Motivation of Young Athletes Part 1

Reprinted from Coaching Youth Sports newsletter by Richard K. Stratton, PhD.

Dr. Richard K. Stratton, PhD. (Florida State University) has been the motor learning and sport psychology specialist at Virginia Tech for the past 20 years. Between his Masters and Doctoral studies he taught physical education and coached four sports at Appling County (GA) Middle School. His primary interests are the developmental aspects of information processing and motivation and stress in youth sport participants.

Motivation of Young Athletes Part 1

Why Kids Want to Participate in Sports?

Why do children want to play organized sports? What are their goals, hopes and aspirations? Each child has his or her own specific answers to these questions. Understanding their reasons for wanting to play sports is a critical first step towards helping children to have the best possible experiences in sport. Articles in magazines and newspapers as well as some coaching textbooks often suggest that socialization is a major value of participating in youth sports. Certainly, learning to work together in a group and striving to achieve group goals are potentially important outcomes. Learning about and practicing sportsmanship also is a worthwhile goal as is understanding how to deal with success and failure-winning and losing. Is this what the kids expect to get out of playing organized sports? Actually, NO! Numerous research studies completed in the last 20 years have asked youth sport participants why they decided to participate in organized sports. Although there is some variation in the ranked order of the reasons that children cite, depending on the particular sport they are playing, the top reasons are very consistent. Children expect to have FUN, learn SKILLS, develop FITNESS, and participate because they enjoy COMPETITION. Socialization related reasons typically is near the bottom of the list, with sportsmanship somewhere in the middle. Winning and receiving individual awards (medals, trophies, etc) also do not appear among the top reasons. The bottom line is that childen want an opportunity to participate in competitive sports, to develop the skills and fitness that will allow them to play effectively, and to have fun doing it.

Motivating Your Athletes and Yourself

As was discussed in the article above, your athletes enter sports expecting to learn skills, develop fitness, participate in competition, and, most importantly, have fun doing it. What motivates you, their coach? Hopefully, your motivation is based on helping your athletes reach their expectations. That is, their goals are your goals. As you plan practice sessions, consider how each activity will contribute to developing skills, developing fitness, or otherwise prepare them for competition. Some activities may accomplish all of these goals at the same time. Other activities will be more limited. Although we often think of practice sessions as work and the game days as fun, it doesn't have to be that way. Practices should be fun too! This is not meant to trivialize the importance of practice; actually it is just the opposite. You want your athletes to look forward to coming to practice and to work hard throughout practice. How do you do this? It is not always easy. VARIETY is one way. Use different drills; there is usually more than one way to teach and learn any particular skill. Create a POSITIVE practice environment, one that focuses on what the athletes are doing right rather than what they are doing wrong. The athletes should not be afraid to make mistakes. Help them to understand that people who don't make mistakes are people who are not trying very hard and who don't care about becoming a better athlete. Even the very best athletes make mistakes. If your athletes are having fun and becoming better athletes in the process, chances are good that you will be having fun too.