Socialist vs. Capitalist Coaching
By Athletes' Acceleration | April 24th, 2008
The other day I posed a question about a debate I
had with some colleagues on whether or not to bring
certain athletes to certain track meets.
Here are the questions and the results:
There is a State Level Freshman/Sophomore meet
coming up. There isn’t enough money in the budget
to take everyone, but parents volunteer to drive.
You would:
91.45% said:
Go to the meet with deserving athletes because it
is a great opportunity for up and coming
underclassmen athletes to participate against their
peers in a state meet atmosphere for both competitive
purposes as well as to keep them interested in the
sport.
8.55% said:
Not go to the meet because if the kids are any good
they will get plenty of opportunities to compete in
their regular duel meets, league meet and state
meets. How many meets do underclassmen need to run
in anyway? Plus those meets are just fundraisers
for the State Track Organization.
My second question was:
There is a State Level Invitational coming up.
Qualifying standards are the same as the State Meet
and the vast majority of the best athletes in the
state attend the meet. There isn’t enough money in
the budget to take everyone, but parents volunteer
to drive. You would:
Exactly 96% of you said:
Take qualifying athletes to the meet because they
need to compete in a State Level competition and
atmosphere against the best athletes in the State.
It’s a great opportunity to run personal bests and
these types of meets are what your best athletes
train for in the first place. To skip this
opportunity would be an injustice to your hard
working varsity athletes.
A mere 4% of you said:
Not go to the meet because only some kids will
qualify and it’s a waste to spend an entire day
with a relatively small group of athletes. Besides
if those kids are any good they don’t need to race
against top competition until the League and State
Championships. Running time trials against lesser
competition in duel meets will get them plenty of
experience for Championship Season.
So what do you think? What would you do? Share your
thoughts by posting below.
Now, the discussion I had with my colleagues got me
thinking about different types of coaching philosophies.
So listen to the audio below to hear my take on
the pros and cons of Socialist vs. Capitalist
programs and then weigh in below.
I want to hear if you agree with my logic or if you
think I’m just a crazy commy!
- Latif Thomas
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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Speed Training . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I would take them for the purpose of competing.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:48 am
A capitalist program can be very successful for both the great athlete and the average athlete if they are all made to feel that they are an important part of the team. The program that I am running right now I would consider a capitalist one but we stress the importance of every part of that team. This is done by using basic Christian principls that I have been blessed with. By doing this every athlete sees that they have an important role to play in the team and that some have to have a bigger role but it is ultimatley for the good of the whole team. We reinforce this by showing the unsung player that they have an important role in the good of the team and they have to work just as hard as the great athlete in order for the bigger whole to be successful. If they don’t then the team will fail while the great athlete will still receive the recognition that he so rightly deserves for the hard work that he puts in. This can be proven by looking at any sport if the whole does not work hard for eachother than the good athletes will still be recognized for their talents and efort but the team will fail but if all are trying to reach greater heights for themselves but mostly for the team as a whole them all will prevail. That is the way you build state championship teams and not just state recognzed athletes. So everyone must strive to be greater than they already are and they must do it for eachother. That is why team is the most important but individuals within that team are just as important. It was said by are forefathers that the only way capitalisim and democracy can work is when it is based in the beliefs of GOD. All must strive to be the best but must be woking to be the best for not just themselves but for others. So many athletes that have reached the pinnacle of their careers were not just sacrificing for themselves but were doing it for others that they loved so dearly. That after all is the most basic of Christian principals. (John 3:16).
April 25th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I think you are right on with this comparison. We often put our top athletes in a relay team early in the season to get qualified for the state meet then allow the 2nd string team so to speak run during the season and it seems the individual splits for a relay are often faster than if the person were running the event in the open class.
