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Post by coachcb on Nov 15, 2011 11:57:17 GMT -6
So, we've established that being "too negative" is a bad thing. So, let me pose a question; is there such a thing as "too positive"?
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Post by runandshoot1 on Nov 15, 2011 12:36:20 GMT -6
I feel like you can be a lot more negative to a winning team than a losing one. That winning team probably knows they are good and you can beat them down a little bit to keep their ego's right where you want.
But when you have that terrible team that can't win a game you have to stay up beat and positive as much as possible. You don't have to say great job all the time (cause obviously it's not) but you can't be saying What the h was that no wonder we are so bad!
Just keep correcting and fixing!
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Post by bigm0073 on Nov 15, 2011 13:50:35 GMT -6
Good point...
If you are winning you can ride them harder no doubt.. Probably not so wise if you are losing...
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Post by mholst40 on Nov 15, 2011 14:19:37 GMT -6
So, we've established that being "too negative" is a bad thing. So, let me pose a question; is there such a thing as "too positive"? I think when being positive is extremely fake, the players see right through it. Players still need to know what they did was wrong, but for the most part they don't need to be belittled to make a point IMO.
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Post by fantom on Nov 16, 2011 10:00:45 GMT -6
I feel like you can be a lot more negative to a winning team than a losing one. That winning team probably knows they are good and you can beat them down a little bit to keep their ego's right where you want. But when you have that terrible team that can't win a game you have to stay up beat and positive as much as possible. You don't have to say great job all the time (cause obviously it's not) but you can't be saying What the h was that no wonder we are so bad! Just keep correcting and fixing! It's kind of like the old rule about when you're showing film after a big game: hammer them after a win; lighten up after a loss.
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Post by fantom on Nov 16, 2011 12:29:30 GMT -6
So, we've established that being "too negative" is a bad thing. So, let me pose a question; is there such a thing as "too positive"? Absolutely. Just think about someone you work with who is a little too excited to be alive first thing in the morning. When you get to a certain age you have a good reason to be excited to be alive first thing in the morning.
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Post by blb on Nov 16, 2011 12:42:01 GMT -6
Absolutely. Just think about someone you work with who is a little too excited to be alive first thing in the morning. When you get to a certain age you have a good reason to be excited to be alive first thing in the morning. Absolutely. First thing I do in the morning is check the obituaries to see if I need to shave or not. I'd rather be at school than in the best hospital in America.
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Post by mariner42 on Nov 16, 2011 21:21:03 GMT -6
So, we've established that being "too negative" is a bad thing. So, let me pose a question; is there such a thing as "too positive"? I can't remember the specific number, but at a certain point positive praise becomes a matter of diminishing and eventually negative returns. But I think it's something like 13-1 positive-negative, something silly like that. If you manage a 5-1 ratio, you're friggin' superhuman and rockin' out as a coach. At no point should you ever remove the negative however. You need salty to help understand sweet, you need pain to understand pleasure, the juxtaposition is important. I think the cold, direct honesty is a healthy way to show anger without being a SOB about it. It's important to criticize effort or execution without criticizing people, too. As several people have established, there's a difference between "Jimmy, that's a lazy effort" and "Jimmy, quit being lazy". Tonal inflection/delivery is important, but all Jimmy is hearing in the second example is that Coach thinks he's lazy, so hell, he might as well dog it some more. An even better way to say it would be "That can't be Jimmy coming in last, he gives better effort than that!" It's not as direct, but it establishes your expectations, lets the player know you think highly of him, and sets you up to praise his improved effort later ("There's the Jimmy I know! He's a heck of a player!"). I try to use positive coaching as often as I can, it's just more in line with my personality. I will blow a gasket every now and then, I will occasionally run down a player, but my goal is always to be positive, uplifting, and affirming. It's a journey...
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Post by tcbxxvi on Nov 16, 2011 21:57:31 GMT -6
After reading this entire thread...I've come to the conclusion that I will never hand out a player evaluation form. I can look at our record, and get a pretty good idea if I was positive or negative during the season.
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Post by coachcb on Nov 17, 2011 10:21:18 GMT -6
Question for the group per the thread: If I have a kid in class who is failing and on his interim if my comment is "working to capacity" would you consider that honest or negative? I considered it honest, but his mom considered it negative. That's honest; he's only get out what he puts in. I made a phone call to a parent yesterday and she asked me if her son was one of my more difficult students. Apparently he's giving other teachers hell. I told her he wasn't a difficult student, at all, because he doesn't do anything but stare at his desk. Even when I help him.
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Post by fantom on Nov 17, 2011 10:41:31 GMT -6
Question for the group per the thread: If I have a kid in class who is failing and on his interim if my comment is "working to capacity" would you consider that honest or negative? I considered it honest, but his mom considered it negative. She would have had a real problem with something a guy I knew wrote on an interim once, "Does nothing yet breathes valuable oxygen."
