, because some people are stronger at certain things. So, he didn’t really try that. The
whole mental aspect for me just wasn’t there anymore. (Athlete 2126)

Down then Up. Yeah, I went up and down a couple times during the season. I guess it

was just moments like maybe in the season that changed my opinion throughout it.
Maybe games that we won or things that we saw even in games that we lost that I saw

167

things that I liked about him, or that I disliked. So my opinion changed quite a bit.
(Athlete 2108)

Yeah, it probably had a lot to do with my mood throughout the season. Like a lot of the
time I had a lot of homework and things and projects and it was really hard to get balance
between lacrosse and school and things and I was probably really ﬁ'ustrated at times. I
don’t know if that had an effect on it, but maybe. (Athlete 2108)

Increased Over Season. Yeah deﬁnitely, he deﬁnitely got more, he got higher up in my
opinion of him as the season went on, because his game strategies got more intense and
he got more conﬁdent as a coach. With what he was saying and everything and that really
helped me bring up his scores. (Athlete 2110)

I think it’s really important, because if the coach isn’t conﬁdent in himself, you’re going
to start to second guess him and when you have a team second guessing the coach, it’s
not going to work. (Athlete 2110)

Decreasing Over Season. Yeah, because he was really ready for the season and as the
season went on and we kept losing he kind of lost conﬁdence and we started doing less
and less in practice. If we would have won a lot more, we probably would have done the
same thing, but he kept trying new things and some of them weren’t good in my opinion
but I’m not the coach so I can’t say anything. Maybe that’s why I went down a little bit
on it, because we kept doing different things that weren’t working at all and I just liked
what we were doing before and it seemed like it worked a lot better. So that’s probably
way it went down a little bit.

Views on Season Events

1. Losing followed by a win-streak. ..
Well, getting to that point was really frustrating because we lost a couple of games that I
think the kids were expecting to win and I deﬁnitely was expecting to win. I think that
they improved a lot at the beginning of the year and I was teaching them some things that
were new to them so they were optimistic, and then to go in and lose 6 in a row was
pretty tough. Then, when we won those 3 games it was just a complete reversal of those
kids and I could see it even after winning one of them. There attitudes changed and
everything. It was really neat to see. They went from thinking really negatively to
thinking really positive. I think they got a taste of what it was like to win. They won a
couple of those games pretty handily. They saw what they were capable of and a little bit
of what it takes to do that. Two of those 3 wins they really played as a team and that was
the biggest difference with just about every other game we played all year. (Coach 1
Postseason Interview)

Well, for me it was really ﬁ'ustrating because I thought, and I still do think, that we were
better than a lot of those games showed. So, for me as a coach to think I’ve got a team
that’s more capable then what they’re doing, that really falls on me I think. It’s okay, I’m
not getting these kids to play like they can. It’s ﬁ'ustrating to watch them play that way. I
put a lot more pressure on myself to ﬁgure out how to get them to do that. I don’t know

168

 

~ that I ever did, but it’s tough on your ego just to lose those and think we’re a better team
then that and we shouldn’t have lost those games. (Coach 1 Postseason Interview)

Well, both me as an athlete, and the team, it gave us conﬁdence and conﬁdence is a big
thing. . .We were playing well and we thought we could go on and win more games. We
could have probably won a couple more and went on a 5 or 6 game win streak. It’s just
high school sports where you play bad one game and it just affects us. And we don’t
prepare all the time for home and away games. I mean it was an up and down season, I
would say. It’s all about conﬁdence and how you mentally prepare and how you prepare
during practice. You practice how you play and when that goes toward games, we got
maybe a little too conﬁdent and we started gooﬁng off during practice and it would show
during the game and it just affected the reSt of the season. (Athlete 2126)

I guess we started out losing a couple of games and we’re like okay gotta

get everyone into the team and we have to start playing as a team you know learning each
other’s abilities and things. You know we were okay with that and we started going out
and kept losing games and it kind of got frustrating because we didn’t know what we
needed to do to get better. We were trying things and they weren’t working I guess. And
a lot of our season I think was a mental problem. We didn’t believe in ourselves as much
and we were bringing 2 teams together so there was a lot of bonding issues and things.
And the 3 games I don’t know? A lot of it, and Coach said this too, in those games he
saw us playing as a team it wasn’t as much individual players running down the ﬁeld and
scoring. We were making the passes, looking for each other for cuts and things. We were
playing as a team and we were really together for those 3 games or that streak. And then
on for there on down, I can’t remember who we played, but I don’t know why it fell
apart, but I don’t know maybe we just got too cocky with winning 3 games in our streak.
I don’t know. I can’t remember why we would have started losing again. (Athlete 2108)

I think at the beginning of the year we were learning the system and trying to ﬁgure
things out. How we all came together as a team and how he worked as a coach. And then
those 3 games where we started winning everything had clicked for us. Then, for
whatever reason, after that we played some better teams and we got too cocky about what
we were doing and started not running the offense or doing what he said and that’s when
it fell apart. (Athlete 2110)

That was the best part of the season because those were the only 3 games we won. Its just
fun to win and not that fun to lose and we were all happy and practice was going good
and we played the next game and lost and we all lost conﬁdence again and it all went
downhill from there. . .we lost conﬁdence because it wasn’t a good team and we should
have beat them and we lost it close and the coach was really expecting us to win this
game and get us back to .500. We had the lead and just blew it. It just wasn’t good.
(Athlete 2104)

2. Impact of overall record on season...
Well, I remember thinking, including those 3 games; there were about 6 or 7 games I
thought we could have won. A couple times we lost to a team we lost to previously, but I

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think we could have beat. So it was really, to get to the rest of the season and see the kids
play well, and then not be able to keep it up and keep it going. See some conﬂicts come
out amongst the kids. Seeing some kids who really weren’t enjoying playing and stuff
was very ﬁ'ustrating. And they didn’t like losing, it hurt. They were teased by other kids

at school, and they heard about it there. So, it wasn’t any fun for them and I think some of
them, I mean it does take the fun out of the game when you’re losing all the time. A big
group of kids took their licks and they were looking towards the future and I started doing
that towards the end too; really trying to think about the process that we’re in and
building a team, and not so much worrying about the losses. (Coach 1 Postseason
Interview)

Mentally it was draining. It was getting to be a long season; you play Tuesdays and
Thursdays, sometimes 3 times a week, and with school. I mean everything else, with
being a senior, with all the graduation stuff, lacrosse became one of the lowest priorities
and I just wanted to season to be done. So, I wasn’t really caring too much, like I said I
had other stressful things going on and that 3 hours there I could have used probably in a
better way. But, that’s just the last 2 or 3 weeks of the season where mentally I just didn’t
want to be there and it showed. If I was still like sophomore or a junior I would deﬁnitely
have wanted to be there. But being a senior I was mentally other places. (Athlete 2126)

I felt like the whole team was just giving up. We had already lost so many games that it
really didn’t matter anymore. So, I feel like people really weren’t maybe playing as hard
as we should. We were just out there playing a game, it wasn’t anything really serious
and it was kind of ﬁnstrating. I guess we had a pretty frustrating season. (Athlete 2108)

During the end of the season it started to pick up a little bit more as we were playing
better teams and we were playing them better than we would have had if we played them
earlier in the season. But, we were down because we had won then we had lost more. We
just wanted to win. (Athlete 2110)

It’s frustrating and kids were quitting and just didn’t want to come to practice because we
were always losing. It just wasn’t good because no one wanted to be there and people
were saying that they didn’t want to go to practice because there’s no point of practice
because we’re just going to lose the next game. So, it just was not fun for a lot of kids.
(Athlete 2104)

A lot of them were glad that the season was over so we could stop losing. Most of the
seniors were glad that it was over and they were out of school now and they just wanted
to have summer and get ready for college. (Athlete 2104)

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Appendix W: Team 2 Qualitative Results