Great analogy and way to think of training.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
It is an obligation for the coach to help as many athletes as they can. That does not mean that they will all succeed equally. Yes all men are created equal, but they are not all the same. Every sport has a few standouts individually and from a team standpoint. I beleive it is because of principles,
work ethic, talent, and desire. A socialist cannot expect every athlete on his or her team to have heart, because lets face it not every athlete does have heart. Athletes who have the motivation and work ethic to get better are the ones who are going to achieve success. Coaches should give all the knowledge and experience to guide the athletes who truly want to get better. If athletes are not willing to work harder to become better, perhaps they need to ask themselves why they are playing in the first place. There are tremendous rewards for being in athletic competition. Winning isonly the tip of the iceberg. However, rewards are not realized unless sacrifices are made. I believe I have made it pretty obvious that I am a Capitalist coach. Socialism works in perfect world. Unfortunatley, it is not a perfect world.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
You’ve gotta beat the best to be the best. Take ‘em all to the meet, monitor the class systems within the team, so that they don’t become destructive but positive; although humans tend to be socialistic and group together through commonalities, proper coaching/teaching/instructing of the group dynamic AND everyone’s overall good, the team can still benefit from “capitalistic” coaching.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I guess I fit into the small categories of being a socialistic coach, I guess? I was one of he 5-6% who picked those smaller options. That being said, I’m still the coach in the situation, and I will do what I see as best for my athletes I’m coaching at the current time.
Athletes don’t just run against better or worse competition. They always, and will always, run against the forces of gravity, wind, other aspects of Mother Nature, and Father Time himself. (Whatever combination that God decides for you that day) That team of competition alone is a constant they will always face, no matter if they are at a “State Level” meet or a junior high meet. I always brought my kids to the track telling them its time to bring the goods because you never know what Mother Nature’s going to throw at you today.
Also, if the parents wish to drive, that’s great, but I’m still the coach and the parents aren’t coaching these kids. I am.
If it ain’t in our budget to do so, we just can’t do it as a team. Period. That’s the hand we’re dealt. Also, if you do go with just a select few, how will the others on the team feel? Will they feel that their times & efforts don’t matter at all? I don’t really know what to think, other than if you are set for a certain number of meets, you run them, small or not, great or not. You are given a track to run on, and an opportunity to see what you can do.
If you feel you need ‘top level’ competition to push yourself, you have neglected the opportunities that Mother Nature, Father Time, and God himself have given you beforehand. If you are already at ‘top level’, then do your best to stay there, not just ’see how I compare’ to give yourself an ego trip. Its better to go in humble, then to be overconfident & humiliated.
If you do what you need to do in the first place, what needs to happen will fall in place for you, the way it was meant to be.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I coach rugby, where the team is all important. At the rugby sessions I have to coach a team of 40 athletes to pick a team of 10. As the athletes get older they go from tag (non contact) to contact 10 a side, then 12 a side and finally the 15 a side complex game we love.
The athletes, or as I prefer to call them, kids are going through a multitude of changes and the best today is not likely to be the best tomorrow or next week bar one or two, but I need at least 10 who will pull together and work as a team.
I spend at least 2 hours a week preparing the sessions, weeks preparing a season and four hours on sundays coaching them for free. I do this from socialist principals because I believe that this will develop a community and the values of “effort, learning and mistakes” can be beneficial to the athletes and the person they will become. I believe that given the equal opportunity of all being coached to a standard of excellence, talent will shine through.
The responses above appear to be more motivated by the coaches wish to demonstrate their coaching prowess. Your sessions must always be to the best level. Every athlete must be coached to the highest level. The athletes will be rewarded with winning if they have the talent and motivation to succeed.
To give an example, my 8 year old son loves rugby, and in the under sixes he was mediocre at best. He is still only average in terms of speed but he comes home every day from school and sets up training sessions based on what we do at practice. This has resulted in him becoming the most all round achieving member of the team. Every parent has commented on the fact that when he is not in the team the team is much worse.
I understand that track may be different, but think of this. If you focus on only the best, what about the second best who suddenly is expected to replace the best when they are injured. What have you done to develop this athlete?
In short, I agree you must reward individual success, you must encourage individual effort, but I do not agree with having different standards of coaching. Rather encourage and educate your athletes to be able to do the extra with out undermining the teams opportunities.
This can be achieved at every practive using the “double goal coaching” method. At every practice 2 players are singled out, one for overall ENDEVOUR and one for best player. Thus those who try the hardest are acknowledged as well as the most talented competing like crazy to get the best player. Over the last two years the best players are now all competing for the all round endevour as they have learnt it means much more to work harder than every one else. Strange how a group of 8 year olds have worked out that working hard and being respected are worth working for. I wish their parents would learn this too.
This will allow the capatalist ideal of rewarding the best to blend with socialist ideal of all working together.
