As my niece began to progress through her athletic career, she was consistently showing both above-average ability and a very strong determination and will to get better. I came across the book Mental Toughness for Young Athletes and read it to see if it had something for her, and perhaps more pertinent to this blog, for youth recreational sports coaches. While not specifically geared towards recreational sports athletes or coaches, this book does have good recommendations for both.
This book isn’t for coaches or adults at all; it’s for the young athletes themselves. In fact, Horne also published a Parents’ Guide to the book. The book is for “elite athletes in elementary school, middle school, and high school”. Horne goes on to say that if you asked yourself, “Elite elementary school athletes?” the book isn’t for you. And that makes sense. If your child isn’t consistently outperforming his or her peers in whatever sport they’re playing and trying to get even better, then this book isn’t for them. In other words, this book isn’t for typical youth recreational sports players (or coaches). Generally speaking, the tone of the book is for competitive athletes looking to take the next step. This would mostly be athletes playing club/select/travel and middle and high school sports.
For the Youth Recreational Sports Coach
Horne tells the young athlete, “You have to be willing to adjust and adapt. The best way to do that is to work harder. The best way to work harder is to make your practice more difficult than the game or competition”. For the coach, this means providing a challenging practice that stretches the athletes’ capabilities. This can be difficult for recreational sports coaches, with the players having a wide range of abilities and skill sets. Should the coach recognize they have highly skilled players, they should plan for more challenging drills or for one-on-one type drills, and have the more gifted athletes work together.
Other nuggets/thoughts from the book include:
- Something I am coming to agree with more and more as I now coach middle school and high school sports: “In middle school and at the beginning of high school nobody cares about your wins and losses. You are either getting better or adjusting to a new level of play. Just focus on doing that right now.” Under the general umbrella that all school sports are supposed to provide opportunities for kids to learn life lessons and mature within the realm of competition, I believe the role of the middle school sports program is to produce high school athletes, and the role of the freshman and junior varsity high school programs is to produce varsity athletes. In other words, the JV team’s record shouldn’t matter as much as whether the players are learning and growing in the varsity system and are ready to play varsity the next year.
- Horne quotes Ja Morant as saying, “My dad was my first hater”. This is presented in the context of taking correction and criticism. Morant goes on to say, “If I can take it from him, I can take it from anybody”. I get it; developing athletes do need to be able to take constructive criticism to learn and grow in their sport. But, “hater”? That seems too harsh. And from a parent? There’s a lot of material about how parents deal with their young athletes and I don’t know that being their first hater would be a recommendation in any of them. But then again, Ja Morant is in the NBA…
- There is a good discussion about visualization throughout the book. Horne suggests the benefits of visualizing after meditating. “If there is a skill that you’ve been trying to perfect, then you can more easily visualize yourself performing it after meditating”.
As described above, I took some interesting insights from Horne’s book. I haven’t given it to my niece (now a high school athlete), but should I recognize any mental challenges she has with her sports growth, I will consider suggesting she read it. While I don’t recommend youth recreational sports coaches add this to their library, it is a book to know exists in case they encounter a unique athlete for whom the book could provide guidance.
Hustle & Attitude 