Excerpts from

Coaching the Mental Game: Leadership Philosophies and Strategies for Peak
Performance in Sports – and Everyday Life,by Harvey A. Dorfman, Taylor Trade Press
(Rowman &Littlefield), New York 2003.

The psychological basis for a sense of individual worth as an adult rests upon the acquisition of
competence ina work role as an adolescent. The work of an athlete is to compete effectively. A sense
of competence is acquired through reassurance. It comes from the actual experience of succeeding
in the important athletic tasks.

The challenge to the coach, as a teacher, is to instruct the athlete, to support the athlete, and to hold
him accountable, and to understand him and to help him understand himself.

Coaches of tee-ball kids and the like are usually wholechild centered. As the youngsters get older and
more skillful, coaches become learner-centered. After a couple of more years, the coaches are sport-
centered, teaching strategies as well as more sophisticated techniques. At an advanced level (and
that can be any time from high school and beyond – especially at the professional level), many
coaches become self-centered, meaning they want results from competition that puts them in a
position to advance their professional standing (i.e., recognition and a better job).

The self-centered coach has less personal contact with the athlete (student), and effective teaching
diminishes or disappears as the athlete seems to advance. Aside from self-interest, the coach makes
the assumption that people normally progress in knowledge and ability proportionate to their
hronological age. This isn’t true.

Typically, people grow and improve in proportion to external motivators, mentors and teachers. And
the less the coach communicates with the athlete, the less open the athlete becomes. Feeling he’s
expected to know (or fearing harsh judgment), the student-athlete often pretends to know. He’s
afraid to admit he doesn’t know.

When the coach gives off signals that he isn’t interested in connection and clarification, the
communication process is short-circuited, creating a gap between the athlete and the coach.

The more results-oriented coach will tend to focus on winning, rather than on teaching. The
elemental concern of all athletes is to feel respected and needed, and every coach needs to express
this to them. It’s extremely helpful in trying to get the most out of them, and what legitimately helps
the athlete will, in time, help the coach. It follows, then, that the individual who wishes to be an
excellent coach should remind himself to focus on ways to be an effective teacher, one who can

treat the athlete’s psyche, as well as his brain. The results will more likely satisfy everyone
concerned.