Game Strategy
I felt pretty good about that, I know what to do, I feel that’s one thing that we’re a little

handcuffed by. We have been at this so short of time that there are many, many strategies
I would like to implement that either we’re not there yet skill wise or you can’t always
seem to get new minds around so many things. I would love to have half a dozen plays
and offensive sets and clears in there. But we, we have to get the basics down before we
do it. So, I know what I’d like us to do but if you only, and not that we don’t have the raw
talent, we have the raw talent to do it, but how much can you absorb and count on people
being able to execute, I say give me little above average on that. If we had a mature team
that really knew this game and everything, oh we could do some plays, we could put
different defenses in we could do a lot of things. And yet already I think we’re more
mature than we were last year, we can do some things, we did some things Saturday that
we couldn’t have done last year. You know, I looked and said we’re going to play balls
and knots all over the ﬁeld. I want you ragging everybody who gets the ball and to rag
the next guy. They did it and they did it great. I picked strategies I knew would work.
And again, I mean it should be like that right from the beginning. We can do that a few
more time this year! Now today when we play a very good team we can’t do that, we
have to have a different strategy a different pass defense so you can’t do too much
loitering! (Coach Preseason Interview)

I would say in the game and strategy within the game I am conﬁdent that I know how to
think the strategy of the game and all that. (Coach Postseason Interview)

I think we individualized games and strategies a little more, I think we were more in
depth on analyzing what they had and what we needed to do, I mean for the 1S" time ever
we actually scouted so we knew who was going to do what. That was beneﬁcial but you
know we had better players, many of the same players or some of the players just evolved
and got better so. . .but I do think from a game situation we got better. I mean we played a
tougher schedule and still ended up with a better record. (Coach Postseason Interview)

I’d call a time out and I would say “gentleman they’re going to come after you,
remember who you are and remember to be classy” and I would look everybody in the
eye and say “that’s what I am expecting”. And so you’ve got literally, in that case to take
time out. When we’re behind and guys are down, you take a timeout and you say “ all I
want” and this is all I asked of them all year it’s broken record they’ll hear it all next year
“ focus and effort” okay, so when they’d get down I’d say “ don’t stop tryin” or “ guys
your heads not thinking, you gotta focus on what you’re doing either you’re spooked
because this is a really good team or you’re just not putting the effort out”. We used time
outs that way quite a bit. (Coach Postseason Interview) -

I think most of the time when you were there if it was post game we talked about the
things we did well, the things we could’ve done better, did we reach our goals, and we
usually give 4 goals that we wanted to do. How did we do compared to those? I didn’t
say did we win, how did we do compared to our goals? And sometimes we notice our

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goals up when we’re playing a weaker team; we’ll say we want three quarters of the face
offs. When we’re playing a great team we want half of ‘em. So we tried that way too.
(Coach Postseason Interview)

Yeah his game strategy I think changed throughout the year. At the beginning I think I
rated him kind of low, but we hadn’t played many games so I didn’t have much to go off
of for that. But, it got better because the speciﬁc case that I know is that he doesn’t like to
play zone defense. But, then as we needed it, as we came across teams that we needed to
play zone defense, even though he didn’t like it, he thought that we could win with a zone
defense. So, I think that it shows his competitive drive to win and not his selﬁsh side I
guess in that, “ I don’t like to play zone so I am going to just keep playing man to man”.
So he did what he needed to do to win. (Athlete 2206)

Motivation

We will then walk through the drill and then we will up the ante all the time trying to get
the pace a little faster. An example would be if we were trying to teach kids how to do a
spin move or a roll dodge is what they call it or not, and we literally say take your stick
everybody all once: step, turn, and we walk through it and you walk through it and they
get bored to tears, but what you do is up the ante a little bit more so they get you know
progressive, that’s what you want, to progress. . .progressively make it harder make it so
that they acquire the even ﬁner, ﬁner points. It gets hard when there are 25 kids and
there’s a lot of space. (Coach Preseason Interview)

It doesn’t mean that it has to be Disney land where you go “okay everything’s great” .
But rather than pound on the negative, point out where you were, talk about the great
things and those things where you come up short or individuals come up short tell them
what they need to do differently. Don’t spend as much time on the bad acts and saying
“hey this is what I rather you be doing” and uh take it to the next step. (Coach Preseason
Interview) '

And the players that have played for us will hear “focus and effort”. All, all I talk
about. . .focus,geffort. Well, I say those things and I keep it as simple as I can. (Coach
Preseason Interview)

Well, First, I have to get them to believe in themselves. I also try and keep it simple. I try
to give them 4 at a time, small things I like us to focus on, not a great list of things. My
strategy is, we got to do, and they’re the same things, I mean, they must get bored with
this. . .I would love to hear, you know, I say “win the ground balls” like a broken record,
always, always, always. (Coach Preseason Interview)

Well, in practices we try to have ﬁrm. I mean we have fun with games; groups of guys
versus each other. We do play the freshmen and sophomores versus juniors and seniors.
You try to do something that, while going through just the dull drill, would try to make
some competition of it. We’d have fast break drills where I’d put defense against offense
and if the offense, ﬁrst one to get to 10 won, we had some incentive. You know, I think

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that’s the type of thing you gotta throw them so that’s what we tried. (Coach Postseason
Interview)

I really, I don’t believe in berating a kid because they perform poorly. To me, the only
way you’re going to get kids to want to do better is to make them feel good, even when
they get down. (Coach Postseason Interview)

Well, sometimes we do relay races and stuff. Just like he’d say that the losing team has to
do push-ups or do a suicide or whatever but I don’t know. (Athlete 2224)

Well, if we’re down or something, he’ll just tell us that you know lacrosse is game that
can swing back and forth with momentum really quickly so like 4 goals we can come
back from pretty easily and just try to get our hopes up. (Athlete 2224)

We do a lot of competitions like relay races or whatever in practice. He says if you win
then the other group has to do sprints or whatever. You know, nobody likes doing sprints
so I think that’s, he gives that competitive drive not only in practice but in games and
stuff. (Athlete 2206)

I guess it’s more of self-motivation in that there’s always competition for a place in the
ﬁeld. And a spot, a spot as a starter you know, on man up or man down or whatever you
want you know there’s always competition in there. I think. He points it out a little but
it’s more self-driven. (Athlete 2206)

A lot of positive reinforcement and like he tries to keep energy up tries to like show, like
you know, tries to excite us by being excited. He stays upbeat I mean I felt like we played
some good teams that just beat the crap out of us but he tries to always just stay upbeat
and like learn from games like that and just remind us that we’re still you know, there’s a
lot of teams we can beat, we can still take away from those games and keep everything
positive. (Athlete 2205)

He’s not afraid to sit players if their either he’s not performing or if their you know like
getting on a losing you know their cool so that I like you know he’s not afraid to sit you
no matter how good you are so that keeps you focused on the game and he just always
talks to the players like when you come off the ﬁeld he always says something about
what you did out on the ﬁeld either tells you how you can do something better or
complements you on something you did out there so he always like keeps you in the
game and lets you know he’s paying attention to what you’re doing out there. When
you’re out on the ﬁeld you always know like you always know he’s watching you
whether you’re have the ball in your stick or you’re umm on the other side of the ﬁeld
you know like he’s paying attention so it keeps you, you want to focus on the game cuz
you don’t want to sit down. (Athlete 2205)

I think it [playing with athletes during practice] was a big motivational technique because
you see that he’s willing to get in there with you, in there with us and take hits with us

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and he’s not afraid to do whatever it takes to coach us. It was a motivational technique
whether it was intentional or not. (Athlete 2205)

Eching Technique .

