As a Responsible Coach, you use the “ELM Tree of Mastery,” where ELM stands for Effort, Learning and Mistakes. That way, you are teaching players how to master their sport, so they feel in control of what they can control, rather than nervously fixating on scoreboard results that they can’t control.
But they still sometimes get nervous. What is a Responsible Coach to do? Try these techniques.
Nervous is Normal and Pressure Is a Privilege
In the live, group workshops PCA presents for coaches throughout the U.S., one of the scenarios we ask coaches to consider is how to help their players mentally prepare for a big game against a strong opponent. Often, coaches want to tell players, “Don’t be nervous,” but that rarely works.
If anything, it confirms in athletes’ minds that their nervousness will be a pitfall. That may make them even more nervous and create a greater likelihood of a self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein players get so nervous about failing that they are more likely to do so.
Instead, you can tell players that "nervous is normal." As Mark Twain is credited with saying, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” And, you can remind players that, according to the title of Billie Jean King’s book, “Pressure is a Privilege.”
Choking and the Three B’s
Once the game starts, players may still feel quite a bit of pressure and become concerned about “choking.” Choking is when players in a high-pressure game situation fail to perform actions that they can routinely perform in practice or games when the stakes are low.
Again, rather than trying to persuade athletes not to fear, Responsible Coaches help their players get through their fear. One way is with the “Three B’s” – breathe, bounce and break.
Breathe: When concerned about “choking,” we literally can’t get enough air. Encourage your players in a pressure-packed part of the game to take deep breaths, and feel the oxygen getting into their system. In team sports where there are timeouts you might spend time in the huddle just breathing together. During other natural breaks in the action, you can use a non-verbal cue to remind players to breathe, such as taking an exaggerated deep breath yourself and sweeping your hands toward your lungs as though to bring in even more air.
Bounce: Nervousness also can cause players to feel unsteady on their feet. Get them to bounce up and down a few times like a boxer just before a round starts or a tennis player waiting for the opponent’s serve.
Break: Sometimes players just need to snap out of their nervousness, and that’s where the third B – break – comes in. After breathing and bouncing, a hand-clap, like a football team breaking huddle, can denote the end of the nervous phase and signal the start of readiness for the next play.
