COACH-ATHLETE RELATIONSHIP
Team USA Training Video Transcript
In this training session, we’ll talk about three things: the coach-athlete relationship, how that relationship is built on trust and power and examples of how coaches can misuse trust and power to hurt athletes.
Kids love sport. They get to run around, play with friends, and just have fun. The more they play, the more they develop athletic skills, learn to deal with frustration and success, and discover life lessons. At higher levels of organized sport, dedication and discipline help athletes achieve competitive success.
No matter the sport, no matter the age, and no matter the skill level, every athlete’s experience is shaped by one common element: coaches. Athletes see coaches as role models, people who care about them both as athletes and as individuals, and their athletic performance is better for it.
In fact, athletes view coaches as the single most important contributor to their performance. More than the quality of the training environment, the coach’s technical skills, or the coach’s ability to manage competition, it’s the coach-athlete relationship that matters the most.
“I think what make my coaches so great are that they're always positive and encouraging and they really care about me. Not only in skating.” (athlete)
“That's why I work so well with my coach. I really feel he listens to me and he understands when to coach me and when to kind of back off.” (athlete)
Successful coach-athlete relationships are built on trust and power. But as trust and power increase, the potential for misconduct in this relationship increases, and this makes sport a high-risk environment for abuse.
It’s critical to understand trust and power, how they work in sport, and how to recognize an abuse of trust and power. So let’s start by briefly defining these two concepts.
“Trust” is the confidence placed in someone else. In sport, an athlete trusts that their coach is looking out for them, that their coach will do everything he or she can to help them succeed. Coaches trust that their athletes will take guidance and look to the coach for support and direction.
“When your athletes trust you and are out there fighting, and they look at you and they know that you care as much as they care, they will go an extra yard for you.”
Power is a little bit different from trust. Power is the ability to give or take away something of value, something people care about deeply. Coaches directly or indirectly have power over just about everything a competitive athlete values in sport, and therefore coaches possess considerable power. Coaches decide who makes the team, who gets playing time, and who gets a starting position.
Athletes look to coaches for approval, for help securing an athletic scholarship, and even for help achieving a brighter future. Athletes are in awe of their coaches and other adult authorities who hold the key to their potential success.
“I know I got to win, not just for me. Not just for my coach, but you know, for everybody. If I'm going to take this to the next level it can make my whole family better for it.”
Whether it’s an athlete’s belief that the coach’s methods will improve endurance or an athlete’s acceptance of the coach’s decision to determine the starting lineup, trust and power are an inevitable part of sport. And that’s the way it should be. This imbalance of power between coaches and athletes helps teams succeed. However, this imbalance can be a problem if a coach misuses their trust and power to harm an athlete.
Critically, every form of athlete misconduct involves an abuse of trust and power. For example, let’s take a quick look at trust and power in the context of sexual abuse.
A coach begins by seeking the athlete’s trust. The coach also seeks the parent’s trust. Once trust is established, the coach has more access to the athlete and it’s easier to spend time with the athlete outside of training, where the coach begins to gradually push the limits of appropriate behavior. With this time and access, the coach learns what the athlete values, such as a starting position.
This gives the coach additional power and more control over the athlete’s success, and the coach offers what the athlete values in return for sexual acts and secrecy. It’s this misuse of trust and power that enables the coach to abuse the athlete. As we move through the training, we will look closely at ways trust and power are misused to commit sexual abuse and all other forms of athlete misconduct.
Bullying & Harassment
Part of the allure of sport is that teammates generally enjoy spending time with one another developing great relationships. Athletes cite these relationships as one of the main reasons they continue to play sport. Some of an athlete’s best memories are the time spent with friends getting to practice, traveling to competition, competing with each other and working as a team.
One of the most harmful effects to any team dynamic is when athletes mistreat their teammates by bullying or harassing them - which, like all forms of misconduct, involves a misuse of power and is also destructive not only to the individual athlete, but to the morale and performance of the team as a whole.
SafeSport defines bullying in sport as: A persistent and repeated pattern of committing or willfully tolerating physical and non-physical behaviors that are intended to cause fear, humiliation, or physical harm in an attempt to socially exclude, diminish, or isolate the targeted athlete(s).
