Five Books That Every Coach Should Read

Coaching involves more than sports knowledge. Unfortunately, when we imagine a coach, we imagine the sport-specific attributes. People evaluate coaches on the visible, which occurs during games, and the tangible, which are the results. However, most coaching occurs at practice. The public criticizes a coach for his timeout usage or his player rotation and use these criticisms to determine the coach's worth. However, timeout usage and substitution patterns hardly determine a coach's worth, especially in comparison to the list of a coach's essential duties and attributes for success.

Knowing your sport is important. However, most youth coaches understand enough about their sport to coach at a youth level. They may not be experts, but neither are the athletes. Rather than focus on sport-specific skills and strategic situations, coaches should seek other ways to enhance their coaching. The following five books are useful for any coach looking to improve his coaching ability, rather than obtain more sport-specific information.

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

Waitzkin is an international chess and judo champion. His father wrote Searching for Bobby Fischer about Josh's formative years as a chess prodigy. Waitzkin credits his ability to learn for his championship success in diverse disciplines. His book offers a unique look into the mind of a champion and his learning process, which is an educational process for any coach, regardless of his pedigree as an athlete.

Because coaches are in a position of authority, they often forget the thoughts and feelings of the learner. In a sense, they are cursed with knowledge. I have observed college coaches explain and explain a concept to players who simply cannot execute and listened to the coaches curse the players' lack of intelligence in their office after practice. The players were not dumb. The coaches simply forgot what it is like to be the learner where everything is new, strange and difficult. The coaches lacked the appropriate patience and understanding. They failed not because they were not knowledgeable, but because they could not empathize with the players and see the instructions and concepts from the novice's perspective.

Waitzkin's book explains the thought processes of a learner from beginner to expert. He covers topics from mental toughness to rest. He talks about his coaches and how their different approaches helped and hindered his development. While the descriptions of chess moves may not help a basketball or soccer coach, the tactical thought-process is similar and the insight Waitzkin shares is invaluable for any coach concerned with his or her players' learning.

Athletic Development by Vern Gambetta

In the current sports craze where players specialize and enter competitive athletics early, coaches focus solely on drills to prepare for the next game. Regardless of age, winning takes priority over anything else. Gambetta's book emphasizes the athletic skills necessary for sports success. Without a sound foundation of general athletic skills, players will struggle to develop advanced sport-specific skills. Gambetta provides an easy to read guide for those concerned with athletic development.

In Gambetta's blog, he introduced the concept of Adaptable vs. Adapted. One of his examples is the dinosaur versus the cockroach. The dinosaur adapted to its environment; however, when the environment changed, the dinosaur was not adaptable. The cockroach is adaptable and survives in different environments. A player who starts with sport-specific development at an early age and ignores proper athletic development is like the dinosaur. While he adapts quickly to his sport, he struggles with a new environment. Many of these adapted athletes injure themselves when the intensity demands increase. Pitchers hurt their arms because they have poor mechanics and rely too heavily on their arms and not their legs and core; basketball players suffer ACL injuries because they do not know how to decelerate or change directions. An adaptable athlete possesses the general skills which enable him to continue improving as the intensity increases. A pitcher can adapt to a greater distance and a basketball player can move quicker and with better balance.

Gambetta's book is a great resource for coaches to use to develop adaptable, not adapted athletes.

Mindset by Carol Dweck

Dweck categorizes people as Fixed Mindset or Growth Mindset and explains the Growth Mindset's advantages, especially as it applies to learning and education. Sports leagues exist to crown a champion; winning and losing is part of the game. However, sports provide an opportunity for more than year-end trophies. If winning and losing is the sole criteria, what do you do if your team is not as talented as one of the other team's in the league? I remember playing for the Indians in Little League; we were terrible. It happens. How can a coach motivate players when winning seems like a distant possibility?