I want our kids moving forward everyday in their skills in their knowledge of the game
and as a team I want them to continually improve. We’ll have small set backs, but if you
were to look at a trend- is the trend going up? Is it improving? That’s what I want.
(Coach Preseason Interview)

We will diagram, we will demonstrate personally or with other kids, umm, that do the
skill well already, we will then walk through the drill and then we will up the ante all the
time trying to get the pace a little faster. An example would be if we were trying to teach
kids how to do a spin move or a roll dodge is what they call it or not, and we literally say
take your stick everybody all once: step, turn, and we walk through it and you walk
through it and they get bored to tears, but what you do is up the ante a little bit more so
they get you know progressive, that’s what you want, to progress. . .progressively make it
harder make it so that they acquire the even ﬁner, ﬁner points. It gets hard when there are
25 kids and there’s a lot of space. (Coach Preseason Interview)

I noticed that we were not overly conﬁdent in our last game and running and catching on
the run so I designed a practice and say this is what we’re going to do. I believe that you
have to tell folks what you’re going to do ﬁrst; you do it and then tell them why it was
important and how that will build into it. That’s the goal, I will say this in work it works a
lot (Coach Preseason Interview)

If I had 2 assistants it would be much easier. What I’d like to do, ideally, is have someone
running the drills and me coaching individuals, as you see something from the kid - pull
them over and say this is what I’d like you to do. What you end up doing when there’s
just one like there was yesterday umm you know, gotta stop and you gotta coach in front
of everybody because you don’t have the time otherwise. You’re stretched thin. When
it’s just one of me there, when the other coach is not able to be there, you just don’t...you
have to give up on saying I am going to teach a lot today, you hope to drill it. I think.
(Coach Preseason Interview)

1 also realize that I am a little hand strung, but you notice 90% of the time I am there
alone, it’s 22 against 1 and to be able to keep it energetic and fun and teaching and yet be
able to provide instruction enough down to an individual level; I am challenged by that.
(Coach Postseason Interview)

I mean all I really did all year was run them through drills and let the drills and let the
drills take care of the building as opposed to being able to work with a kid and actually
grabbing him and say hey you need to do this and I need you to get your stick this way
and that didn’t happen. (Coach Postseason Interview)

I also think that I teach by trying to instruct as opposed to yelling at them. You yell to be
heard you don’t yell to, I don’t mean, I wouldn’t ever say I like to yell, but I’d rather, you

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know you’ve got to be heard, like hey do this, but I do think 1 am good when I have the
opportunity to help with that and I do try to help them with the mental aspect of the game
because I think that’s such a differentiator. (Coach Postseason Interview)

I felt like in many ways I lost a year of improving kids individually. I do think that just 5
days a week practicing everything got them better. I don’t know that I was able to move a
kid a whole lot ﬁrrther. I think that was some of it that disappointed me. (Coach
Postseason Interview)

He knows what he’s doing and he’s a good teacher I’d say. He’ll go over a drill or
something before with everyone around and then like we’ll go set it up and then we’ll
start doing it and he usually like stops us in the middle of it and if somebody did
something wrong he’d just like give us pointers on it and then show them how to do it.
With his own stick. (Athlete 2224)

It’s nice to have them out there and demonstrate: it shows them that their, they actually
played the game their not just a text book coach. It just makes it easier to relate to the
players themselves. (Athlete 2224)

I think he’s a great coach, he’s got high level of conﬁdence in himself and what he knows
in the game and he can really get to people and you know he uses good communication.
Umm, telling you exactly what he wants and how to play the game. (Athlete 2206)

Like I said he’s really, he knows everything basically there is to know in every situation
he’s got a comment to it. You know, umm, I think he knows a lot about drills and about
improving technique and stuff. But I’d say as a coach, the only problem he has is giving -
- acknowledging what people did good when it’s needed. Sometimes he, he just, after you
do something good he doesn’t always come up to you and say “good job” you know “that
was a good play” and stuff like that. (Athlete 2206)

I’d say drills, drills; he does a lot of drills. And then shows them himself. You know he’ll
go through and show you exactly what he wants you to do, he doesn’t just tell you, he
also shows you what he wants. . ..Yeah I am a visual learner and I think a lot of younger
athletes are too. And seeing it is what is really helpﬁrl. (Athlete 2206)

Yeah, I like it a lot. Not many coaches, I even recognize it on our varsity football team,
they’ll show you stuff but they only show you at walking pace and stuff like that but then
Coach gets in and shows you like exactly what he wants to do and plays with you and
shows you where you should be at this time; in game situations it can get a little
confusing, everybody’s moving everywhere, it’s not stop go and like slow it down and
stuff, but then Coach does it right at game pace and that’s really helpful. I like it a lot.
(Athlete 2206)

He also uses the better players he has on his team to his advantage because there are
certain players who have the skills already and he uses them to demonstrate those skills
to the rest of us. So if there is anything that he can’t do he isn’t afraid to use them to show

175

' us how to do it. And he, he plays and things he likes a lot of, like to walk us through it as
opposed to drawing it up on a board, he likes to get us up and moving around and walk us
through it and show us how it should feel. (Athlete 2205)

He’s big at like I guess he uses drills a lot like repetition especially with like throwing
with your weak hand catching with your weak hand stuff like that, a lot of repetition. And
see more yeah like a lot of repetition like a little bit of instruction and then just over and
over again ‘til you get comfortable with the new skill. (Athlete 2205)

It’s good [playing with athletes in practice] because in our case he did it out of necessity
because we only had 5 attack man so if we wanted to run a full scrimmage we needed and
extra man. But it was also, ﬁrst of all, helps him demonstrate that he knows the plays so
helps him demonstrate what we you know can while he’s playing you can watch him and
see you know that’s what I should do in that situation or that’s what he’d want me to do
in that situation. (Athlete 2205)

He likes to discuss it. You know, a lot of coaches will yell to get their point across or
something like that, but he just likes to get the team together around him and just tells
them what we need to do. It’s less like a parent and more like a boss, he’s not yelling at
us to do something, giving us chores but he’s like this is the task that needs to be ﬁnished
and this is what we need to do, let’s go do it. (Athlete 2205)

Character Building
If they do anything in terms of you know whacking a stick out of the other guys hand or

something that could end up hurting somebody you pull the kid over. I don’t allow
cussing, if you hear any of that you grab the kid and pull them over and you say “there’s
no room for that” (Coach Preseason Interview)

I don’t have to be the reason why they want to play lacrosse, I want to be just part of their
reason. . .looking back I have the fondest memory of my high school hockey coach.

I have a fond memory of my college lacrosse coach. To this day I still call him and meet
with him. I have a lot of respect for the person. (Coach Preseason Interview)

Well, I think, I think on the blow cuts, the ones that you win you better just say we’re
going to build on things and we’re going to try and do everything we can here to remain
classy. In a blow out our kids don’t laugh. I, because I have been on the other end of that,
and I said don’t you dare make this other team feel like you’re mocking them. And when
you have a tough loss I mean sometimes you gotta say hey this hurts and let’s dissect it,
lets look at it. (Coach Postseason Interview)

No one is above it. You’re a team and just because I am middle aged and fat doesn’t
mean that I don’t have to do that. So, I know I think I don’t want to be their buddy but I
want to say hey for this moment I was teammate and I am going to you know, you got to
run, I’d run. That’s ﬁne. Otherwise, how can I ask everyone else to do it? (Coach
Postseason Interview)

176

So when we have a bad game and we don’t do some things well, I am more apt to, just
personally in life and I don’t know if I did it but my lifestyle is, to say even when things
are bad don’t let them think that. The only time I really, really want to get down on a
person whether it’s here or work or whatever is when they don’t care and they don’t try. I
have a low tolerance for that but if they’re trying, they’re really giving their effort, hey
you can’t I mean these are kids. (Coach Postseason Interview)

We got great kids that competed hard, never really gave up and were gentleman. I won’t
call lacrosse a violent game, but it is a very physical game and yet our guys are classy. I
am proud of that and we worked to that. I mean I coached to that. One thing I keep
coaching to is, ‘you will be gentleman’ and they were good about it. (Coach Postseason
Interview)

I hate people who play the game like thugs. I hate trash talk. Trash talk and all that is
what’s wrong with American sports. So I am on my one-man crusade to say no end zone
dances, no every single play you’re the king of the world. No, play the game. The best
guy you know Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, these guys were the best in the world and
they would just hand the ball to the ref. So some of that I’d say is let’s teach our kids how
to compete the right way. (Coach Postseason Interview)

I think he looks at it and says you know we’re young kids we’re growing kids so he takes
what you can get from lacrosse and makes it a real world situation sort of makes you
become more of a man when you’re grown up person and just being a good person in life
as well as on the lacrosse ﬁeld, you know fair, and emphasizes sportsmanship and stuff
like that. (Athlete 2206)

Being part of a team and not being a single individual. You know emphasizes getting rid
of the ball don’t just try to take care of it yourself you know, especially in higher level
that we play. You have to pass it around, use all the people on the ﬁeld and stuff and
becoming a team player can help you with the rest of your life and stuff like that. (Athlete
2206)

