Coaching at the elite level requires tremendous energy and sacrifices, often without significant rewards. When a coach’s team or individual athletes perform poorly, it is easy for a coach to question whether the sacrifices and energy required to coach are worth the commitment. This is especially true when family or other non-coaching responsibilities also are important to the coach.
Poor performance on and or off the field can be so discouraging so that a coach’s outlook can change for the worse. Thinking, language and behavior can change dramatically. These changes usually are visible to other people in the coach’s environment and can become poisonous. When a coach gives up on athletes, they know it, and credibility and the chance to lead towards success are gone. Today’s coaches are under tremendous pressure and stress may find it difficult not to fall into the behavior pattern. Because of time pressures, today’s coaches only have a short time to produce and often must focus their energies on the athletes with the best chances to succeed. This is simply the nature of the beast. Athletes don't always like this aspect of elite sport, but they usually understand it.
On the other hand, assistant coaches who carry this behavior to extremes may lose credibility and the ability to lead athletes. Losing credibility is devastating. What can assistant coaches do to build and maintain it? Many assistant coaches in danger of losing credibility are unaware of it because they don't realize how they are perceived by others. Increase consistency “Walking the talk” is easy to say but often difficult to accomplish. One common mistake is to make a rule that is applied strictly for some athletes and less so for a star athlete. This is a classic example of the kind of inconsistency that leads to a loss of credibility. Taking an occasional short-term loss of long-term credibility is rarely a mistake. On the other hand, I have frequently advised my assistant coaches not to establish rules or expectations that they are unable to enforce. If you know that you can't be consistent in your behavior, don't pretend or you will lose credibility with your athletes.
Sign: Just an observer