There is an old saying that is really relevant to those who coach in the Foundation Phase. It says; "You are planting a tree that you will not sit in the shade of".
For me this means I may not see the benefits of what I am doing but rather someone else will. I don't need the credit or the plaudits I just need to know I have tried to maximise development for where each individual player is at. This, for me, is a greater reward than anything as it is the beginning of each player trying to reach their maximum potential. What more could we possibly ask for?
Frankly, this is a very difficult one to accept (not that you are wrong but it's just difficult as a coach). Especially because not knowing if our player has developed certain skills when players are passed on to another coach, our appreciation will go undervalued by players we pass on. This means that coaches who get our players will be unaware of our value provided to the players they receive. This could cause those in management of the club we work for to over value the wrong people and under value the truly good coaches as a consequence of correct development. For this reason, I believe it is very hard for coaches to do what is the correct thing because we know that almost all parents and only very few specific coaches will be able to watch our coaching and know that it is the correct way to develop players. But this I would assume is very rarely the case which is why coaches do what it takes to obtain winning records and trophies because it is the easiest measurement for most people to take note of who don't know what true development is. Especially in U.S.A, this means that often we lose our best players because we lose games. I am faithful to development no matter what. But I lost 3-4 of my best players on one team because we were not winning and two of those parents stated "I don't see development". The others left because we were not one of the top teams and felt they deserved better. Keep in mind these kids were 8-9 years old when the parents left. And I know for them it means that when we are losing games, there is no other metric they can go off of. And I think this is perhaps the number one reason why most coaches coach the wrong way. It's because we can train something for months and throughout this time, it is not obvious what is happening within the players or what a coach is trying to do. I almost lost one of my team since we didn't reach player requirement and I lost half of my players because I was committed to the cause no matter what. Luckily I had half of my team stay who believed me and my approach. And luckily by summer's time, we barely made the mark for requirement. It was a tough time because I spent so much effort working on the correct things and many coaches compromise because of things like this. When the work is unseen, we lose players and don't get credit unless we are lucky enough to have enough players and coaches that can vouch for us in due time
There is an old saying that is really relevant to those who coach in the Foundation Phase. It says; "You are planting a tree that you will not sit in the shade of".
For me this means I may not see the benefits of what I am doing but rather someone else will. I don't need the credit or the plaudits I just need to know I have tried to maximise development for where each individual player is at. This, for me, is a greater reward than anything as it is the beginning of each player trying to reach their maximum potential. What more could we possibly ask for?
Best wishes. Pete