“I just don’t want to go to the pool one more day!”
Alex* was telling us he was quitting, and we were trying to talk him out of it. Looking back, it wasn’t really because we loved him as a teammate, or that our competitiveness would be affected whether he showed up or not. The truth was, we knew that if we couldn’t convince him not to quit, we would have to confront the nagging feeling we all walked around with. That we were in a bad place, with a bad leader. Once you let that thought into your mind, it was almost impossible to come back.
I recounted this story with an old teammate of mine a couple weeks ago. We agreed that the coach of that team was the worst we had in our entire careers. He was the opposite of inspirational, in many ways you had to overcome your aversion to his coaching in order to be successful. And yet, when I look back on that team, many of us improved and developed. It was the closest team I had ever been on.
As a coach now, I think about this paradox often. I know that I have coached swimmers who did not “gel” with me at all, although I hope I wasn’t as anti-motivational as what I experienced. The following is the best guide I can come up with for all the swimmers out there with bad coaches- how can you find a way to be successful anyway? The following suggestions are for the swimmer that is essentially stuck with a bad coach, for better or worse. However, in reality these are skills that can help you be a better swimmer regardless of whether you have Mike Bottom or the other end of the spectrum.
- Improve your self-coaching: As you get older and more mature in your swimming career, you should become more of a partner in your training with your coach. Sometimes a bad coach can force you to mature in this way- taking ownership of what you want to accomplish. Set goals and and follow up on yourself Become a student of the sport- then try things out and see what works. Finally. focus in on what strengths your coach has. Even the worst coach in the world has some strengths, and you need to figure out what those are as an athlete and exploit them to their fullest advantage.
- Get Tight With Your Teammates: To credit the late, great psychologist Christopher Peterson- “other people matter!” When you are in a tough situation, you need strong relationships to pull you through. Part of learning how to cope with a bad coach is accepting people for who they are, then focusing on what you can control (yourself). Put good vibes out to your teammates- they are probably struggling to. If you have someone that you know cares about you and will challenge you every day, you will go a long way to developing enough motivation to overcome any challenge.
- Stay True to Your Love of The Sport- One of the things I reminded myself over and over again during that time was that I loved swimming, and that I wasn’t about to let anyone ruin the sport of swimming for me. I still love swimming to this day, and staying true to that love has helped me through all the down times I’ve had in a career around swimming. If you love swimming, your attitude should be that you take the good with the bad and keeping putting one foot in front of the other, full stop.
- Forgive– One of the things I didn’t realize until after I was done swimming with that coach was the power of forgiveness. There are very few truly bad people in this world, but plenty of people do bad things. Although I practiced all of the above, I also walked around with anger for a lot of years at my coach. That anger came to affect me negatively in a lot of ways. When I finally realized that I could forgive my coach, it was a revelation. For those who see forgiveness as a weakness, remember that forgiving and excusing are two very different things. When you forgive you do not give permission or tell someone what they did was right, but you let go of the negative emotions you have kept up in response to someone’s actions.
While I would like to imagine a perfect world where every coach is amazing, that is simply not the case. As a swimmer, you need to have a plan to deal with whatever comes your way, even if it’s the worst case scenario., and realize that your relationship with the coach is a two-way street. So if you have decided you want to stick with your coach, make sure your side of the street is up to snuff!
*Name changed to protect identity
While I agree with the fact that there are bad coaches, I feel like trying to “have a conversation with the coach” needs to be added to this article. So many parents/swimmers get upset at a coach and jump to another team without any discussion with the coach. Any good coach will gladly sit down and talk to a concerned parent about their program. Always work through proper communication before jumping to conclusions. If your meeting goes horribly and the coach really is not a good fit for your child then find other options. Just my 2 cents
What surprises me is the lack of standards. And by that I mean ‘this is how we will teach this stroke’… A base of simple principles. Look down not forward (happens when the coach only knows how to turn them loose circle swimming). How to breathe….? Proper stroke finish…. Sigh. Some days I want to grab the other coaches and scream “Read a book!”.
Off soap box
Go ahead and “scream” read a book at your coach and see how far that gets you. Most coaches i have experienced are incredibly dedicated to this sport and to the swimmers. 99% of club coaches are basically volunteers who love the sport and do the best they can. Maybe you shouldn’t be all over the internet trash talking them. Go start your own club and see how easy it is to deal with parents like you.
Also there are clubs like the one I coach for (will go unmentioned) that don’t really have an interest in providing a standard of coaching or consistent structure. At this juncture parents with no swimming background beyond the few seasons their children have been involved in are self certifing unattached to come out of the stands and to be allowed access to the pool deck to follow their children into restricted areas at meets. These are the folks who are genuinely only interested in their own child’s swimming and the promotion theirof. Then rather than curb this invasion of non professionals onto the pool deck the head coach/board sanctions them to become full club coach members. These folks display no… Read more »
There are bad coaches. To me a coach has to meet be a positive, encouraging leader that writes appropriate workouts and improves the athletes they coach. If two of these are not met, they are a bad coach. We have such a high school coach currently. Kids don’t like swimming due to negative coaching methods and the workouts are ridiculous (I know this because I swam for many years).
It is so refreshing to hear from a swim coach that doesn’t believe all swim coaches are perfect and it’s the swimmers and parents that are always the problem. Just like any profession you have those who are truly passionate about their job and those who could just as well be doing anything else for a living. Even the most passionate may still not be the most knowledgeable in their field. For coaches to think that these traits can’t be recognized by swimmers and seasoned swim parents is ridiculous and insulting. This can be so frustrating for the swimmer and parents especially when there are not many other options available in their area, and even more frustrating when so many… Read more »
Happy to help- if you look over my writing history I’ve never been afraid to look into my own profession and criticize. The overly defensive responses sometimes left here by coaches bewilder me. I saw the above as a positive anyway- control what you can control!
For sure we need a higher standard in coaching swimming, maybe I’ll write about that next.
Put good vibes out to your teammates- they are probably struggling to.
*too
Appreciate the article, though. Very relevant.
This article came at such a perfect time for us. My son is struggling with a new coach who doesn’t seem as invested in the team as our old coach was. To a teen who had a very active, very involved coach, having the opposite come about is a shock. At meets, said coach loves to give feedback on what they did wrong, however as my son reminds me, they were allowed to practice that way all week long. I’ve been looking for ways to motivate him since he doesn’t want to leave his team/friends/swim family but it was looking to be his only option. Hoping this article can help push him in a positive way. But what MIKEH says… Read more »
When I swam for this coach, I was coming off a few years swimming on a team that in retrospect was not a very serious team. However the coaches that I had took it VERY seriously- they were knowledgeable and engaged, just all-around fantastic. I took it seriously as well, so I underestimated that on my next team, even if wasn’t that high a level, that the coach would still take it very seriously.
The reality is that many coaching jobs are not very nice, in many cases the pay is low and the hours can be terrible. You will luck out and get some great people regardless, but you will also face situations where you get a bad coach.
I could not have written a better article myself. I agree with everything said.