When you bring a team together and you’re trying to develop your sport and bringing new people into the group, there should never be a position where you have hazing and the harassment that goes on, because all this does is step in the way of the future development of that young person.
What you’re trying to do is create an environment of acceptance, an environment where they’re enhanced, an environment where they can develop their personality, an environment where they will contribute toward the team as a whole. And the older athletes need to be in a position where they feel like they are fellowshipping these people onto the team, for the betterment of the whole.
Bullying and harassment can be carried out: verbally, socially, physically and in cyber space, one of the most recent disturbing trends. Social Media and mobile communications allow 24/7 access to athletes. Teammates and fellow athletes are able to engage in misconduct that's even more difficult to observe directly. Bullies target every kind of athlete – for example an athlete who is overweight, small, lacks confidence, and even the gifted athlete.
Harassment is unwanted, offensive, and intrusive behaviors that are linked to discrimination – such as a bias against a particular group based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
Harassment includes sexual harassment, which is pervasive. Sexual harassment is conduct that creates an inappropriate or hostile environment and includes behaviors such as repeatedly making sexually oriented comments, jokes, or innuendos to, or about, an athlete. 57% of athletes report they have been sexually harassed in sport, and athletes tend to be sexually harassed more by their peers. For example, athletes frequently send “sexts” to other athletes.”
Bullying and harassment affect an athlete’s performance; they lose focus or play and perform tentatively. A bullied athlete will rarely report because they fear retaliation, or fear being viewed as a tattletale. Coaches set the stage for how athletes treat one another. Preventing bullying and harassment requires that we build environments conducive to team building.
An adult is considered to be “willfully tolerating” these actions if he or she is aware of bullying or harassment and doesn’t act to stop it. Adults who knowingly tolerate bullying and harassment of children might be at risk for criminal or civil actions depending on the laws of their particular state.
It has to be addressed immediately and it has to be addressed with the young people involved and if it’s serious enough, then it should be involved with those people who are administrators and who are responsible for that type of environment.
Just like any family, any school, you know teams are cliques; they hang out together and that type of stuff but our main goal is to make sure that they are all hanging out, being positive for each other and for the right reasons.
Another successful approach encourages coaches to ask a cross-section of their athletes what they’re seeing. This will give a view of athlete experiences and provide insight into athlete-athlete dynamics. Always talk with the athletes involved in suspected patterns of bullying or harassment and stop it immediately. Also, because it can be difficult for an athlete who is being bullied and harassed to talk openly about his or her experience in the presence of the bully, it’s a good practice to talk to each athlete involved separately to address the situation. You might learn about misconduct that’s occurring in areas that you can’t observe, places such as locker rooms or cyberspace.
“I will let a little bit of teasing, good humor teasing go on; when it starts getting personal and to the point where I think the recipient might not be able to handle it emotionally, then I’ll step in right away.
Empower your athletes to do the same. Research shows that when peers step in, they’re often successful in getting the bully to stop.
“I think it’s just as important to remember your teammate is your teammate on the field no matter what. So the background doesn’t matter I think we all need to be out there supporting each other and making sure that harassment doesn’t happen.” (coach)
As we’ve discussed bullying & harassment amongst athletes can be detrimental to the success of the entire It’s important to set the expectations up front that bullying & harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. Educate your athletes on the forms of bullying & harassment and provide examples of its effects.
Communicate with your athletes throughout training.
Ask questions and gauge if there’s any evidence of misconduct. And empower your athletes to intervene and report anything they see. Creating a culture of disclosure and reporting at the athlete’s level will encourage them to come forward should there be any kind of misconduct or abuse.
Hazing
The following is a real example of athlete-to-athlete misconduct taken from the news. This took place on the team bus after a local tournament.
A junior varsity and varsity soccer team were returning from a local tournament when a handful of
varsity players on the older team decided to humiliate players from the younger team.
Without much of a plan, the older athletes decided to show the younger team who was “in charge” by physically humiliating two of their players. They grabbed towels out of the equipment bag and casually made their way to the back of the bus.
Using the towels as restraining devices, four older players pounced on two smaller players from the younger team and pulled their pants down to the cheers and laughter of other players, while three coaches and one other adult on the bus watched. The entire bullying incident didn’t last long – probably no more than a minute – just long enough to humiliate the two targeted athletes.
