STEPH FAIRBAIRN asked those on our expert panel: ’A coach is unsure if they’re having any impact on their players. They feel like they may be starting to fall out of love with the game. What advice do you have for them?’
"Take a step back to make sure you know why you’re coaching. Why did you get into it in the first place?
"Go back to some of the emotional part and lean into that. I often help coaches figure out their why.
"It could be as simple as ’I love kids’, ‘I want to give back to the sport, it’s given me so much’, ‘I love to create culture’, or ‘I want to develop resilience in people’.
"Think about those things, channel those things, harvest those things.
"Keep it fun if it ever becomes too much of a serious job, even at the highest levels.
"You look at the Premier League right now and a great manager like Graham Potter at Chelsea.
"I feel for the guy, I really do, because the expectations are so high with the new owner, there’s so much turnover on the roster, so many injuries and the pressure. You feel for someone like that.
"But he’s a great person and a great coach and it’s not going well for him and everybody around him right now. But you stick with it. And if it’s not to be, it’s not to be. That’s okay."
Matt Spear
Founder, Love United FC
"Invite someone you trust to come in and run a session for you, and you go over and run their session.
"That’s the best way to test: is it my environment? Is it what I’m doing? Is it the players? You narrow down what’s causing those feelings.
"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to sessions and been like ‘I really like that’ and I take what the person has done and just tweak it a little bit.
"Sometimes we get into ruts where we have this confirmation bias with things we’ve done and we don’t recognize how to do things differently.
"[Soccer is] always my escape - for the 90 minutes I’m with my team, nothing else matters. I’m with the 14 to 18 players in front of me. I try to remind myself of that and have fun.
"Get your players involved. See what they say. A lot of times they might have ideas and you can be like, ‘Yeah, let’s go with it’."
Dr Haroot Hakopian
Head coach, Potomac SC and Winston Churchill High School
"I feel coaches sometimes do too much, because they care, and then this cycle of burnout happens.
"I don’t think it’s a lack of love for the game. I think maybe you’re at a place where your values don’t align with where you work.
"Maybe you’re at a place where it is time for a change, or you need to readjust your focus within your organization so that you’re at a place where your values align with what you were doing."
Kyle Martyn
Senior girls director, Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals Soccer Club
"In my opinion, it’s hard to get burnt out if you love it. So if you’re burnt out, you maybe have fallen out of love.
"Then you have to ask yourself: ’how do I fall back in love?’. Do you need a break? Do you need to quit? Do you need to change your role?
"Maybe you’re a U14s head coach. Go be the U15s assistant for a season. [There’s] less pressure, less challenge and you see it in a different way.
"It’s always self-analyze, set up a plan, figure it out and go forward. I’ve only been there once and I bounced back and went after it three weeks later."
Kai Edwards
Head women’s soccer coach, Southern Utah University
"There are so many contextual things that might be influencing that burnout: age, experience and so on.
"Take a break. It’s okay. Maybe go on a sabbatical for a month, or a semester.
"The second thing is have somebody watch. Not from a judgment standpoint, but a friend. Set up the arrangement so they come out and give you feedback and notice the effect on the players.
"For me, when the burnout and fatigue starts to happen, it’s about the discipline to say no."
James Wagenschutz
Coach, W Sports Performance
"Don’t let yourself get to that point. Choose your roles wisely and make sure you’re taking time away from soccer.
"Jennifer Klein, the head coach of Michigan, said something that really resonated with me on this. It was ‘Stop trying to achieve balance - look to achieve harmony’.
"To me, that was her way of saying you are not going to be able to be fully committed at home during a fall season. It’s not possible.
"What you can do is, wherever you’re at, be fully present. So when you’re at home, you’re fully present there. When you’re on the field, you’re fully present there.
"She said once she figured that out, she had a lot less of ‘Am I doing too much? Am I burning myself out?’. That was really big to me."
Katie Smith
Coach, Northwest Mississippi Community College, Collierville High School, Collierville Middle School, Lobos Rush
"Never lose sight of the impact and influence you have over people.
"We never get to pick and choose the moments our players or parents remember. A dear friend [John O’Sullivan] has a book called Every Moment Matters and it’s really powerful on never being wasteful with words.
"We can’t ever lose sight of the quote ’A coach can impact more people in one year than the average person does in a lifetime’
"So if somebody feels like they’re not having an impact, I promise you they are. I promise you that you are probably the best part of somebody’s day.
"Even if your session doesn’t go as you hoped it would, if your environment is one where the player’s experience is full of enjoyment and they’re getting to play and be with their friends, you’re a catalyst for that. Never doubt the impact and importance you can have on those players’ lives.
"I think the beauty of our profession is that you’re probably not going through something that somebody else hasn’t. And one of the things I’m most proud of is the support system that seems to be there and the willingness for people to help.
"So be vulnerable, reach out and ask and know there’s going to be lots of people that lean into you to make it better."
Tom Shields
Technical director, boys’ ECNL director and USL2 head coach, STA Soccer
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