He’s really an upstanding guy. I noticed he really had a lot of integrity and outside of
lacrosse he seemed really trustworthy and really honest. And in lacrosse he’s just, he
knows what he’s talking about. He knows the basics of lacrosse and he knows that he’s a
better coach and makes us better and it shows. . .Especially in high school you know, you
can tell that he knows it’s more about developing us than it is about winning but he
doesn’t ignore winning. He just really cares about the players. (Athlete 2205)

Coach [head] doesn’t even drink, he doesn’t smoke, umm he doesn’t swear you know, he
drives responsibly, he just like he’s just like an all around like a very good guy, very
upstanding, so like it’s good to have that as a role model you know, when we say on the
weekends “don’t do anything coach wouldn’t do” [Laughter] It keeps you in check. It
keeps you pretty safe for that, he was good for that. (Athlete 2205)

177

He emphasizes sportsmanship and commitment too. Commitment to the team but also
commitment to everything else you do in life and hard work. He emphasizes a lot of like
the skills that you teach in sports. He emphasizes using those outside of sport so a good
mentor in that way I guess and role model for the players in that way. (Athlete 2205)

Explanation for scores on mea_sures throghout the season

Decreasing over season. I think mine went down because I felt the effects of being alone.
And I felt I was not doing all I could do if I had- more help. And so I didn’t think I was
doing a great job. You know, with the appropriate amount of help I could do a great job.
Alone it was difﬁcult so I felt I was not reaching what I could do. That’s probably, that’s
where I kind of started knocking myself a little. That’s all right. (Coach Postseason
Interview)

Stable. Yeah. There’s one point in the season I think it was like the 2"d survey you sent
out and I scored him a little bit lower because we played a team [Name] and the ﬁrst
time, their team is a lot better than ours we lost to them 6-4. Then the second time it was
something like 17-3 and he was mad that game because we just got beat really badly and
he played at the club team at State and that team wasn’t really that good so they got beat
a lot and he just got mad and at the beginning of the game he wanted to run zone defense
I think and then we switched to man to man and then back to zone. So I think scored him
a little bit less in the adapting to game strategy. But they’re just overall better than us so I
don’t think there’s really much he could do. .. That was the only time I really saw like a
change in that. (Athlete 2224)

High-Stable. Yeah, I think it was pretty stable. His motivation, it comes back to giving
athletes credit where it’s needed. He didn’t do that very well I don’t think throughout the
year. But, everything is pretty stable except for that his game strategies got higher as we
more games. I saw what he did differently in other games. (Athlete 2206)

High-low-Middle. Thinking back to the season it seems like towards the middle of the
season you, I just got, I think personally I think I graded harder then. I just graded
ridiculously, like I must of put 2 or 3 points lower than normal and I was a lot tougher on
Coach that day for some reason. Probably mad at him for something. I don’t want to say
like I was sick of him but it seemed like in the middle of the season there was a low, I
don’t know if it was just me but I got tired of Coach because he really, because he really
is strict about not swearing and I don’t swear all the time but it’s part of my regular
speech. It was just things like that where you were just getting irritating at him so that’s
probably, [I was] probably mad at him about some things and I graded him for it. (Athlete
2205)

[Why the higher scores at end of the season?] Oh, I probably realized that I was being an
idiot. Just because he doesn’t want us to swear is no reason to call him a bad coach or
grade him badly on our surveys. And that even if I do grade him badly on the surveys, I
do really need to support him. I feel like more the more I got back into lacrosse the more
I relearned the strategies the more I realized that he was a good coach and liked him. I
could appreciate the way he’s coaching. Not knowing the sport very well, it’s hard to

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judge somebody else’s knowledge of the sport if you don’t know it. So, when I learned it
more my appreciation for his knowledge of the sport grew. (Athlete 2205)

Views on Season Events

1. Up and down record...
Well, there are some games that you walk into that we have no business winning. At this
stage we had no business beating [opposing team name]. We probably cannot stay with
[opposing team name] or [another team] for that matter. You schedule them, and you
don’t want to do them all at once, but yet you need to ﬁnd the victories that are within
there. I mean we played [team name] and lost 8-6 or 6-4 whatever it was. It was 2-goal
game against a very, very good team. Our guys felt tremendous aﬁer that and they
should’ve. Who cares? Who cares if we won? 1 mean they do, but as far as I am
concerned, if you give it all, if you focus and give all the effort you have, what if you
don’t win? At least you can say you gave it your all. I am not going to say winning is
over rated because I love to win. But I had no problems; I think the ones that hurt you are
the ones you should’ve won, that you saw slip away, but we beat some teams that not
many other people beat either. (Coach Postseason Interview)

Oh well we were still like fresh because this is our ﬁrst varsity season and we played
some teams that were better than others. Coach is just trying to play, schedule harder

teams to get us recognition as a program. So that’s where most of the losses came from.
(Athlete 2224)

It was actually kind of frustrating we couldn’t catch ourselves in a winning streak. It
started at the beginning I think we had a little run of wins, but then as we started to play
tougher teams we just couldn’t, that winning streak stopped and then it was up and down
and then the losing streak was just real ﬁ'ustrating we just couldn’t seem to beg a win
even against teams that we should’ve beat or that we beat earlier in the year even that we
beat last year. And then we started to get some hope as we started to win a little bit and
then it was just up and down so it sort of just carried on out. So it was a little frustrating
but then at times it was fun especially important games and like close score against [team
name] that was really exciting. . .I think as a team everybody felt the same about the
frustration and stuff. Then the coaches they were conﬁdent every game that we could win
if we just played our game and played to the best of our ability and stuff. So they kept a
good head about it, but we all just got frustrated and some of us got down on ourselves
(Athlete 2206) ‘

In a way it’s kind of, it’s nice because 2 years ago in football, we lost our lSt eight games.
That’s a lot worse because by about the 5‘h or 6t game, you’re just like “what am I doing
here”? Where as with the lacrosse season, I don’t think we lost more than 3 games in a
row ever. With 2 or 3 games a week that means you didn’t go a week or week and a half
without a win. So, it kind of helped lift your spirits up but at the same time you never got
on that roll. But also you know the season was kind of different because the I think that
kind of schedule or that kind of record does a lot to our schedule because we would play
like we would play you know teams that were closer to our caliber then we would play

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these really good teams and they would slaughter us. So the losses didn’t hurt as much
when we were getting beat by like teams that we knew were you know, like top teams in
the state, so it was I don’t know, even though we didn’t hit the win streaks, they felt like
win streaks because they were games we theoretically going into the game knew weren’t
going to just get killed. We kept winning those games. (Athlete 2205)

2. Running with team after his team loses during a drill...
I’m going to play, I’m going to pay. I would’ve surely made everyone of them run. I
don’t really like to play, I’ve played, and I’ve had my time. I am not one of these that has -
to throw my hat on an go play. I go do that in the summer, so I really don’t like that, but I
thought to make it the game a couple times that I did was because otherwise we would’ve
been short handed so I did that but hey if I am going to do it I gotta pay. No one is above
it. You’re a team and just because I am middle aged and fat doesn’t mean that I don’t
have to do that. So, I don’t want to be their buddy, but I want to say, ‘hey for this moment
I was a teammate and if you got to run, I’d run’. That’s ﬁne. Otherwise, how can I ask
everyone else to do it? (Coach Postseason Interview)

Just a team sport, shows team unity. Win together, lose together. (Athlete 2224)

Even though, I see it as, even though he is the higher individual then us as being the
coach and even an older person but he was in the situation and he was playing with that
team and since the team lost , he lost as well and he didn’t just step out he went and ran
with them. And so I think it shows just that idea of being a team player on the ﬁeld and
he that was a good example on his part of being a team player. So it kind of motivated us
to be also team players. (Athlete 2206)

He’s big into commitment and he’s saying if we commit to being a team under him he’s
committing himself in the same way to be our coach and do whatever it takes to make us
the best team we can. He takes the wins with us and the losses with us. . .It’s a good
feeling to know that your coach is there to back you up if something happens, being there
to help you out if you need help off the ﬁeld and stuff isn’t like isn’t just talk, he’s
actually there for you. (Athlete 2205)

