Flix Duchampt Queens university of Charlotte Communication 358 Coaching presentation 11/28/11 Dr Dunn

In order to do my coaching observation, I went to Myers Park High School with Coach Bucky McCarley. He is the head coach of the varsity soccer team. The kids are between 13 and 17 years old. Approximately thirty high school students are part of the team. Basically, the kids practice four times a week after school, and have two games during the week. The team mascot is the Mustang, and they usually play in green. They are actually very good, and they ended up the year winning the state Championship in Raleigh a few weeks ago.

First practice. Its 2:42pm. Practice starts at 2:45pm, but Coach McCarley is waiting right next to the locker room and keeps saying: Hurry up guys. I dont want to rush you but lets get things moving as soon as possible. The other players are already putting the goals in the right place. All of a sudden, he is the only one talking and he gives orders to the players for the team ( I want you in orange. You, grab a yellow shirt,...). The players simply listen. After a few seconds, immediately after he is done talking, the players start warming up by themselves. He keeps yelling to encourage them or give them advices. Nobody really talks. After these five minutes I first thought that Bucky was a command-only coach.

Well, I was proven wrong. The more I saw him working with the kids, the more I understood he was actually a really good coach, making cooperation a priority. He might look a little bit too direct with them, but as he said without hesitation, The relationship between coach and athletes has to be based on trust and honesty. Im ok to be called the bad guy sometimes. But I think they (the players) know Im coming from a good place, and I want the best for them and for the team. But that includes, not being always nice and no false praise. I dont want to tell them they did a good job when they know they havent and I know they havent. I want them to trust me. I think that is really what I observed. Coach McCarley praised and reprimanded players during practice. Every time something good was done, he was able to catch the player doing good in action and encourage him, saying words such as good, great job, fantastic, or well done. He also

uses non verbal cues. He claps his hands a lot when players do well, or puts up his thumb. But he did not encourage them all the time. When the players did not do what he expected from them, he told them: Im gonna have little patience if you dont play two touches or If somebody is dumb enough to let this place open, that is bad. He was sometimes less direct, using for example Punish them, oranges! when the team in yellow would make mistakes. He also sometimes used irony. For example, a player shot from far away and the ball disappeared in the sky. Bucky said What a good idea. He sometimes also made jokes, which I think made him look even closer to his team. One player was one day hit in his balls. Coach McCarley straight after said Its ok, keep playing, they are small anyway, and the whole team laughed. I also remember once during his speech after practice, he told the players You can be proud to wear the Mustang jersey. However, dont be too cocky, your head needs to fit through the door of your classrooms tomorrow.

I also noticed that he liked to challenge his players to see what they could do. Indeed, he used a lot of sentences like Can we play our game for 40 minutes guys? Its been a lot of time defending, get your goal now, can you? or during games Two minutes left guys, can you keep the score?

I want to come back to the non-verbal communication. Bucky often uses non-verbal cues, especially using his hands, as I mentioned earlier: clapping them, showing players, or showing directions for example. His facial expression is also remarkable. He uses his lips a lot, especially when something is wrong, and also nods and moves his head. He tries to look at all the players when he talks to them. He doesnt touch the players that much, but It can happen when he wants to encourage them. Also, you can notice that he doesnt refuse the contact when analyzing his proxemity ( which is the use of the space and how a person deals with his or her own space.) When he talks to the players, or even to me, he is pretty close and focuses in your direction. He doesnt try to avoid the conversation or make it short. Finally, he comes to practice every day with sport

clothes, meaning a normal shirt, and a short or jogging pants. I think its normal, especially since he sometimes shows the players how to do an exercise, but clothes still serve as a good non-verbal cue. It shows the players he is on the same page, and he is not there with jeans and dress shirt, just to hang out or boss them around.

Bucky can adapt to the situation and the people hes around to give explanations. Ive seen him address players one on one, in small groups (for example, just the midfielders or just the goalkeepers), or with the entire team. He uses a lot of one on one conversation. He can go deeper with players: learn and identify specific problems or concerns for each single individual and try to help fix them. This is really important because nobody is the same and every part of the system must be playing as good as possible in order for the team to be great. Also, he sometimes takes a bunch of players, regroups them, and gives them the explanations. As I mentioned earlier, usually it was by position on the field. For example, he sometimes regrouped the defenders and asked them to press and make the opposite team going to the sides. And of course sometimes, he talked to the entire team to give general advice.

