Coaches Corner - Handling Failure
Herb Brooks, the infamous coach of the 1980 Olympic Team that upset the Soviet Union, was also a standout player before his coaching career. Herb Brooks was on the initial USA Olympic team for the 1960 games, but Coach Riley cut Herb Brooks from the final roster right before the games. The 1960 Olympic team went on to win the gold medal as Herb and his father watched the game from their couch at home. Herb was full of mixed emotions, overjoyed that the United States have won their first gold and also cheated as he should have been on that team! His father then turned to him and simply said, "Well looks like coach Riley cut the right guy didn't he."
Many would be upset at that comment alone. How could anyone say that, especially to their own kid? But Herb later saw it much different. He then realized that the team was far bigger than him. The team did win and maybe because he wasn't on that team. This is a very hard lesson to learn and in a very hard way. This was the Olympics.
As a parent today, as a coach today, how would you handle a similar moment. A moment where one fails and in a big way. Maybe a skater got cut from a team. Or maybe one lost in a championship team or just had a horrible practice. In sports, much like life, failure is inevitable. The question is how do we teach and handle failure.
I'm not advocating that we should be hard on our kids for the sake of be hard as that is just pointless. But we have to allow our players to fail. We have to not protect them when things don't go the perfect way. Too many times we as parents and coaches make decisions that protect them from failure thinking this is best to build their confidence on their road to success. Instead we need to expose them to elements of failure, let them fail and then support them when they try again.
So as a coach, parent, or player, how do you do that? It always starts small where you have to coach how to handle failure even when your best isn't good enough. For instance, at practice, instead of doing an activity that the players will pick up right away and it looks great in the first 30 seconds, try an activity that really challenges them. Too often we see something wrong and as coaches or parents we want to intervene to fix it or help them out so they "don't do it wrong." But instead we need to let them do it wrong so THEY can figure out how to do it right. It may take the better part of a practice to figure it out. Or it may take several weeks. We have to work on supporting, not just correcting. Let's say an activity at practice was very challenging and the players grew in frustration over the course of an hour. This is fine! Instead of pointing out everything they did wrong, focus on supporting them to figure it out. Focus on supporting them to build back their composure for the next practice. As much as we need to coach failure we need to be comfortable talking open about it with our players as well. Once you figure out that it is ok to fail, then you have earned the right to succeed.
I once talked with a veteran basketball coach about who do you choose to take the last shot in a big game when the game is on the line. Most would assume that you would pick your best player. Instead the coach says, he will pick the player that can handle failure the best. Anyone can celebrate when they make the shot, but who can handle it personally and on behalf of the team when they fail. That is the player that will take the best shot to win the game, because he/she knows how to also handle the failure if it doesn't go in. That is a hard moment to live in, but that is where success lives.