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Team 3 Qualitative Results

Game Strategy
The ﬁ'ustrating part is that you can strategize all you want but if your team does not buy

into it the strategy goes right out the window. That is something that I have really tried to
work with the girls, letting them know that I have faith in their abilities and they need to
show me that they have faith in themselves. That is the hard part with strategy, knowing
that your team is capable of doing something but actually getting the girls to do it is that
work in progress. (Coach Preseason Interview)

Another thing to work on is probably focusing on the other team’s strategies, we never
really focused on what the other team was doing. Like if the other team was rolling the
crease, we never really looked at what they were doing and I think that’s what killed us.
The other team kept doing the same play over and over again, and our defense really
didn’t notice that, because our coach really didn’t, we weren’t really paying attention. So,
I think if we would have noticed, that she could have helped us point that out. . .and we
could have planned that out and maybe shifted and noticed that and got more on top of
them and maybe that would have helped us a little bit (Athlete 2307)

Motivation

I tell the girls that our season is only like 3 months long, look at how far you’ve come; it
does not necessarily take years to master something, even in a short amount of time you
can really improve. I am hoping that is something they can apply in other things in life as
well (Coach Preseason Interview)

You know, they’re self-motivated. For me, that is way more important then a girl who
might be better but not motivated. I’ve even told the girls that I would rather take
someone who has never picked up a lacrosse stick but has that athlete mentality; they are
willing to push themselves. I’ve already seen with tryouts that there is like this separation
and like girls who I have said ‘you need to go home and work on this’ and you know seen
the girls who really take it to heart and now their hand is in the right position and others
that it makes absolutely no impact (Coach Preseason Interview)

I think this year the motivation is going to be a little bit easier. By setting up these three
groups, I have my varsity, transition team, and junior varsity, the girls that are in the
transition need the most motivation. By putting them in their own category I think I am
putting the responsibility more on their shoulders, they know that where I put them for
playing depends on how hard they work. I think that self-motivation will be the focus this
year (Coach Preseason Interview)

It was unintentional, but I think some of that communication was missing. Some of that
more positive aspect, like ‘Let’s pump up and have a great practice’ was lacking on some

days (Coach Postseason Interview)

I think everything from trying to lighten up situations to being heavy handed. This year
was interesting because especially during games we had a few key people that would do

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the talking for me, which would kind of make me happy that they would say exactly what
I would have said, which helped me know that they got it. It would vary, and I think the
girls would see it vary. If it was something as far as ‘lets do this’, and then it would
intensify. I think the girls would notice too, and if it got to a certain level of intensity,
they’d be like, ‘oh my gosh she’s really pissed off at us.’ I think if it did get more intense
there was a reason for it and I’d kind of pull them out. It was really interesting at
tournaments where they would point out other coaches and other coaches’ strategies like,
‘Oh my gosh, look at that coach. He’s just yelling.’ And I ask them if I ever do it and
they’d be like, ‘ Oh no he’s just kind of scary.’ And for them to see what it could be like
and thank God it’s not like that. But, I think there was a varying level, and I think the
girls, especially the girls that had been with me 3 years, would know. Okay she wants us
to be serious, okay now she really wants us to be serious, and can kind of just tell that
(Coach Postseason Interview)

Well, if we don’t do something we have to do push ups. Mostly it’s just if you screw up,
you have to do push ups and stuff like that. Or run a lap (Athlete 2312)

Well, if we screw up in a game she won’t make us do push-ups or anything like that. But,
I think she just tells us what we need to work on and tries to help us. She’ll try to let you
know what we’re doing wrong (Athlete 2312)

Oh, it depends on how we played like if we have this famous speech when we played Big
Varsity High the ﬁrst time. She’s like, “You guys are sucking.” Not really being serious,
but then we came back and we won. So now if we’re doing badly, she’s like ‘Yeah, you
suck’, but it’s a joke. So it depends, like if we had played really badly before, like in the
game before practice, she would not be as happy with us or as conﬁdent. But, if we won,
she would be more like that, because we had just won (Athlete 2312)

We kind of had a motivation problem on our team I think. Like a lot of girls would just
go out there and not feel like playing. I think a lot of it was we just weren’t motivated. I
think that’s something she could have done better as a coach, like get us in game-mode
(Athlete 2312)

Well, the big thing this season was Regionals and going on from Regionals because we
wanted that trophy really bad. The coach would be like, ‘Oh you guys gotta get it and
keep doing it, and we can get to Regionals.’ Then, after we won the ﬁrst game leading up
to Regionals, she’d be like. ‘You guys made it this far, keep on doing it, you guys can do
it.’ I think the team was [school]. So, she was like you beat them now you just have to
beat the next school. So that was our big motivation. She was just like you guys are better
then them. There was one team, [school], that was the team we killed like 18-4 I think.
She’d always give us a speech, like the “you suck” speech, you might have heard that,
and she’d, whenever we’re playing bad it would always get us angry, but we wanted that
speech. So, she’d always tell us that and it’d get all of us really motivated to keep playing
better and she’d tell us that and we’d go out there in practice and we’d really hustle and
work our butts off and we’d do really good. So, we just needed that little pep talk and

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- then we made it really far and that’s why we made it as far in the season as we did. That
was the main motivation that she gave us (Athlete 2307)

Well it was basically that speech or, she’d never point anyone out, you don’t want to let
your team down to all of us, just thing of how far you guys could go now. You don’t
want to make your school look bad, she’d say. Compare yourself to the guys team, she’d
say that. She’s like you want to make it further then the guy’s lacrosse team, because the
lacrosse team was really bad this year. So, we wanted to see how far we could go so we
could rub it in their faces and stuff. She’s like, just see if you guys want to win you can
keep on going further and further. Or we’d say, “Do it for peanut!” That’s what we call
her little baby, because she’s pregnant. Mostly, it was the ‘you suck speech,’ or rub it in
the guys’ faces. She’d be like you have to' win so you can rub it in the guys’ faces
tomorrow (Athlete 2307)

Well, if we had a game coming up she’d always bring up the game and say how nice it
would be, since it was the ﬁrst year as an actual sport, how nice it’d be to have a good
record. So, she’d bring up winning games. Sometimes we had to cradle in line and if we
weren’t doing that we’d have to do push ups and that kind of motivated us, because after
doing 50 push ups, you don’t want to do them anymore (Athlete 2317)

She doesn’t make us do push ups, but she still tells us that she knows that we have it in us
to win and that we should be playing harder. Usually, that gets people motivated to do
stuff. She talks to us about what we should be doing. It works, most of the time (Athlete
2317)

She would just continually go over it, every time. Even if we were playing, she would
yell ground balls if we weren’t picking up the ground balls well. She would just make
sure that we knew what we were doing wrong or what we should be doing and she would
just tell us and at practice if we had a game and we didn’t do the ground balls right, she
would make us practice ground balls the entire practice. I mean no one really wants to
pick up ground balls all practice, but she motivated us that way (Athlete 2317)

Well, during a game if we’re playing really bad she gives us this one speech. She just
tells us we suck and all the sudden we play better. She doesn’t really mean it but she just
says it so we’ll play better. We really do, like a half time, if we’re not playing good the
ﬁrst half and half time our heads are down and things aren’t looking good for us she’s
like you guys suck and then we just laugh about it. Then, she’ll be like no really you need
to pick it up. I know you guys are better than this (Athlete 2301)

There are coaches that really, really compliment the girls and she does that, but not as
much as I’d like to see her do it. Because in a sport you love to hear your coach say good
things about you and sometimes she doesn’t always recognize your strengths. She
motivates us as best as she can, maybe that’s the best she can do, but she could motivate a
little more I think (Athlete 2301)

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Probably, during game situations, she recognizes what we need to do to improve during
the game, but I think it would help if she recognizes the good things that we do. Because
if you’re losing you don’t like to come out and here, okay you’re doing this wrong and
this wrong and this wrong and this wrong. It would be really good if she stepped up
telling us what we’re doing right and telling us to continue doing that. In like the huddles,
during half time, it’s usually like the goalie, who’s the other captain, that are telling our
defense, you’re doing a really job of shutting the offense out. So, she could deﬁnitely step
up and give positive feedback during game situations (Athlete 2301)

