Coaching Confidence:
A Skill Necessary for Winning

Some coaches win with smothering man to man defenses, others with match-ups and various zones. Some coaches rely on high octane fast break's, while others stress the importance of patience and working for the open, high percentage shot. While different strategies all can produce winning results, few coaches can win without confidence. A confident team can run almost any offense and set up any defense and still be successful. Thus, the key becomes not so much what you run, but how much does your team believe in it's ability to be successful?

As all successful coaches know, coaching goes beyond the X's and O's into the hearts and minds of the people they teach. Developing a confident team is one of your most important tasks as a coach. Confidence is one of those important "intangibles" that allows a team to rise to the next level. Take a moment to assess your coaching by reflecting on the following questions. How do I build my player's confidence on a daily basis? Do I do anything that erodes the confidence of my players? 

Daily Effort to Build Confidence

While some coaches leave confidence to chance hoping that somehow it will miraculously descend on their team, successful coaches consciously build and develop confidence on a daily basis. Just as various offenses and defenses can be worked on and strengthened, so too, can confidence. If you are not doing so already, try working some of the following suggestions for developing confident players into your coaching and practices.

1. Display a consistent belief in your player's abilities and potential. Show and tell your players that you believe in their ability to be  successful through your words and actions. Set high yet realistic expectations for each player and help them met those expectations. Convince them that they can reach their goals if they are willing to put in the necessary time and effort. Your belief and confidence in a player can often make or break him. Whether he is a "project" with a lot of potential or an outside shooter in a slump, your unwavering confidence is often an important key in helping him be successful. A player can quickly sense when a coach has given up on him. Remember that sometimes players don't realize how good they could be, and it takes a patient and confident coach to help them realize their potential.

2. Emphasize proper preparation through quality practices. Proper preparation gives players the right to feel confident. Quality preparation and practices are the price of success. Thus, you and your players must realize the importance of getting the most out of your practices. Quality practices give players the right to feel confident because they have done the necessary work to be successful. It is a matter of getting your players to expect that they deserve to be successful because they have invested the necessary time and energy. 

3. Use practices to simulate a variety of potential game situations. Knowing what to expect is another important factor for building confidence. By simulating various game situations, your players learn exactly how you want them to respond because they have worked on it in practice. Doubt and confusion arise when players are put into situations that they have not experienced before or are unsure of what to expect. The play you draw up when you're down one with five seconds to go should not be the first time your players have seen or run it. Design your practices to include working against various offenses and defenses, as well as a myriad of possible late game situations.

4. Design practices and drills so that players achieve small, early successes. Recognize that you are also trying to build confidence as you build physical skills. Structure practices and drills so that players can achieve some small, early successes. Set challenging yet attainable daily goals so that players can see progress being made. Many coaches similarly structure their preseason schedules to play some easier teams early and leave the more challenging teams until later. These early, small successes will help to build a strong base of confidence that will be beneficial later when you are tested against the better teams. 

5. Call attention to successes with specific and sincere praise. How much of your coaching is positive and how much is negative? Research has shown that successful coaches give an average of three positive, instructional comments ("Mike, way to dribble the ball down to get a better angle for your post entry pass") to every one negative comment (Mike, your passing is killing us"). Encourage players to move toward success rather than away from failure. Too many coaches try to win by having their players fear making mistakes, instead of encouraging and rewarding players for making plays. Set a goal to recognize and promote the good things that your players are doing while calling less attention to their mistakes. 

6. Create an environment where failure is viewed as feedback, not something to be feared. Although mistakes can be frustrating, they can also be seen as a form of feedback which suggests trying a different strategy or approach next time. "Failure as feedback" gives players the chance to learn lessons and correct their own play. When you immediately pull players after their first mistake they learn that failure is fatal and quickly lose confidence. "Failure as fatal" produces tight and tentative players who constantly look over their shoulder and focus more on not making a mistake versus making plays. Encourage and allow players to play through mistakes as much as possible.

7. Focus on learning from and correcting mistakes, rather than dwelling on them. The best advice here is to use the "sandwich technique" when giving negative feedback. The sandwich technique involves sandwiching a negative comment between two positives. Instead of saying, "That was the worst post up I have ever seen," using the sandwich technique could sound like, "I see that you're working hard (positive), but we can't get you the ball in that position (negative). Stay above the block and sit on the defender's knee so you can get the ball to score next time (positive). The sandwich technique allows you to constructively criticize players while maintaining their confidence. They end up focusing more on how to correct their mistake rather than the mistake itself.

8. Approach big games and other important situations as "challenges" vs. "threats." Often the bigger the game and the more pressure the situation, the more confident, calm, and in control you should act as a coach. Players will sense and feed off of your confidence. Naturally, they will be psyched up for big games and will often look to you to be a steadying and calming influence. Thus, look at "pressure" situations as exciting and challenging opportunities versus life and death, must win situations. Remind the team of their preparation which has given them the right to expect success going into the situation. Regardless of where you draw your X's and O's, confident players are critical to your success. By using the above suggestions, I am confident that you can create confident players that will achieve their true potential.