April 26th, 2008 at 12:33 am
I really hope you are making your view that black and white to make a good/easier foundation for the discussion.
As a coach you have to be selective in my opinion. You shouldn’t take one approach to training and try to implement it to every athlete you will ever meet. That is the direct way to failure (I will get back to this).
Now back to the topic – Do I coach a socialistic or capitalistic regime? Hmm from what I heard you just said in the audio clip I am a socialistic coach but I’m also a capitalistic one. I approach my athletes the way I see fits the best. 90-95 percent of the time I treat them as a group because (equals) every where the emphasis is placed on capitalistic issues (how to dress, which body to have etc.) and who will benefit from a capitalistic regime? You said it – the best. But the socialistic approach doesn’t have to leave out the emphasis on progression and hard work. Every one of my athletes have been told over and over that hard work make the foundation for success in every aspect of life. And I am almost always staying late after training if anybody wants to make an extra effort. But why do the best athletes have to stand out? Does that make the rest of the group work harder, better and more? Maybe some of your athletes would try to mirror what the skilled does but the last 10-20 percent (worst skilled, or as you said it – the lazy ones) will probably quit the team in the long run because the skilled athletes will get all the glory, attention.
The skilled athletes will get the recognition they deserve through me but also through the other athletes, the parents and their surroundings. In the capitalistic based western societies every athlete is very aware of individual capital – cultural, social etc. I don’t have to praise individual skilled athletes much because the get their glory everywhere because our society works that way. What I have to and do praise a lot is progress and hard work. Every athlete of mine knows what they have to do to get a little further skill wise. I work a regime based on progress over success from the motto: if progress is made, success will eventually come. And it makes my athletes more aware of the individuality and more whole as persons.
The summary will be that the none of the two approaches to training is superior to the other. Take what is best from both and leave the rest out.
April 26th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I think you’r right on in you aasesment of soc vs cap, but I feel that within the sancuary of the team there’s a fine line between the two and both exists within. It is never enough to do only enough not to get fired of get in trouble with coaches because mediocrity is never acceptable. I believe you can get the most out of you players by fostering self confidence out of both your great and average players. To develope a player with the heart to succeed into the very best he can be regardless of skill level. For a player to undrstand that no matter how hard they work toward perfection within the sancuary of pratice to remain uncertain of the challenges they may face once outside facing competition.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:32 am
The capitalism and socialism analogy tends to distract me from what is simple good advice about helping athletes to be the best they can be. I recall playing 1st XVI rugby for one of the leading private colleges in Australia with great sporting traditions and a culture of past achievements and excellence. The coach, himself an ex Australian Rugby fullback once said to me that the individual is not as important as the Team or School which was reified as something beyond an ‘individual’. As an adolescent I found this idealistic and out of touch. At the time, it offered me no useful guidance and undermined my confidence in the coach that he would act in my interest. I must admit the past traditions of the school did give me something to draw upon when things got tough. Yet, I recall the school motto was about not accepting mediocrity and always striving to improve. I thought this was a more helpful position to take with a young athlete. It’s an interesting debate but I think every coach should remember that although sacrifices are made for the Team’s good, it’s an individual that makes this sacrifice. All players and athletes are about striving to do better and improve their performances as individuals. I don’t believe you can sell a different message to young athletes nor should we expect such mind contortions of young people.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am
let them all go. don’t shorten their fun, kids do sports for different reasons.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I would take the whole team, due to the fact that if their are players that are just getting by in practice it might give them something to work toward. The child might not win anything but they will know what to work on by watching other better players. That will give them the want to get better and a child of the same age can teach some thing that an adult cannot. I put my players in tournaments every year even though I don’t expect them to win it all but some of my teams in the past have went a whole lot further than we thought they would.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I BELEAVE THAT´S WHY WE ARE COACHES, TO MAKE SMART DECISIONS. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT KIDS WHO WOULD GIVE THEIR LIVES TO BE PART OF THIS, TO BE PART OF THIS ATMOSPHERE. PROGRAMING A SEASON IS KEY FOR SUCCESS. IF I HAVE SOMEONE WHO STANDS OUT, I AM SURE HE WILL AN INSPIRATION TO EVERYONE ELSE AROUND HIM. I THINK IT IS TOTALLY POSSIBLE TO HAVE A SOCIALIST PROGRAM WITH WELL DEVELOPED CAPITALIST MINDSET.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I absolutely agree with you. I can recall a few years ago our local track team had i think (4) four athletes to qualify for the state meet here in florida. Because of the small number of kids and the plain disinterest of the coach these hard working kids missed out on what was some of their first and only chance to compete at this level. Capitalist all the way
May 5th, 2008 at 9:36 am
In a world where everyone is being told to avoid hurting the other persons “Self Esteem” (Socialism) we have lost the escense of what it means to SUCEED through Self Confidence (Capitalism). Self esteem should be self confidence instead. Self esteem means to esteem ones self over others whereas Self Confidence means to be sure of ones own abilities and to be comfortable with them. By choosing to focus only on the collective good of the team we invite mediocrity. Since when is mediocrity the goal? Are we not supposed to, as coaches, strive to inspire and lead our young charges to be the absolute best that they can be? I realize that as a HS Football coach the team is extremely important and that the end goal is for the team to WIN, but for me to ignore helping one or two standout atheletes succeed beyond what they felt that they could achieve is to me a grave disservice to those individuals. I will never ignore even the most untalented individual but niether will I let the team nor the other individual atheletes suffer because “We can’t all do it together”.
