Building Player Trust

by Lee Barette, Head Coach of Team Ontario (U-17)

“Building player trust, communication and respect:
not easy…but overwhelmingly rewarding”

Coaching Situation:

We had a situation in a recent game at the Football Canada Cup. We were in an intense battle with Team Quebec…an outstanding football game, that I would characterize as one of the best atmosphere’s I have been involved with…at any level of football. With about 2 minutes left in the game we were leading by 6 points…possession of the ball on our opponents’ 40 yard line…and attempting to drive deep into their end of the field in order to score more points and expend more time on the clock. It was a first down play, and during the play one of our players dislocated his knee cap / patella tendon. A very painful injury…and an injury that is unpleasant to look at.

Before I discuss what ensued…I think it is important for us adults to understand why kids act the way the act…they act the way they do because of us. They simply mimic us…so if we complain to officials and say that it was the officials fault…guess what they are going to say? So if we say the other team was doing this and doing that…guess what they are going to say. If we chastise a certain player in front of the entire team…guess who they are going to chastise after the game?

So back to our situation…the player lay on the field, in pain, while the medical staff attended to the injury and dealt with the situation in a superior and professional manner.

While I was on the field with the injured player…the rest of our team was on our bench…the following situation occurred that was detrimental to us as a team for the rest of the game.

We had a couple players come off the field saying that they saw our opponent ‘cheap shot’ our player…actually giving a detailed account of the ‘cheap shot’. So what happened to our bench…total anarchy…we had some players become so upset that they were hyperventilating, crying, etc…efforts by the coaches to bring the situation under control were futile. This was a pressure situation that not one of our kids had been involved in before.

The referees approached me and asked if I saw a cheap shot…I said “no”…I said some of our players “saw a cheap shot”…but I also told the referees that in my experience that players tend to exaggerate…and I did not feel comfortable taking their word on the matter.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I was correct. Upon reviewing the film, the play was a very innocent play where our player unfortunately just planted the wrong way…no cheap shot took place.

Long story short…we lost the game by a point. And those last 2 minutes of the game after the injury our players were ‘in a state of anxiousness’ that caused them to make mistakes that inevitable caused us to lose the game.

What is the lesson here?

X’s and O’s of football are very crucial…but it is the ‘soft skills’ of a coach that will go a long way in determining the success of a team, and a player…on the football field…and on the field of life.

Coaches use many different ‘motivational’ techniques to inspire a team. I am not here to critique those techniques…but I will give you some food for thought.

Here is how I see it…coaches are always trying to build players trust and communication skills…as well as demanding them to respect their coaches and their teammates.

I have been involved with coaches who have tried to motivate by saying “the other team is dirty”…or “they don’t respect us”…or “they aren’t up for this game”…etc…The ‘us versus them’ mentality I understand…but I think it is detrimental to building the players trust, communication skills, and respect if what we say to them is “questionable” in its truth.

To me these assumptions give us as coaches less credibility with our players…kids are extremely intelligent…they may not be able to tell you why they think what a coach says is wrong…but they can usually intuitively figure those things out.

If we as coaches don’t show emotional control…can we expect our players to show it? If we as coaches constantly point the finger at others…referees, other team, other players, parents…can we expect our players not to be finger pointers?

I understand that kids grow up trying to get what they want…and they do this through manipulating the truth. Football is a great opportunity for us to mitigate this behaviour. Football can teach our kids so many life skills…if we as coaches foster those teaching situations.

Positives that came out of our situation…losing a football game.

Thirty-six kids learned more from a loss than they could have ever done if we won the football game. They learned about how they personally react to immense pressure…and hopefully learned how to deal with that pressure. They learned that communication is critical to the success of a team in high pressure situations…they learned about trust and respect. It is very important to not only respect your coaches, teammates, opponents, and officials…but it is important to respect the game itself.

I am proud of all 36 kids’ effort in that game versus Team Quebec. I am also glad that they experienced such a tremendous atmosphere and pressure situation. In that 2 ½ hours those kids learned so many life skills…and probably learned more about themselves in that 2 ½ hours than they have in their entire life.

This is why I coach.

Lee Barette, Head Coach of Team Ontario (U-17), has coached at the minor level, CIS level, and guest coached at the CFL level. He has been a member of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) and the Canadian Universities Football Coaches Association (CUFCA). He played his minor and high school football in Cambridge, Ontario and his university football at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He started a minor football program in the Annapolis Valley (Nova Scotia)…which 10 years later has resulted in the introduction of 4 area high school teams and 2 minor organizations with peewee and bantam teams. In 1998, he completed an honours thesis on the “Development of Canadian Football at Acadia University 1956 to 1979”…a historiography of Football in the Maritimes and Acadia University. He can be reached for comment at lee.barette@freedom55financial.com