We’ve all heard it said, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” There is a lot of truth to that. In the coaching world, if you don’t help your team stand for respecting the game, competing through the last pitch, and representing your program with pride and integrity, you will be failing in more ways than one.
Having just returned from one of the most exciting and dramatic College World Series ever in Omaha, most of the coaches led their teams with pride and a competitive, positive attitude. It was encouraging to see.
Way before my affiliation with the organization, the American Baseball Coaches Association decided to have one of our two bi-annual board meetings at the beginning of the College World Series in Omaha each year…a very wise and popular move. We discussed many topics in our board meetings this year, including how amateur baseball is growing on multiple levels, and how the ABCA is also growing by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, we also discussed how the game has declined in one important area…conduct. There is more taunting, profanity, players showing up players on the opposing team and disrespecting the opponent and coaches all with fans (the old and the very young) watching from their seats at the stadium or in front of their TV.
To be more specific, pitchers striking out a hitter to close out an inning, then pointing and screaming “F-bombs” at the opposing dugout is almost expected at this point. Attention getter? Sure, but as far as representing your program, school or organization well, not so much. Setting an example for the young players in the stands or watching on TV? No chance.
When I ask coaches about this behavior, some of them say, “I love it when my players play with an edge,” but showing up your opponent is not playing with an edge, it’s stumbling over it, in my opinion. Passion and competitiveness are tremendous, but profanity in front of fans is simply a bad look for your program, your school, and your coaching staff.
Trust me, when I coached, I was far from perfect, and my players weren’t perfect either. Competition can bring out the best and the worst in people, but when coaches allow their players to demonstrate toxic behavior towards the opponent, they are leading them down the wrong path. The coaching community needs to lead in this effort. We need to take a stand and bring sportsmanship back into the game…not just after the game, but during it! In the recently published Coaching with Purpose, I addressed the greater issue in this way:
“We have a crisis in character today. I’m not exaggerating. All you have to do is turn on the news to hear another report of moral failings. Whether it’s in politics, religion, education, or athletics, someone has cheated, lied, stolen, or swindled. Because of this, people don’t know who to trust. Some people trust no one.” Coaches, we have a front row seat to the future. Besides teachers and parents, there are few adults with more opportunity to impact the next generation. If we want our communities and our country to have a bright future, it starts with us.”
If we want our players to take a stand, coaches need to model the character and courage needed to keep our game healthy. It’s also important for us to take the lead and teach players how to respect opponents and the game. When coaches allow players to disrespect opponents, we allow them to disrespect the game.
Instilling lifelong values into players requires coaches to first build those strengths on their own, which sounds like hard work, and it is. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lifetime of “two steps forward and one back,” but in doing so we are growing each day, which is the only way character development truly happens.
So be intentional and develop good habits that will benefit yourself and those around you. The higher we set standards for ourselves, the higher we can set them for our players. Taking a stand is never easy, but you will not be alone in standing tall for what is right for the game, and for the athletes who are blessed to play it.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”—Romans 12:2