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Post by tango on Nov 17, 2011 10:49:21 GMT -6
I think it is about knowing yourself. I can not be nice at practice because it is not in my DNA but I understand that and I make sure I talk to them at school about everything and have a little fun. Also, if I chewed them the day before I go into practice trying to be more up beat and up tempo. It does not always work but helps me.
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Post by blb on Nov 17, 2011 10:51:01 GMT -6
Question for the group per the thread: If I have a kid in class who is failing and on his interim if my comment is "working to capacity" would you consider that honest or negative? I considered it honest, but his mom considered it negative. She would have had a real problem with something a guy I knew wrote on an interim once, "Does nothing yet breathes valuable oxygen." ...and breathing's an involuntary action.
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Post by coachcb on Nov 17, 2011 16:23:18 GMT -6
The all time best evaluation I have ever seen:
"This employee has hit rock bottom and then started digging."
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Post by blb on Nov 17, 2011 18:48:44 GMT -6
It is just a crime that in this country millionaires get more money ("Golden Parachutes") as severance pay after phucking up major busineses, and teachers, who are being held accountable for things over which they have little to no control, are losing salary and benefits.
The "Occupy Wall Street" movement reminds me of the origins of the French Revolution.
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Post by Chris Clement on Nov 17, 2011 19:53:38 GMT -6
Reminds me of a comment I once got on a report card: "flashes of brilliance confounded by stretches of apathy." And it was a good mark, too.
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Post by coachcb on Nov 18, 2011 12:46:59 GMT -6
It is just a crime that in this country millionaires get more mone("Golden Parachutes") as severance pay after phucking up major busineses, and teachers, who are being held accountable for things over which they have little to no control, are losing salary and benefits. The "Occupy Wall Street" movement reminds me of the origins of the French Revolution. I actually had a student make the same comparison yesterday. He'll make one helluva lawyer someday. I don't worry about it too much anymore. The average teacher is only making it 2.5 years now; there's more and more job security every year. Especially if you're willing to coach. I love my current principal. Here was how he opened the last staff meeting: "The average student at this school missed 22 days of school last year. That is why they fail the state tests, that is why they fail your classes and that why is many will struggle in life. It's not the teachers' faults. The kids and parents will stop blaming you when the graduating seniors get fired or kicked out of college next year for missing 22 days of work or class.." The past two weeks have been a perfect example; I haven't had more than half of my kids present in a long time. Makes the job pretty easy when no one's here. LOL.
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Post by coachcb on Nov 21, 2011 9:59:29 GMT -6
coachcb - are you in Ohio? That sounds very similar to how our Superintendant started the school year convocation this year. I'm on the edge of the map in Montana, coach. Drive into eastern Montana (the start of middle of nowhere), drive into the middle of nowhere, take a left and drive 100 miles further into the middle of nowhere. Our superintendent is still under the impression that the teaching staff just hasn't found a way to "reach the students". So, to make up for the 22.5 day average, he hacked the sh-t out of the breaks in the spring. The joys of being a private school.. But, on the bright side, our administration is actually allowed to follow policy and boot those kids who miss 10+ days in a class in a semester. We've already kicked about 10% of the school out for this and we'll be dumping another few pretty quick here. Well, that's assuming nepotism doesn't kick in... We had a delightful lad who missed 16 days by quarter and 8 of them were in-school-suspension but the administration wasn't allowed to kick him out. The superintendent: "In school suspension doesn't count because being kicked out of class is too subjective".
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Post by coachcb on Nov 21, 2011 11:36:36 GMT -6
damm...I live in The Sticks,OH but that's a lot further east than Nowhere, MT I grew up in MT so I know what people mean when they say "isolated". It's great, we get a lot of teachers and Jesuit volunteers from out of state here (private, Catholic school) and it's fun to watch them crack when the snow flies. When they say "emergency travel only" here, they friggin mean it. It's like "The Shining" when those roads shut down. Our new Theology teacher is from Chicago and stated that he could handle the nasty roads because he's driven on "icy Chicago roads his whole life." Yup, he ended up in a ditch this weekend.
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Post by Chris Clement on Nov 21, 2011 19:20:43 GMT -6
We should meet for an exhibition game... When I learned that I might get posted to Winnipeg, I thought "that sounds very cosmopolitan."
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Post by coachcb on Nov 22, 2011 8:54:56 GMT -6
We should meet for an exhibition game... When I learned that I might get posted to Winnipeg, I thought "that sounds very cosmopolitan." Lol, yeah, we should.. A cosmopolitan lifestyle for me involves driving two hours to a thriving metropolis with a population of 110,00 people. But, there's a lot to like about the isolation; less people per square mile equates to less stupid people per square mile.