TeachingTechnique

We bring them all in and I break it down into little bite-size pieces. Sometimes I have to
stop because I think it’s a small piece but I see the confusion. Then, I will try to break it
down and I’ll say hold your stick like this and then realize they cannot even hold the stick
that way so I’ll say put your right hand here and left hand here! On big thing for me is to
say remember how this feels; remember how this feels in your hands or how you are
standing. So a lot of it is starting with standing and then transitioning into jogging and
doing it and then its incorporating the new skill into what we do every day. It’s a real
progression, and sometimes it’s breaking it down more on an individual basis. Sometimes
when they are just not getting it you need to bring everyone in and say why we are doing
something and then you see the light bulbs go on in some people. I’m ﬁnding that I need
to, after I show them technically how to do something then tell them this is how it would
be used in a game situation (Coach Preseason Interview)

I try to create an environment where I do not care if you go out there and make a mistake
as long as you are trying something, that is a message I am constantly sending. Just show
me that you are trying it. It’s all about trying new things, trying new skills, and seeing
what works for you. I think also, and the girls can tell, when I am more serious and
ﬁ'ustrated and have those range of emotions and the girls can respond to that and know
exactly where I am going (Coach Preseason Interview)

I have been a trainer in other aspects that have helped me. It is tough when it is a numbers
issue and so many of them and one of me. With teaching skills, with my experiences with
training, my education, and working with refugees where English is not the ﬁrst language
where you have to become real creative with how to send messages, those experiences
have been a real asset. You have to use all those skills in coaching (Coach Preseason
Interview)

I think one thing was just, that was better, was being able to focus more on developing
rather than on teaching. So, it was kind fun to be able to step up and instead of just going
over the basics and really focusing on that, actually doing some of more what the kids
consider fun things. The kids are like oh, teach us plays, teach us tricky things. And the
kids be really respective and having the ability to do it. I think that was one thing that was
different and better was being able to refocus the team away from, okay now you have
the fundamentals now lets move on to the next level (Coach Postseason Interview)

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I think this new growth of lacrosse, it was deﬁnitely a growing year with the ofﬁciating
and the coaching, the teams we played against. I think it really even drove the point home
of how much better it is for players and teams to be a good educator and to teach them to
do things the right way. I think its deﬁnitely, I think the girls got an appreciation of it
because they would run off the ﬁeld and go, “You taught us this way, but they aren’t
doing this way” And having this dialogues of why is what .you’re teaching us different
from what we’re experiencing. And being able to have that, and even sometime second
guessing myself and having to go back and say okay let me make sure that’s the right
way. In that aspect, this season has pushed me to be a better educator because there were
so many inconsistencies (Coach Postseason Interview)

I think the most important thing is to use more than one, ﬁrst of all. I think that’s a
strategy in and of itself. Knowing everyone’s not gonna learn the same way. A lot of my
strategies were being able to demonstrate it, have the kids demonstrate it back, walk
through it, break things down, even to the point of, “okay your hand goes here, lower
your hand a little lower,” but the just really being able to break it down into bite size,
because I know a few times I would be like okay too much information let me back up,
let me break it down even further for you. That was the ﬁrst strategy, being able to break
things down into smaller pieces for the kids. And then I think being able to utilize other
players to kind of lead by example and asking them to lead by example. Because I can sit
there all I want and say do this, but when they see someone, especially someone they
admire, and say hey, “can you do me a favor, can you work with this person? (Coach
Postseason Interview)

Ways of getting my point across... physically demonstrating, talking through, expressing
my frustration, letting them know I’m frustrated I think is one too, and also trying to
explain why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling and putting some of the responsibility back
on the players, rather then I’m feeling this way just because I am, but rather there’s a
reason why I’m feeling this way and is it something that was more of the negative side,
putting the responsibility on them to try to rectify the situation. So a lot of it was like can
you understand me? Give me some suggestions, how can I get through to you? So, kind
of engaging them in dialogue to get my point across. (Coach Postseason Interview)

1 think she’s a really good teacher. She really knows what she’s doing and I think she can
communicate that to the team really well. I think she’s a good coach when it comes to
coaching and teaching skills that you need (Athlete 2312)

We do mostly drills and she’ll show us how to do it. Then she’ll put it into a drill, and
then we learn the skill. Like if we’re doing like ﬂip passes she shows us how to do it then
we just pass and catch. I mean she can’t just show you. And she’ll also come around and
help you individually if it’s something you’re having trouble with. (Athlete 2312)

I mean she’s been playing lacrosse her whole life. She played it in college and she’s been
learning it from her husband [another coach]. I think she still learns stuff from him, and
even stuff from us she’s said. So, there’s always room for improvement, but she teaches
us day by day. She’s really good (Athlete 2307)

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She’d just keep, if she wanted to teach us a skill, she’d keep doing it over and over. She
just makes us do it over and over until we get it. She focuses on one thing until we get it.
I really like how she does that, but sometimes it can be hard because we do it like the
whole practice. Some practices we focus just on one thing. One practice we were
focusing on quick sticks and we had to do that the whole practice until we could get to
30, and that was just to 30. Some practices we’d do it like 40 or 50 and we couldn’t even
get 30. So, she’d make us do that the whole practice because we couldn’t get it. So, I
mean some of it is hard, but she wants us to get it right and that’s good because she wants
us to get better (Athlete 2307)

I think she was a really good teacher. She just like, for like ground balls and stuff, she
would teach us until we got it. If we didn’t get it during games, she would make us do it
the next day at practice and she’d continue helping us through it no matter what. And like
the plays, even though they were confusing, she went over them a lot of times to help us
(Athlete 23 1 7)

She would demonstrate it too. Basically she would just talk about it. Then, she would
have some people go through it just to show us and then we’d practice it all practice
(Athlete 23 17)

I think they were probably the best ways that she could do. Because if nobody knows
what she’s talking about the best way is to show it and tell it. If you’re not good at
something you’re supposed to just practice and that’s what we did. So, I think that’s that
best way of coaching she could have done. It was confusing at times, because you didn’t
have a clue what she was talking about. But, she would still stop and say you’re doing
this wrong and you should do this way so that was good (Athlete 2317)

She always had us practice with the team, which is what you’re supposed to do, but
sometimes she’d tell everyone that they weren’t doing the ground balls right, but there
were people doing it right. So you really wouldn’t know if you were the one doing it
wrong or right. She didn’t really single out people as much. Like if she would have come
up to me individually and said you need to do this better, it could have made me learn
quicker how to do something. Instead of just saying as a whole team, you’re not doing it
correctly. Then, she would say whenever I say something it applies to the whole team,
but sometimes you didn’t really know if it did or not. (Athlete 2317)

She knows a lot about the sport and if you need to work on something, or during tryouts,
she’ll let us know. She had like a meeting with us and let every single individual know
what we needed to work on that she noticed about them. Like during practice every day
she’ll critique us and if we’re messing up on like cradling or our shots or something like
that, she’ll critique us. Yeah, she really teaches the game well (Athlete 2301)

I think she does have us do certain drills, just not for our beneﬁt, but for her beneﬁt so
she can critique us. She has us do these drills, she just basically the whole time through

186

the drill she’s telling us what we’re doing wrong or what we’re doing right. So, she
deﬁnitely has us do certain things so she can watch us or critique us (Athlete 2301)

At the end of practice she’ll Stun up the practice and tells us like the big game’s coming
up, you need to really work on this or there defense is really good so we really need to
work on offense. So, she really talks to us a lot about what we need to work on (Athlete
2301)

Character Building ‘
I think there is a deﬁnite need, to not only teach on the ﬁeld, but to have the kids take the
lessons off the ﬁeld as well. One of the things I told a parent that I really want to work on
is team-building, you know, as I am taking this team ﬁom a club status to a varsity status
I feel that there is a need for a real cohesion between the girls (Coach Preseason
Interview)

I want them to remember, not necessarily me, but the team environment. I just really
want them to take away a real positive experience and they stay involved (Coach
Preseason Interview)

1 do thoroughly believe that you have an impact both on the ﬁeld and off the ﬁeld and
it’s not only about the sport of lacrosse, but it’s about character building. It’s about
instilling some things that I’m ﬁnding that you assume that kids know about respect and
sportsmanship and you learn that it’s not common place and just really holding true to
that. Your job just isn’t during the game, but, it’s using those teaching moments that
occur after the game, during the game when they’re not in play, but if you’re not
constantly staying on your toes you can miss out on a lot of things or you can overlook a
lot of negative things that if they are not corrected, even though they may not directly
impact your team, I think it directly impacts the fact that, that person may leave the
experience with some pretty negative behaviors (Coach Postseason Interview)