Although he is the one talking most of the time, he respects his players. He doesnt want to prove to them that he is the coach and thus, the director on the field. He listens to the players and their concerns, and always tries to find the best way to solve the problems. The players are not afraid to talk to him. It was usual for me to hear a player say, Hey Bucky, I have a question, and they would talk about it.

His time management is really good. As I mentioned earlier at the beginning of this paper, he tries to start practice on time, asking the players to get ready as soon as possible once they get into the locker room. Also, once they are done with practice, he might have a little speech, but they can always go to take a shower and get home pretty quickly. No time is wasted, as they usually play

on the soccer field on campus. Sometimes, they go to play on another field few miles away from Myers Park. But in my opinion, it breaks a little bit the monotony of always playing in the same place, and I noticed this shift was often on Fridays, since the kids dont have school during the week-end so they still have time to do their homework and have some time to relax.

When I asked Bucky if he had team rules, he clearly told me that he did not like the word rule. They talked about it with the players at the beginning of the year and that seemed too directive. Instead, he prefers to refer to his coaching philosophy. The team use three principles they try to live by on a daily basis. He insisted it was the teams decision, not only his expectations. The principles are: - working hard; - learning as much as you possibly can and apply during the games; and -caring about the people around you We daily try to do as best as we can for these three things. Those are our bases, Bucky told me.

Also, something kind of surprising seeing the results of his team, was the fact that he doesnt put any emphasis on winning. The most important goal is maintaining the three team principles. But according to Bucky, if they do the three things, winning will take care of itself and come naturally. Moreover, his players want to win and he knows that, so he doesnt need to convince them to do it; he just has to direct them to do what will allow them to win, and that is what I observed. I never heard him talking about winning as if it was the only thing that matters. However, they still had a well-defined goal, which was going as far as possible in the state championships. During the play-offs, each athlete got a shirt with four empty stars, with one already filled in (which means the team went to four state finals, and won once.) The goal was obviously to get to the fifth one, and fill it in as well...

According to the four basic styles of Hersey and Blanchard, Coach McCarley is definitely delegating. His players are mature, meaning that they know what they want and they are ready to do as much as they can to achieve their goals, but immature, since they are still young and in high school, so Bucky has basically to teach them.

According to Bucky, what best motivates players is the fact that they can have autonomy and responsibility through soccer. They are able to succeed and fail, but they have their destiny within their own hands, and they know they are responsible for it. He thinks guys want freedom at this age, but freedom comes with responsibility. He helps them and teaches them how to succeed, but they are responsible for winning. However, if they play poorly and lose a game, they also are responsible for it. If you can handle the responsibility, you can handle the freedom; but, if you cant handle responsibility, then you cant be free.

Coach McCarley is intransigent according to ethics, sportsmanship and fair-play. He really takes care of his players, and their health is primordial. Even if a player is good, he would not make him play if there is a chance he could hurt himself during the game. For example, one day, a player had an arm injury. Bucky asked him if he would be able to play. The player started to say that he thought it might be ok. Bucky anticipated this and said Ok. He is not playing. I want security. Also, according to him, there is only one way to play. They dont talk about sportsmanship and fairplay with the players, because its obvious. In his opinion, Treating referees, teammates, coach, opponents with respect is the only option. Anything other than that is unacceptable. There is only one way to act: its with respect, and for everybody. He admits that sometimes We allow our competitive nature to get the best of us, and that is fine but within the rules. His players can make mistakes, even about that, but they have to learn from their mistakes.

Moreover, hazing doesnt take place on the team. The team has some rituals as well see later, but they never have any sort of link with harassment, humiliation or abuse, be it physical or mental. Hazing has lead to too many problems and issues in other institutions in the past, and its not something necessary or helpful for any team. Players have to like to live with each other, whereas hazing can lead to the construction of separate groups within the team. Everybody has to be treated fairly, and as the golden rule of the team, everybody has to care about everybody else. Team cohesion can be found easier without hazing. Instead, new players need support, encouragement and help in order to improve and become the leaders in the future.