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Post by jpdaley25 on Dec 2, 2011 11:17:56 GMT -6
If it's a lack of effort or a poor attitude, I'm not holding anything back. In those two instances, they need to hear the truth, and they need to hear the emotion. The rest of the time I'm usually pretty positive.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2011 12:27:49 GMT -6
First of all, in a general "coach development" way, I think this is one of the best threads we've had on here. Secondly, everything that has been said is the truth. Yes, a coach can be too negative. Yes, a coach can be too positive, because then the approach loses substance. The best is to be yourself and truthful. If I'm needing to correct a player on something, and if he legitiamately did something well, I'm going to tell him what he did well and then correct what needs to be corrected. If he totally blew the play, I probably won't yell at him but I'm not going to grasp straws to find a compliment either. I'm just going to start correcting him.
Two examples I can think of for both extremes. At my last coaching job, the head coach's big punishment measure was to run laps around the track or run gassers. It got to the point where he went to it so much that many of the players didn't even know why they were running that particular time. And, he often sent the team running for lack of effort...but then did nothing to correct the lack of effort during the punishment run. Combine that with the wasted practice time and it was pretty much a disaster.
The too positive example is me as a younger coach. I didn't want to be a yeller and a screamer, so I never did it. I always pointed out the positives...even when they existed in my mind only! The real problem was I was trying so hard to point out something positive at times, that the things that needed corrected quite often didn't get corrected, because we needed to move on to the next rep, next drill, whatever.
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Post by coachorr on Dec 2, 2011 14:37:58 GMT -6
At an AFCA or Nike coaching clinic a few years back I sat in on a motivational speaker who addressed dealing with the 21st century athlete. The speaker suggested always correcting players by telling them what they did positively and ending with the negative. But, the negative has to be phrased correctly. Example: "Johnny, you did a wonderful job reading the down block from the tackle and squeezing him, NOW (instead of but) you need to make sure you spill the pulling guard to make us successful on the play." Yelling at kids for things they know they did wrong is pointless. We need to find the reasons behind the mistakes. Sometimes I find myself yelling simply because I am frustrated. Then, I try to calm myself down before approaching anyone to be corrected. This is one of the most accurate statements. The word "but" should be removed from coaching and insert the term "now" or "we expect".
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Post by rcole on Dec 2, 2011 16:01:48 GMT -6
Notes from that clinic you referenced. I stole them from Coach Hoover and then typed them up.
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Post by rcole on Dec 2, 2011 16:03:49 GMT -6
Another similar one with points relevant to this discussion, again typed up from Coach Hoover's notes from his site.
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Post by fbcoach33 on Dec 5, 2011 11:35:55 GMT -6
One thing as a staff we always ask ourselves is, is the mistake we are critical of a effort mistake, or is it a tech mistake, if its a tech mistake we as coaches need to do a better job of teaching, if its a effort issue we demand better. goes back to a clip i saw years ago of Bill Parcells, a Punt returner drops a punt and the ast. in charge of punt return tries to save face by yelling and screaming about how he had covered that with him, parcells pulls the ast. over and the ast starts defending himself about how he had told the kid how to field the punt at least 10 times,,,,,parcells looks at the ast. and tells him, "well it looks like you better tell him again because it didnt take"
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Post by coachorr on Dec 5, 2011 12:37:50 GMT -6
My wife just said I am too negative.
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Post by coachcb on Dec 5, 2011 13:15:48 GMT -6
There is a difference between "correction" and what we are defining as "negative". A correction isn't negative; it's about fixing a skill.
An example of a correction:
"Johnny, you took a better angle on the tackle this time around. You need to keep your head up and see what you hit though; you're missimh tackles other wise."
An example of a negative:
"Johnny, you took a better angle this time around and I am thrilled that you finally listened to me on that. Watching yourself over-run play after play on film did some good. Now, do we need to go watch some more film of you dropping your head and whiffing on tackles like you just did in this drill? Or, are you just going to take my word on it this time around and DO IT RIGHT??".
My staff and I started with "correction" at the beginning of the season but that evolved into "negative" after watching the sh-t show that ensued on defense. We finished out pretty well on defense the last two games of the year because "warm and fuzzy" was replaced by "GET IT DONE". Sometimes the "positive sandwich" doesn't cut it.
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Post by fantom on Dec 5, 2011 13:48:25 GMT -6
There is a difference between "correction" and what we are defining as "negative". A correction isn't negative; it's about fixing a skill. An example of a correction: "Johnny, you took a better angle on the tackle this time around. You need to keep your head up and see what you hit though; you're missimh tackles other wise." An example of a negative: "Johnny, you took a better angle this time around and I am thrilled that you finally listened to me on that. Watching yourself over-run play after play on film did some good. Now, do we need to go watch some more film of you dropping your head and whiffing on tackles like you just did in this drill? Or, are you just going to take my word on it this time around and DO IT RIGHT??". My staff and I started with "correction" at the beginning of the season but that evolved into "negative" after watching the sh-t show that ensued on defense. We finished out pretty well on defense the last two games of the year because "warm and fuzzy" was replaced by "GET IT DONE". Sometimes the "positive sandwich" doesn't cut it. It's still better than, "Johnny, you suck".
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