Fumbles. Picks. Holding calls. Missed tackles. Dropped passes. They are all part of the game. Ultimately, though you can make all the calls, signals and shifts you want, the kids are the ones executing and mistakes are going to happen.
As a coach, one thing that you need to be prepared for is how you are going to handle that mistake. Are you going to lose your cool? Fly off the handle? Berate a 12-to-15-year-old for throwing the ball inside, when he knows to throw it deep outside?
Keeping an even composure on the football field is a fine art. Especially when your defense gives up a first down with an offsides call. But how can we teach this game if we are blowing a gasket? The answer? Practice.
Yes, coaches need practice, too. Alongside all of the calls, signals, and shifts you are making, coaches need to be practicing down and distance situations, substitutions and injuries. But coaches must practice even more on talking and relating to players.
Players are going to mess up. If you don’t think so, then get ready because it’s inevitable. How we handle those flips and flops are going to determine our success, or failure, as a coach.
To gain some perspective, let’s rewind the tape to when we are living out our glory days on the field. How did we feel when we made a mistake and coach tears into us? I don’t recall thanking a coach for using choice expletives to describe and chide my fault.
Players know when they have made costly mistakes. You can read it in their body language. The head goes down, they slump and you can see it in their eyes.
It is in this moment of disappointment that we can help build young men or break them.
Don’t get me wrong, I have yelled at my share of players. I have also learned from doing that. Sometimes it was warranted. Sometimes, though, it was extreme. Results, however, are often unimproved by beating my man-chest toward a teenager.
Use this moment to teach a young man that although it may have hurt the team, that redemption is one play away.
My first year as a head coach running the spread offense, my quarterback threw five interceptions in a game. I wasn’t upset. I couldn’t be. We were outmanned in a game, no question. But I wanted my young quarterback to learn. I could have put in a backup, or changed our game plan, but I didn’t. I wanted him to get better for the next game, the next year. Five picks later he was a better player for it. Ask him, and he will tell you the same.
You see, I wasn’t throwing in the towel; I was giving him a chance to learn and an opportunity to understand that I believed in him, that I thought he could do it.
So many times, we are quick to toss players to the sideline. Yes, do this, so you can coach them. But don’t quarantine a kid to the sideline thinking it’s going to make him better. Coach him for a few plays. Let him see things from your perspective, literally, as you walk him through plays as you watch. Then, give the kid a green light to make a play. That’s why he was out there in the first place, wasn’t it?
Obviously, there is a fine line you must walk between coaching a kid up, and giving away a game. It’s give and take we must learn. No one wants to lose, but I never want a boy to walk away from the game because his coach forgot he was coaching and teaching kids.
Give them a second chance – a chance to make up for a mistake. No one wants to make up for it more than them. Let them know that you believe in them. If every player who made a mistake wasn’t given a second chance, this world would be without football, Peyton included.
Give them a second chance.
After all, someone gave you one.
