Coaches: Do Your Kids Even Know What You’re Talking About?
Coaches: Do Your Kids Even Know What You’re Talking About?
One of the biggest mistakes we can make as coaches is assuming every player speaks the same sporting language.
Before you start teaching skills, take a moment to understand your team’s knowledge bank.
Have they played before?
Is this their first season?
Have they ever watched a game of the sport?
What seems like basic terminology to you might be something they’ve never heard before.
As a parent, I absolutely love it when one of my boys gets a knowledgeable coach. We are incredibly lucky to have volunteers who bring years of playing and coaching experience to junior sport. But even the best knowledge loses its value if there’s a communication breakdown.
My 10-year-old could tell you almost every AFL rule, explain complex game strategies, name players from decades ago and happily debate decisions from matches long before he was born. Football language is second nature to him.
Some of his teammates, however, are playing their very first season. They’ve never watched an AFL game. They’ve never heard terms like switch, corridor or holding the space. Expecting them to understand those instructions isn’t realistic.
It reminded me of one of my only sporting memories as a child.
I was playing netball for the first (and one of the only) times in my teens.
I kept getting penalised for being offside.
I’d never played netball. I’d barely watched it. I had no idea what “offside” meant. Eventually, after several penalties and finally finding the courage to ask, someone explained it. Suddenly it made sense.
If you’ve never played or watched a sport before, how would you know?
I’ve seen the same thing happen while managing junior basketball.
A coach called out, “Watch the cut!”
Some players immediately moved to stay with their opponent. Others looked around, wondering what they were supposed to be watching.
I quietly said to one of the confused players on the bench, “He means their player is about to run towards the basket. He needs to stay with them and don’t let them get past.”
The coach overheard and replied, “Yeah, I just said watch the cut.”
But that’s exactly the point.
If a child doesn’t know what a “cut” is, telling them to watch it doesn’t actually help.
Sometimes the best thing we can do as coaches is go back to basics and open up the conversation.
I’ve been trying to implement this in my own coaching.
While managing my nine-year-old’s basketball team, I was sitting on the bench with my whiteboard, showing a couple of players where everyone should stand in the key during free throws.
One player quietly asked me, “How do you even get given free throws?”
It struck me that this question had probably been sitting in his head all season.
So instead of continuing with where to stand, we went right back to the basics. I demonstrated defensive actions that could result in a foul being called, explained the difference between legal and illegal contact, and showed him some common situations that lead to free throws.
As soon as we did this, you could see his confidence grow. He wasn’t confused. He wasn’t embarrassed. He was engaged.
That one simple question reminded me that kids don’t always need more advanced coaching. Sometimes they just need permission to ask the questions they think everyone else already knows the answer to.
Good coaching isn’t about using the most technical language. It’s about making sure every player understands what you’re asking them to do.
Explain the term.
Demonstrate it.
Use different words.
Go back to basics.
Ask questions.
Invite questions.
Check for understanding.
You’ll often discover that some players understood immediately, while others have been too embarrassed to admit they were completely lost in front of their teammates.
The goal isn’t just to build better players.
It’s to build confident kids who understand the game they’re learning to love.