The University of North Carolina coach, Anson Dorrance, gave me an invaluable piece of advice when I first started coaching. He advised me to give the girls on the team the first 10minutes of practice. Let them catch up with each other during this time, and as a result, you will have their full attention for the next 80 minutes of practice. If you don’t, they will try toget their 10 minutes throughout the entire practice, meaning they are constantly distracted.
I followed his advice and I give my team 10minutes of warmups where they can ask each other about tests, boyfriends, roommate situations, and all the other things that are on their mind. This bonding time is really important for them, and oncethey have reconnected with each other, they are ready to get to work.
The same theory applies to younger girls who have been sitting in school all day. They want to chat. They need this timeat the start of practice to decompress and connect with their teammates. This is a significant difference in the ways that girls and boys can differ in sports, but it’s not the only one. Whenpolling other coaches, the following comparisons emerged from our discussions:
• Girls tend to be better listeners.
• Girls are more likely to play for eachother.
• Girls are more likely to feel an attachment for their coach.
• Boys can still perform for a coach to whom they don’t feel connected, in a way thatgirls are unable to.
• Boys tend to be braver and more confident.
• Girls want to be accepted.
• A female player can’t be in the unknown,she can’t be uncertain about how the coach feels about her.
• Girls want you to know them as a whole person, and not just for their abilities as a player.
•Girls are more likely to be perfectionists.
• Girls tend to doubt their abilities.
• Girls are more afraid to fail.
• Boys tend to inflate theirabilities.
Fundamentally, boys tend to be overconfident in their abilities when compared to girls, and this has significant consequences when developing players. Boys tend to think they arebetter than they actually are, and as a result, they are unafraid to take risks such as partnering with the best player on the team.
The confidence to take risks is actually a big factor indeveloping a player’s skills and so I find that I have to take a different approach with girls than I would with boys. I need to create a safe and nurturing environment so that they feelcomfortable with the possibility of failing, whether it’s in front of me or their teammates.
If I have succeeded in developing a nurturing relationship with a player, she’s thenwilling to take risks for me on the field, whether that means playing in a different position, or working on a specific skill that requires her to “fail” for a long period of time before she mastersit.
It’s important that I connect with each player on an emotional level, so that she feels that we have a relationship and that I understand her as a complete person, not just a playeron the field. Therefore, I’ll spend time learning about each athlete’s family, her extra-curricular activities, her recent vacation, and, if she trusts me enough, even her relationshipissues.
In learning these things about my players, I’m building an emotional connection with each one of them. Seeing them as more than just an athlete is crucial both for the girls andtheir parents, because parents also want to know that the coach genuinely cares about their daughter and understands that there are other things going on in their lives. And today, there is a lotpressure in all areas of their lives, whether it’s grades or relationships or their future.
(Excerpted from “How to Coach Girls,” by Alison Foley and Mia Wenjen, courtesy of
Good article. Even being a single parent with a daughter, I was surprised at how different it was coaching girls. Maybe girls don’t start off that way, but they can be just as competitive and just as fearless as boys.
I think this boys vs girls mentality issue was for another age that ended at least 20 years ago. Society has castrated boys–they’ve got no initiative, no spark, none of the impulses that used to get boys in trouble, be adventurous, take risks. Everything is “too dangerous’.With no approved outlets for their energy outside of sports, is it any wonder they are dissappearing into their phones and computer games?
Either children are Dandelions or Orchids, and that applies to both sexes.