Future Learning Goals

A coach can be considered someone who pushes you to be the best version of yourself while continuing to be one of your biggest cheerleaders.  Taking on the responsibilities of a coach isn’t always easy, or the highest paid job but it is one of the most rewarding. Coaching can be rewarding because of the growth you can see in the young athletes you are working with. As a person who fills this role or accepts this job, understand things are expected of you as a coach. It is your job to make sure that you are growing and developing your craft after each season. Incorporating new ways to better the athletes that you are working with and providing an environment where all types of athletes can thrive.

To be a successful coach at any level, you need to first understand the importance of being a strong mentor. One of the most important key traits of the coach is mentoring their athletes into strong adults, and providing them with a strong set of values to succeed. To be a successful coach you need to also grow and develop your knowledge of the game. Across the country at every level, coaches with strong backgrounds in each sport are providing a platform for young coaches to grow and gain insight into their experiences. The final thing a coach should add to their resume should be a chance to understand the athletes they are working with and what they need from them. Being a female coach, I understand the importance of building the self-esteem of young female athletes at an early age. The pressures to look a certain way for females can be something that discourages young women, and can lead to more serious mental and body issues. All of the three traits of a successful coach are something I strive to bring to my coaching career in the near future. I find all three of these to be important when it comes to bettering the lives of the athletes I work with on a daily basis. My reasoning behind each of these coaches is because of the personal benefit I found from them as a player, and I hope to bring them to my coaching as I continue to grow throughout each season. 

Taking on the role of a coach is a large responsibility because as a coach you are taking on not only bettering the lives of your players but being a strong role model. The first trait I touched on for being a successful coach is providing an atmosphere to mentor young athletes. I talked about how each of these traits affected my life, and throughout my career, I had several coaches who changed the way I see the game and how the lessons on the court have benefited my life. One of my coaches explained the importance of becoming one by the end of the season and touched on the importance of relationships and respecting all of those involved with your team. As I continue to grow as a coach I would like to incorporate a gym culture that provides my players with a chance to gain experiences that can transfer over to their lives. As seen in the video attached with my assignment you can see the last impact that this coach left on his player. This coach provides this athlete with a positive mentor that made a choice to not only better his athletes but to make sure he knew the love he had for him. 

The second piece I believe can help build a successful coach is striving to always build your craft. As a coach willing to gain more knowledge to help your athletes be the best version of themselves by learning new techniques. To do that a coach needs to go out and find resources that can help add to their coaching repertoire. One area of focus that I would like to add to my coaching repertoire would be having the opportunity to go to the AVCA coaches convention. At this convention, I would have several opportunities to build my craft as a coach, from learning from current, and past coaches from all levels. I find that this convention will be helpful in the long run of my coaching because it will provide me with different styles of coaching that I can provide to my players to prepare them for future coaches they may have.

The third and final area I would like to focus on is building the self-esteem of female athletes. Female athletes can go through a number of mental health issues, eating disorders, and just the pressures to look good because they are women. Providing female athletes with a strong stable and encouraging atmosphere could help provide female athletes with the self-esteem needed to enter the world. Adding this into my coaching style and making it a focus could help encourage young female athletes to understand that strong is beautiful. A large reason this is near and dear to my heart is that I have had friends who have experienced the pressures of looking good in a volleyball uniform. Those friends struggled with the confidence to make strong and healthy choices for their body type. Incorporating this into my coaching style would make sure that all female athletes are provided with the power to believe that they are beautiful. As you look through the articles attached in the link above you’ll be able to see the connections that I hoped to provide to the female athletes that I work with.

Overall as a coach adding these key focuses to my coaching style could affect the lives of several athletes in a positive way. Encouraging them to become people with strong values and hopefully passing on the torch to these athletes to become coaches themselves one day.  I stated this before, coaching isn’t an easy role it is something people need to work at. A coach is someone who is always trying to better themselves for the lives of their athletes. All of these focuses will encourage me to do just that in my future endeavors. I strive to be a coach who is not only successful in the gym but is successful in providing a strong and loving environment for my athletes.