Stuff like during our games, this really bothered me, she wasn’t being sportsmanlike,
she’d yell at the refs or something like that. I think it reﬂects poorly on the team when
she does that, but that’s about it (Athlete 2312)

She’s really nice. I mean we still talk like females and stuff even though we’re not
playing lacrosse. She’s friendly. If there was something going on within the team, like
girls ﬁghting or anything, we could talk to her and she would help resolve it. She’s good
with managing issues within in the team (Athlete 2312)

Mostly it’d say probably motivating our team in getting ready for games and
sportsmanship towards the other team and the refs because of the way it affects how
people look at our team. I think she’s a good coach besides those two things. Those are
what I noticed anyway (Athlete 2312)

A little bit I did just because of the sportsmanship thing. I don’t think it bothered any of
the other girls because they were all like, “Yeah, that was a stupid call.” It really bothered

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me but that’s just because my dad raised me that way I guess. I lost a little bit of respect
for her, but I still think she’s a good coach (Athlete 2312)

She teaches us a lot on and off the ﬁeld. She’s really good. I’ve been to a few camps, and
she was there at the camps, and not even when we’re playing after the camps, she’s
taught us a lot about being a person and stuff and not to do bad things and stuff. She’s
just a good person overall (Athlete 2307)

Well she really just tells us not follow people; just be your own person really. And not go
with the crowd and stuff. Because personally, there was only 4 of us that went to camp
last year, that her and her husband coached, and she taught us a lot of stuff. She would
come in our room at night and let us stay up a lot later and we’d all just sit and talk. And
like all the girl would be really, like because their was a wrestling camp going on there,
and all the girls would be like, they’d just all go out and do their own thing and they were
like really nasty and all that. She’d be like don’t do that, you guys are better than that.
She’d be like you guys don’t need guys and all that stuff. She’d be like be your own
person, you don’t want to let yourself down, and you guys are better than that. She’d just
boost you up and not feel low and everything. She just doesn’t want you to feel, I don’t
know what the word is for it. She just makes your self-conﬁdence go up. When other
people are like going off and doing stuff, she wants to make sure, she cares a lot about
you, she doesn’t want you to go off and do the same, she wants you to be your own
person. She doesn’t want you to go off and follow people. You know, and make bad
decisions, because she doesn’t want you, because she’s so focused on you. Like for our
last game, she wasn’t all so focused about winning, like we really wanted that trophy and
she wanted it, but she was like more concerned about how we had fun and stuff. She’s
not so focused on winning. She was like more concerned about us and stuff and how we
feel and if we’re having a good time and stuff. Like she’s one of those coaches so she
cares more about us then the game and how we’re doing (Athlete 2307)

Because when I was Cheerleading, my coach was like so focused on winning the
competitions and at practices she was like we have to work because we want that trophy
and it was not fun at all and that’s why I only did it one year. I quit right after because I
didn’t like my coach. So, I really like a coach that’s not focused on winning and all that
stuff (Athlete 2307)

I think it was the whole experience of being on a team just affected me because I’ve
never had that before. Of course, being a coach, she taught us things we could use in
everyday life. Like not giving up, or even just like listening skills, because you have to
listen in order to be able to understand what she’s talking about. So, that kind of stuff
applies to life (Athlete 2317)

I learned a lot about being on a team, and teamwork. If we were playing bad you can’t
just single out one person and say you’re playing bad. You have to work at it as a team
and ﬁgure out ways to not play as bad. You can’t just blame it on one person and call it
good. If you think about a job, everything relies on everyone in order to work well and
that’s how it was on the team. It’s on everyone’s shoulders and you can’t single out one

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person and say their playing bad so let’s kick them off the team. It kind of helps you get
along with people, even though you might not like them as much (Athlete 2317)

She’s not just a coach, she’s a friend. She really gets along with everyone. She’s really
nice, outgoing and fun to be around. You get those coaches that yell a lot, and [coach]
never really yells that much or when we’re gooﬁng off in practice or like during a game
when we’re playing like crap and we know we can do better then she’ll yell, but overall,
she doesn’t say things to destroy our conﬁdence or she just is really is a good coach
overall (Athlete 2301)

She’s deﬁnitely taught me about responsibility and stuff. Like I was captain this year and
I had a lot of responsibilities on me and it’s taught me to be more responsible and be
more dedicated to things (Athlete 2301)

Explanation for scores on measures throughout the season

High-Low-Middle. Well this is a very, a season, well there were some factors that weren’t
planned that deﬁnitely affected it. We had really high expectations in the beginning and
because of my own personal limitations at times, it was like eh, maybe I’m not going to
be able to accomplish all the goals that I wanted to accomplish. Yeah, I think that’s pretty
representative. As far as starting high, and dealing with some of the things, and then
leveling out midline, I guess that’s pretty much how it went (Coach Postseason
Interview)

1 can deﬁnitely see it could have been a different season if, I feel like if I say this it
sounds bad, but if my attitude was more consistent. Because I know that it went up and
down, because of what I was able to do. You know there were days when I was out there
and I really didn’t want to be out there and feeling bad knowing that girls understood, but
at the same time feeling that in a sense I was kind of cheating them in way, because I
couldn’t give 100% and expecting them to. (Coach Postseason Interview)

Decreasing over season. Yeah, I like Jen don’t get me wrong. It’s just that, towards the
end of the season she got a little more edgy, well she’s pregnant yeah, but she’s just more
stern I guess you could say. She might have just been more serious about it. Because of
the playoffs, stuff like that. But I think a lot of the girls lost some respect for her because
of the way she was coaching. Maybe it’s just that after you spend so much time listening
to someone, it just gets old (Athlete 2312)

Stable. Well I’ve been with her for 3 years. I just think a lot of people haven’t been with
her that long and I think there is probably only 6 people on the team that have been with
her that long, so I think that through the years and her coaching, I’ve been with her and
seen her coach 3 years, so I know what she’s capable of and I know how she’s doing. So,
to me, I know how she’s compared to other coaches that I’ve had and just how I feel
about her and stuff and just seeing her work and that’s why I thought she was doing good.
I think we wouldn’t be as close of a team if we didn’t have her because she’s like really
easy going compared to other coaches that I’ve had throughout the years and they were

189

' going to make us have a different lacrosse coach when we became a varsity sport,
because there were like other options because we were a varsity sport and I don’t think
we would have been nearly as close without her. Just like having her for multiple years,
that’s why they were high and stayed the same I guess (Athlete 2307)

F [actuated over season. I think that the stuff that bounced around score-wise was because
it kind of depended on the game that we had or the practices that she, like sometimes she
did motivate us more to do stuff and other times she kind of just let us do our own thing
and that’s when it kind of ﬂuctuated. I know it went down when it asked about working
with individuals or something. I just remember that at the beginning of the year
everything was going really well and by the end it was like well she hasn’t really helped
me individually and I didn’t know exactly 'if I was doing it right and she never really said,
so that went down. I think it just mainly depended on the games or practices before that
and what I had to compare it to (Athlete 2317)

Stable. I think that at the beginning of the year they were a little higher then the end of
the year, because I love [coach] as a coach. She’s a great person and I love being around
her and everything. There were just some things that, she like, whenever I would go into
the game, this is me personally. I don’t know if has to do with me or all the other girls?
But I would go into the game and work my butt off and I would work to keep the team
ahead and stuff like that. I just felt like she didn’t really care sometimes. Like I came off
the ﬁeld tired and stuff like that. I can honestly say that after every game, I did not
receive any sort of compliments from her. And that’s what was weird to me because
that’s just not her. I don’t know if she was doing that because she didn’t want to play
favorites or something like that, or she felt like if she said something like that to me then
the other girls might think that she likes me more or something. But, she never once said
to me, “Good game. You played really good.” And I know I played good, but it’s always
nice to hear from your coach that you played good. But, never once did she say that she
liked the way I did this or the way I did that. I mean in practice when we were doing
warm-ups or doing defense and offensive drills, she’d be like good goal or that’s the way.
But during the game, I just think during the game is the best time to encourage your
athletes to play better and stuff like that. That was just one thing that I was really
surprised at about her. And then, she does an okay job of motivating. It’s not like the
best. I think towards the end of the year I started to realize that she didn’t do that as well
as at the beginning of the year. Because, I just had to get refreshed with her, and at the
beginning of the year I remembered her being this and that. But then, at the end of the
year I remembered that she didn’t do this well, but she did that well. So, they all stayed in
the top, but I think they went down a little bit (Athlete 2301)