Life is after all a large game where some succeed and some fail. Not all who play will excel but each player can contribute their best effort so that they may hold their heads up high and realize that they have given their all. My goal is to help prepare all of my atheletes for the competition of life and to realize that each of them has the chance to make something of themselves.
July 6th, 2008 at 4:04 am
i would take as many atheletes as possible no matter the grade if talents and abilities.
for those who are good they will have deserving competiotion but for those who falls on the not so goo category, atleast they will have exposure, you never know to what extent late bloomers sprout out.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Overall, my team is capitalist team with webs of social levels. We have 3 levels - developmental, mainstream and elite; however, the lines are not rigidly enforced to move up through the levels - commitment is the key word. If the kids are committed they can attempt to run at a higher level. The relays are sacred since typically families are emotional and passionate about them. The four fastest run end of story. The kids can challenge and run off against another kid to get a spot on the relay. The parent hate it but I think that’s the fairest thing to do, although I can continue to get in trouble with the parents/kids year after year; Track is an individual sport not a team sport. Although the only team element - relays - leave me sleepless as I chose the groups and make the final decisions especially since we win championships on our relays. I believe in socialism when we train to provide the peer pressure and mentorship to excel. Everyone gets the opportunity to get the best instruction and improve equally through small group and teired training. The expectations from my developmental are the same - improve everyday! The only change the times, the volume, and the length of time to correct.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Latif,
Interesting and provocative topic, but let me get one thing straight. Team titles in individual sports are artifices that do not really happen. Only the individual athletic performances are real. Team titles are conducted for people that know nothing about the sport in questions (fans, sponsors, athletic directors, alumni, etc.) The individual performance is the real thing. When you manage a team for the team title inevitably you are going to frustrate some individual and possible do some damage to the competitive psyche. I’ve been an elite level weightlifting coach for a long time, and all I ever coached for was to have all my qualified athletes perform their very best in the competition. This is part of a philosophy that will lead to the coach’s ultimate development as a performance coach and not just as a team strategist.
Sincerely,
Bob Takano
July 7th, 2008 at 5:56 am
I feel that every athlete should be given an equal opportunity to contribute to the team.Most coaches feel that winning isn’t
everything, it’s the only thing.So they don’t allow the less fortunate athlete to participate in competition.If they practice to prepare for a meet why not give them an opportunity to perform.This is one of my methods in developing self-esteem,character and self-worth.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I don’t believe in Capitolism or Socialism Coaching. The Capitolists manage their time to help only the best athletes and tend to take credit for their success even though they didn’t have much to do with it. The Socialist coach doesn’t want to offend anyone and therefore balances out the time spent with all their athletes and doesn’t give any preferential treatment to those that have a higher success. My philosophy is that any athlete that comes into my program should leave a better trained and equipped athlete. This means that the best athletes get better and the worst athletes get better. This may seam a bit of a fantacy when factoring time management, but the idea behind what I do is to assess each athlete to find their strengths and weeknesses, put a plan together to strengthen both, then train them to success. I look for my success as a coach in the most improved athlete, not the best or the average.