When I first started coaching, I was asked by one of my mentors what my coaching philosophy was, and at that time, I had no idea. Actually, I had no idea what a coaching philosophy was in general.
Soon after though, I came across John Wooden’s pyramid of success. Coach Wooden’s pyramid is a roadmap for individual and team excellence. It contains the common characteristics and behaviours of successful athletes and people.
Build a strong base
I’ve changed and refined my coaching philosophy over the 25 years I’ve been coaching but what it boils down to is this:
Along with teaching solid technical and skill foundations, I strive to instil in my athletes the strong personal characteristics they need to achieve sustained results.
This means I not only focus on improving their forehands and backhands, but I also try and encourage them to build a strong personal brand.
To do this I model and encourage characteristics like:
- a strong work ethic
- attention to detail
- passion to improve
- care
- coachability
- discipline
- a growth mindset
A strong base makes the rest easier
Why do I focus so much on these characteristics? Because if an athlete has them, then teaching them a skill becomes easy. If they have a passion and growth mindset they will want to learn the skill. If they have discipline, they can commit to a task over a long period of time. And if they have attention to detail and a strong work ethic, they will try to do the skill properly in practice and then back this up by practising it on their own. If they don't have these characteristics, they don’t have a strong base and then creating skills on top of that becomes hard.
What’s your coaching philosophy?
I encourage you now to think about your coaching philosophy or pyramid of success. What’s important to you? What characteristics do you want to instil in your athletes for them to succeed? It’s really important to define your own philosophy and create a strong base on which to build success for your athletes.
And the best thing is, that when you do this, when you help your athletes build strong personal traits, this not only helps them in the sport of tennis, but in life as well.
Regards,
Marc Sophoulis