Simply stated, people with a Fixed Mindset believe talents are innate. Those with a Growth Mindset believe talents are developed over time and with practice. If a coach has an untalented team destined to finish in the lower half of the standings, he can use his instruction and praise to encourage and develop a Growth Mindset. Players with a Fixed Mindset on a lousy team believe there is no hope, which causes a decrease in motivation. The decrease in motivation causes reduced effort, which makes winning even more difficult. As the team loses more games, it supports the players' thinking and fuels the cycle.

If the coach uses his instruction and praise to develop a Growth Mindset, he focuses on improvement and effort, not the result of the game. Rather than compare his team against other teams, which is essentially the point of the scoreboard, the focus changes to contrasting the team against its previous standard. Players with a Growth Mindset understand the team is performing poorly at that point in time, but also believe that with practice, they can improve. A close loss against a superior team may motivate a team with a Growth Mindset, while it only supports the defeatism in those with a Fixed Mindset.

The book is instrumental for coaches in terms of the learning and motivational processes of coaching. Knowing sports skills is insufficient if a coach cannot properly motivate his players. Mindset provides insightfulness toward learners' motivational needs.

You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learnedby Swen Nater and Ronald Gallimore

Swen Nater played for John Wooden at UCLA and Ronald Gallimore is a professor in the Education Department at UCLA. Together, they have written a book based around educational research using John Wooden as a teaching model. Beyond Nater's experience as a player and his conversations with former teammates, the book draws on an educational study conducted by UCLA researchers while Wooden was coaching that categorized Wooden's comments at every practice throughout an entire season. The book uses John Wooden's teaching principles and practices to illustrate proper teaching methodology and to provide an example for teachers to follow, whether in the classroom or on the floor. Many of the axioms used in the text are familiar to those who have read other books about or by John Wooden. However, in this book, the axioms shape the instructional methods and exemplify great teaching.

The book builds to the eleven qualities that successful teachers have in common and illustrates how these eleven characteristics were common in Wooden's coaching. In this era of political correctness and boosting self-esteem, the researchers at Wooden's practices acknowledged surprise at how few comments of praise Wooden issued. Instead, they were amazed by how many teaching points he made through the course of a practice. Nater credits Wooden with getting to know each player individually so he knew exactly when to build up the player just when the player needed it. While the book suggests that common practice is to tell a student "good job!" even when he missed the answer, and then give the answer to the student, Wooden told players how to get the answer. His comments were directed at teaching, not at the individual. The common practice does not necessarily teach a student or player anything; Wooden's comments were constantly directed at teaching the player so he did not make the same mistake again.

Too many times, teachers and coaches blame the player. However, the title alone is a great reminder to any coach or teacher. A coach's job is to teach a player so the player is prepared to perform in a game in different situations. If players do not perform, if they have not learned, the coach has not taught. As Wooden preaches, look inwards, not outwards. Examine your methods before criticizing the players. And, this book offers numerous ways to self-examine your teaching methods and discover new approaches to implement.

Athletic Body in Balance by Gray Cook

Part of a coach's job is to teach kids how to be athletes, not just skilled at one individual sport or position: Gambetta's adaptable vs. adapted. Unfortunately, many coaches copy the methods used by their coaches despite the advances in research into the subject since they played competitively. Cook's book provides an easy to use manual for coaches to teach kids how to be athletes, not just players.

Cook originated the Functional Movement Screen, covered in the book, which diagnoses movement abnormalities. Many athletes develop with movement flaws which hamper their sport skill development. For instance, I coached a player last season whose year-old ankle injury continued to plague him, even though he felt no pain. His gait and his balance were affected by the ankle, which had a reduced range of motion. In basketball terms, these problems meant his shooting was inconsistent, as he favored his once injured leg.

Cook's book teaches coaches to be more aware of movement issues as they pertain to sport-skill performance and outlines training exercises to improve movement, as well as core strength, endurance and power. Cook's book is a complete resource for the coach interested in helping his athletes perform better and reduce injuries.