Views on Season Events

1. Watching Each Team '5 Games...
Well, I think part of it was the respect issue of being supportive to their younger
teammates. It was kind of an ongoing problem and something we deﬁnitely had to work
on just because, I don’t think they realize it, but I know how much the younger players
look up to the older players, and are just enthralled when they watch the varsity game. I
wholeheartedly believe that you learn from watching and when they would watch and

190

they would encourage, I really think they got something out of it. I think it was really to
instill that respect, and letting them know that their job as a teammate isn’t done when
their game is done. They need to be supportive and also use it as an opportunity to learn
when they’re given it. So, that was basically the message of it was just please be
respectful, use this opportunity because it is an opportunity and trying to get them to
understand why it’s important (Coach Postseason Interview) ’

No, like I said, it was something that we had to work on and I know part of it is that
they’re like 15-17 year old girls and when they get together, especially when they have
prom pictures, its hard to get them to focus and I guess its something that I know its
difﬁcult. I don’t know if they necessarily understood the signiﬁcance of it, like at home
games, away games they had no where to go they had to watch the game, but at home
games there’s boyfriends, and parents, and grandparents to distract them. It was a pretty
consistent message and it was pretty typical in a sense that I think that for every home
game where there’s a J .V. game it was discussed and the captains were informed that it’s
your job to corral your teammates and make sure that they’re just not sitting there but
they’re actually watching. So, that was a pretty typical interaction (Coach Postseason
Interview)

She really wanted us to stay, because she wanted J .V. to watch the varsity game to learn
about lacrosse. To learn about how our team plays and the other team plays. You can
learn if you’re watching your teammates play, like, “That didn’t really work so I won’t
do that. Or “I should try that because that worked really well.” Or you can watch the
other team, like how they set up their defense and how they do their offense. I think it’s
very important to watch. I if you just go out there and you don’t really know what’s going
on then you don’t have as much as an advantage as someone that does know. I think
that’s what she’s trying to tell us (Athlete 2312)

I think she got her point across pretty well when she was talking about it. Because I know
it was really important to her that we all stayed and watched. I think a lot of us girl took it
to heart and did stay and try to learn by watching (Athlete 2312)

I think it was pretty effective, deﬁnitely not to talk and to pay attention. We learned that I
know. We hated doing practice, and in practice we had to do push—ups the whole time
because people kept talking and everything. I think it was pretty effective because we do
learn from like the coaches and the refs like she said. Like we learn from the refs because
the refs would make calls that were completely pointless we learned. We learned some
things that we have never heard of before. So, you just like learn every time. Yeah, so we
learned what to expect from her. Like she is going to put her foot down. Like if we are
talking we’re not gonna get, I think, from the ﬁrst year and second year she was kind of
lenient. Like, “oh their talking, I’m just going to tell them to be quite.” But now she’s
gonna make us do push-ups and stuff. So now she’s putting her foot down and we know
not to like talk and it’s serious. It’s a school sport and she’s serious now. I think it was
effective, because she’s telling us from the beginning what to do and what not to do. She
told us straight forward (Athlete 2307)

191

She was just basically saying that we need to pay attention to the game because we can
learn from other people on our team and its easier to watch our team play and say, “Oh
this is not working well,” and try to think of ways to change it instead of her just always
telling us that we’re not doing it right. She was trying to get cross that it’s nice to have
the team supporting you when you’re out there. If everyone’s kind of doing there own
thing and not paying attention to the game, it’s rude when you’re out there trying to play
and the rest of your team doesn’t really pay attention. She was trying to get us to watch
the game more and pay attention to what we were doing wrong when we were out there
(Athlete 2317)

I never really thought about watching your own teammates play and try to learn from
that. I mean you watch the game, but maybe pick a person who plays the same position as
you and see how they do it. Or, to see if there’s anything that you can do to change how
you play. That’s how it kind of impacted me. Every game aﬁer that I kind of picked up
on the people that played my position and I watched them. Even from just seeing where
they were standing when the ball wasn’t down there kind of helped me realize what I was
doing wrong or if it worked out better or not. But, it impacted me a lot (Athlete 2317)

That we need to during games, like you know how girls are either always gossiping or
talking on the sidelines, a lot of girls don’t pay much attention to the game that’s going
on. So the J .V. doesn’t watch the varsity and the varsity doesn’t watch the J .V. She gets
really frustrated with that because she knows how much you can learn ﬁom watching the
game. You can learn so much from the calls, the way the defense and offense works. I
think she just got really frustrated because our J .V., they were basically all new and really
knew nothing about lacrosse and here they are on sidelines talking and doing other stuff.
She just really wanted them to watch us because they still were kind of clueless about the
whole lacrosse thing. She really likes for us to watch each other because she’s really into
learning new things every game and it’s true, it’s very true. I learn things all the time, but
I think that after that, well there were a couple rough practices aﬁer that, but after that

J .V. really watched varsity and varsity watched J .V. and we participated in the others
games and stuff. So that deﬁnitely worked when she talked about that (Athlete 2301)

it’s always nice having you teammates on the sidelines encouraging you and you know
you look over there and its like a neck and neck game and if you look over there and
they’re like talking instead of cheering you on, its frustrating to look over at your team
and they’re not even paying attention (Athlete 2301)

Getting Ready for Postseason. . .

First of all, that we hadn’t practiced for awhile and this was kind of a key opportunity to
have to kind of brush some of the dust off, get our heads in the game, use this as an
opportunity to feel out not only the weather, but how everyone responded to the weather,
because I knew that was going to be an issue. And for the girls to kind of mentally get
prepared for the game..So, I was just trying to get them motivated to do that. And with
the weather as hot as it was, it was going to be harder to get them motivated, so that was
kind of the main message. We have a lot to do and especially the end of the school years I
know it’s so hard for the girls. They’re already thinking about open houses and

192

graduation, and for the juniors, senior pictures. You just gotta get them refocused. (Coach
Postseason Interview)

She was talking, she talks about it a lot, that our team would slack off in the beginning of
a game and other teams would get ahead and then that’s when we’d play hard and win or
lose the game. I think that’s what she was trying make it that we can’t be lazy in the
beginning because then [regional ﬁnals opponent] will stomp on us. She sounds, I
remember that clip, pretty conﬁdent in us. That was good (Athlete 2312)

And even though it’s hot, we need to work hard. Because I know we were really lazy that
day. She would get really ticked at us, but it was hot (Athlete 2307)

She just said how lately we weren’t practicing because it was the end of the school year
and we had more ﬁin practices and that wasn’t the best thing to do because we weren’t
used to working as a team again. And then she said about the weather being warm and
how we had to get used to that again. Basically she was just trying to motivate us for our
game (Athlete 2317)

Well, she always talks about winning and trying to motivate us every practice. I think she
has her own way of saying that we should be winning and trying to help us through it.
But, this one was kind of different because there was the regional one and she wanted
that trophy and she was kind of using that to motivate us. She said about calling the
newspapers and trying to them down, and trying to get the news team and the word out
that we were actually playing. That was kind of exciting that the news stations much
actually be interested in us playing lacrosse. She motivated us every practice to try to
work better or to try to win the next game, to just work our hardest and do that every
practice (Athlete 2317)

Letting us know that it’s not going to be an easy game and the weather is deﬁnitely hotter
and it’s going to be a change to what we usually play in which is kind of cold. So, she
was just letting us know all these different things that are going to be going on and what a
challenging game it’s going to be. When she said that, I really got kind of worried,
because I was like its not going to be an easy game, we’re going to have to work and if
we’re not there, and our heads aren’t in the game then we’re not going to win and I was
getting worried at that point. So, she was just letting us know that our heads have to be in
it and you guys have to bring your “A” game. She was just letting us know the challenge
ahead of us (Athlete 2301)

193

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