Your Son or Daughter as Player Coach

There was a phenomenon back in the 1960s of player coaches in the NBA.  It doesn’t matter where they were, the idea was that someone on the court with great experience and leadership could make as good as or better decisions than even some very competent coaches on the sidelines. There is certainly mixed data on how successful that was. In the case of college, however, that really is the model we should use. If we were to try to be coaches from the sidelines as parents, we would find our less mature players (our sons and daughters) balking at half the calls we make, and not performing well on the court. And even in the cases of player/ coaches, there is still a general manager on the sidelines. That’s our role: to be either general manager, or the team owner, and leave the coaching duties to the person who is most important in the equation — the student.

One reason they almost have to be their own coaches is that your student is making all the decisions about what the team is doing, such as when it gets up in the morning, when it goes to class, how and for how long it studies, and on and on. If we to try to regulate that, even with a student living at home attending a community college, the player is just going to revolt.

How the Relationship Can Work

How did it work back in the day when teams had player/ coaches? Well, the player/ coach would have to consult with the general manager and team owner on occasion. The player/coach would ask for specific resources and work that out with the team managers. If they believed a piece of equipment or a new player would help, the general manager was charged with figuring out what he could do to accommodate that request. So when your student says he or she could really benefit from having an iPad in addition to a laptop and why, you as the general managers have to decide if that request makes sense and if you can afford to give it to your player/coach. The answer could just as well be “no” or “yes.” However, if we just give our students iPads and hope they’ll say “Gee Dad, thanks,” when in reality they really don’t want one or have any use for one, that’s not a good use of the player/coach’s decision making ability. And it certainly says nothing about our students’ ability to at least try to figure out what they need to do to become successful.

Who Decides the Plays?

Player /coaches also decide what plays to run. Your students will, as mentioned previously, have to decide if he or she is going to go to class, how and for how long he or she is going to study, and when to go to bed at night. General managers routinely ask their player/ coaches the whys and wherefores of their decisions, always in a respectful manner After all, you don’t want to take one of your strongest players and tick him off by being condescending, right? No. Wise general managers ask for clarifications, explanations and the logic behind decisions and plans made by the player/ coaches in hopes that the questions or requests will get the player /coach to think about something they hadn’t considered before. When that happens and the team is successful, the player/coach can look to their relationship with their general manager and know that it’s just the way it ought to be. And even on those situations when the player/coach makes the wrong decision, a good general manager will help them see how they can change the outcome in the future, should similar things present themselves.

One of the hardest things we do as parents is watch our sons and daughters play a sport. We’ll be in the stands or field cheering, but half the time we’re biting our nails off with worry. Will he do something embarrassing? Will she strike out? Will he get hit too hard on that tackle and have to be carried off the field? The only reason we let them go onto the court or field is that we trust them to do the best they can, and we’ll just keep being parents and biting our nails off. Guess what? It’s the same in college.

So, let your player/coach take the lead, and invest in acrylic nails you can’t bite off.