Player Management a big part now of Coaching

The great Australian hockey coach Ric Charlesworth, has a saying that as a coach, " You have to comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable."

This is very true, more and more in modern hockey as it is across all sports, the Coaches role is more than just being a coach, its also about be a good player manager. Now what do I mean by this, well different players respond in different ways to certain types of approaches. Within a team you will have different characters, and they will respond differently to different ways of coaching and different types of encouragement.

For example player 1 might respond to the tough approach, where you say, " Come on my Grandma can play better than that," by going out there playing harder and faster and better to prove you wrong, but if you use that same method with Player 2 they instead go into there shell and sink into a world of self pity and mistakes. Now this is where a Coach in modern sport must be able to take different approaches and understand there players and what makes them tick.

So as a Coach how would I advice going about this, well I guess the best approach is to try and as much as possible get to know each of your players personally and find out what motivates them to play the game they play. This should hold the key to how you approach managing them as a player, however I do send this caution with that also, you need to be sure as much as possible you keep that sense of aloof line as a Coach between you and your players, so that they dont become to familiar with you.

Its a hard thing to do, its a real balancing act and thats where that quote from Ric Charlesworth that, " You have to confort the troubled and trouble the comfortable," is very true.

My finally piece of advice to all Coaches in this area, is that you often need to trust your gut, and what it tells you in every situation. You also as a coach need to be aware not to get consumed in your players problems as they will end up being your problems and that is not good for you. I also recommend you do some Mental Health Training as a Coach, and one course that is very good is an Online course in Australia through Relationships Australia.