Bucky is also always ready to fight against general problems. For example, one day, when I went to one of the games, Myers Park played in pink because it was a day for breast cancer awareness. Also, during the half-time, everybody from the team, including parents or friends, went on the soccer field and released a pink balloon in the air. Coach McCarley supported it and participated himself. That is, in my opinion, a good proof of his desire to care and respect everybody.

Bucky adapts to differences between his players with experience. The more time he spends on, but also off, the field and in the classroom with the players, the better he knows them. He tries to have a lot of one on one conversations (as I observed), because that is where he can learn specific things about the student, at opposed to general stuff when he talks with everybody. He tries to learn as much as he can. He said The better I know them, the better I teach them, the more I can specialize my instructions for them. Indeed, you learn when players need hard consequences, punishment, education, disappointment and when players need to be supported and encouraged. But again, the only way to know the players is to communicate and interact with them as much as possible.

Coach McCarley definitely encourages team cohesion and team chemistry. First of all, anytime he speaks about something related to the team, he speaks using the we pronoun. Team cohesion and team chemistry are really critical. He told me that team cohesion and team chemistry are as much important as the skills and the ability to score. That is what makes a team successful. Studies have shown positive relationships between cohesion in a team and the performance of this same team. Also, he sometimes praises a single player, but very rarely calls attention to individual performance, and he tries to talk, praise and correct everybody on and off the field. The players on the team spend a lot of time together. They hang out together, and several times, I could hear them talking about what they would do during the week-end. Also, they are sometimes going to see a movie together in the evenings after practice or game. Moreover, the team has a ritual after practice, and before and/or after games, where they basically all put their hands together and yell : one, two, three, Mustangs!

He also encourages leadership, even though he is not necessarily the leader. He expects several players to be leaders. And this not only applies to the captain, but also to all the seniors, because they are the oldest and they have to support the youngest players. Also, he picks two or three juniors every year, so they can be ready for the year after. He basically teaches them to be leaders in the future when the seniors will graduate. He sometimes lets the players take their responsibilities, saying sentences beginning by It seems that you did that or just placing a Right? at the end of the sentence. However, he also takes his responsibility as the coach of the team. Thus, he also uses I statements instead of always you statements with the players, which could make them become defensive sometimes. For example, instead of saying You have to play two touches, he usually uses I want you to play two touches.

Especially during the playoffs, Bucky always reminded his players that they had to have a good lifestyle, and careful about a lot of things. He always had them rest well. They sometimes

had to take ice baths to recover faster. He also talked about food. Nutrition is very important, and he wanted them to eat healthy. For the recovery again, he would ask them to drink milk. Indeed, milk is full of rich components, especially different types of proteins good for the recovery of the body after workouts or games. Moreover, he usually asked them to bring to dry and hot clothes for practices and games so as to not get cold. Also, he would always tell them to get ready for the next game: what has been done in the past is done, and now they have to focus on the future.

During games, Bucky has a specific way to work. Usually, he is very quiet for the first five or ten minutes. I guess he analyses the game, and especially how the opponent plays, in order to later give good advice to his team. And so, after this analysis, he starts talking about playing, encouraging them and telling them what is right and what is wrong. He gives tips to the players. For example, when Myers Park has a free kick, they voluntarily put some of their players in the wall to disturb the goalie. During the half-time, he also has an efficient way to talk with the players and tell them what is right and wrong. Players regroup by positions on the side of the field, sit down, and Bucky comes by all of them. For example, he tells the defenders to find their exact position. Then he goes to the inside midfielders and tells them to move the ball more and play two touches. After that, he goes to the outside midfielder group and tells them to participate more and not to be lazy. Finally he asks the offense to try to combine more through the defense, and to press them more. It is specific to a group of people who have the same position on the field, while staying brief and general because he addresses several people each time. At the end of the game, he would also make a speech, talking about the game and the recovery post-game, leading to the next one.

I had the opportunity during one of the practices to talk to a player he used to coach some years ago. It allowed me to have inside confirmation of my thoughts. According to him, being a soccer coach for Bucky is a lot more than a job, it is a passion; and when you like doing something, then you do it well. Coach McCarley grew the program in Myers Park high school so much, and if

the team is where it is right now, it is a lot because of him. He is probably one of the best, if not the best, coach in the Charlotte area.