highlander
31 Oct 2005, 06:12 AM
Back when I was coaching, a long, long time ago, I was not happy with the results that I was getting. I had a ton of coaching education, a ton of personal experience in the game as both a player and a coach, I hung out with top coaches, I read everything I could about soccer and coaching in general, yet my results were not what they should have been. Then an old wrestling coach said something that stuck in my head and changed my career. He said, "Take care of the individuals, and the team will take care of itself." Never mind that he was coaching what is essentially an individual sport. Something about that statement stuck in my head. I had been addressing the team as a group and thinking about the players as a group when in reality, I was working with a bunch of individuals. Each one was experiencing each situation from an entirely different perspective. From that point on I spent hours upon hours talking to each individual, finding out what their thinking was, defining relationships on the team from their perspective, defining what each season meant to them individually, etc, etc. I judged myself 18 times over for everything that I did, not just once as I had done before. It was only from that point that I became the coach that I always thought that I should have been. So with that in mind...
Did Nowak take care of the individuals at the end of this season? Had he done so, would Gomez have spit, would Freddy gone to the media, would the team have come out completely flat? When you don't take care of the individuals, problems come out from everywhere. Things that you never would have dreamed possible become your reality and the bad stuff just keeps piling on.
I don't want to give the wrong impression, I like Nowak. I just think that it is time for him to take the next step as a coach. Arena learned this lesson at UVa during the 80s and it made him the coach that he was later on, not just at UVa, but also at United and with the national team. Bill Parcells has learned this lesson, Vince Lombardi learned it. These guys were or are authoritarian personalities, but they coached individuals.
I think that Nowak has the self honesty to learn this lesson, but he has to do it. I don't know if he will or not, but I think that this is the crossroads he is at as a coach. If he wants to be successful over time, paying much closer attention to individuals is how it is going to happen, at least in my opinion.
Did Nowak take care of the individuals at the end of this season? Had he done so, would Gomez have spit, would Freddy gone to the media, would the team have come out completely flat? When you don't take care of the individuals, problems come out from everywhere. Things that you never would have dreamed possible become your reality and the bad stuff just keeps piling on.
I don't want to give the wrong impression, I like Nowak. I just think that it is time for him to take the next step as a coach. Arena learned this lesson at UVa during the 80s and it made him the coach that he was later on, not just at UVa, but also at United and with the national team. Bill Parcells has learned this lesson, Vince Lombardi learned it. These guys were or are authoritarian personalities, but they coached individuals.
I think that Nowak has the self honesty to learn this lesson, but he has to do it. I don't know if he will or not, but I think that this is the crossroads he is at as a coach. If he wants to be successful over time, paying much closer attention to individuals is how it is going to happen, at least in my opinion.