Something else important and very telling also took place in that minute. Once he realized what was happening, another adult on the bus tried to intervene and stop the bullying incident.
But the head coach confronted him and backed him down, telling him to leave the older players alone – to “let boys be boys”, and he watched the younger boys’ humiliation and didn’t report the incident to administrators afterward.
Fortunately, another adult heard about the misconduct the following day and contacted administrators.The school had actually been through something like this before. Members of the varsity team had been disciplined the previous season for bullying and the head coach had been put on notice that no further incidents would be tolerated.It didn’t take long for an internal investigation to confirm the bullying and the coach’s failure to act.
Concerned about recent anti-bullying legislation in their state, the administrators suspended several players and immediately fired the coach for violating its policies against bullying.
What happened on the bus wasn’t just an isolated event intended to humiliate and socially diminish the two targeted athletes, but a pattern that the head coach tolerated and condoned - and it reveals how difficult intervening can be. An adult instinctively tried to stop the bullying in real time, but fell silent when the head coach didn’t support him. It took a second adult to intervene and report the misconduct to administrators.
Fortunately, the administrators took quick action, sending a clear message that future incidents would not be tolerated. Because the coaches didn’t intervene, the older athletes had no reason to stop their behavior. Players follow the lead of their coaches – and coaches have the power to set the example and set the tone for all aspects of training and competition.
Part of what we love about sport is our opportunity to help athletes build a cohesive team by treating others with respect and dignity.
As we’ve all heard, athletes have been initiated into sport to “help them belong.” Sport initiations include activities such as athletes who have been stripped naked and taped up in locker rooms, or required to drink or take drugs. Often tolerated as a rite of passage, this type of sport initiation can be damaging to an entire team.
With 80% of college athletes reporting that they’ve witnessed or experience some form of hazing, the problem is widespread. It’s easy to dismiss hazing as a harmless and traditional way of building team cohesion.
Hazing is “coercing, requiring, or willfully tolerating any humiliating, unwelcome,or dangerous activity that serves as a condition for an athlete to join or be socially accepted by a team’s members.”
Hazing does not include group activities that are meant to establish normal team behaviors that promote team cohesion. For instance, to set an example, consider having the entire team set up or carry equipment instead of singling out any one particular group.
Hazing can include any combination of physical, social, and sexual abuse and unlike bullying and harassment, hazing is an attempt to include an athlete into a group or team.
Trends show hazing rituals often include forced and dangerous levels of alcohol consumption, and athletes have died or been permanently injured as a result. In addition hazing has become increasingly sexualized. For example in one high school, senior athletes hazed junior athletes by sodomizing them with broomsticks in the locker room after practice.
So, how can we respond to hazing and reduce its effects?
- Educate your staff, coaches, students, and parents about the dangers of it. Providing examples of the consequences of hazing can help everyone understand its seriousness.
- Send a clear antihazing message, implement a strong anti-hazing policy, communicate it clearly, and enforce it when incidents occur.
- Consider consequences if those policies aren’t followed – like team suspension.
Next we will begin our discussion of Emotional, Physical and Sexual Misconduct.
ABUSE & MISCONDUCT IN ATHLETICS
{Statements by narrator, experts, coaches, and parents}
Emotional Abuse
A supportive coach-athlete relationship has a tremendous effect on athletes and their competitive success. Coaches support their athletes by motivating them to accomplish more than they thought they could. Athletes thrive on this kind of positive support.
Great coaches are going to have high expectations and they should have high expectations. They’re going to expect you to train hard and they’re going to expect you to dream high, and work hard. That can still be a safe, supportive, healthy training environment. That’s going to be a place where you achieve big goals.
What really makes a person tick? What really makes a person want to become better? What really makes a person want to become great? And so if we can find those things out and we can work with each individual to find out what pushes their buttons, so to speak, then we are on the way to helping that person realize their genetic potential.
A win-at-all costs approach to coaching – or a failure to understand how to teach, motivate, or discipline athletes – can lead to emotional misconduct. Berating, degrading, or humiliating an athlete hurts their performance and increases the chance that they’ll drop out of sport.
“When you get on that mat and you have somebody yelling at you, nit picking at you, and very negative... I know I need a positive environment. And I think it’s about knowing what you need as an athlete and also finding that in your coach.” (wrestler)