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As I see more and more athletes that come through College, I can see where
more of my focus needs to be in regards to training. Sure we need to
work on more ankle, hip and thoracic spine mobility, and improving fitness
and strength levels, but the biggest area that athletes of this generation
need help in is becoming a better human being.
Young adults of this generation are more self-involved than ever before.
Watch them walk around a college campus, school, waiting for the bus, etc.
They all are listening to their digital music players, and not even
concerned with anybody else that they walk by. It's very sad to see
that people rarely say hello to each other anymore. It doesn't take
much effort and allows us to maintain human interaction...even at the
simplest level. With the evolution of on-line communication such as
Facebook, MySpace, and Instant Messaging, young athletes have not learned
basic communication and interactive skills. They talk in slang, have
lost the ability to write with out using acronyms. They forget to
say please and thank you. They think that things are entitled
instead of earned. They try to make excuses instead of working
harder for a goal.
These travesties have trickled down into athletics and team sports.
Young athletes do not know how to communicate with their teammates.
They do not know how to push each other to accomplish a common goal.
They are more concerned with what they are doing instead of understanding
how to work with somebody else. I see this in training everyday.
One of my goals is now to get my athletes to communicate more with each
other, and interact with their teammates. I'm not asking them to
become best friends but become a better teammates. I truly believe
that off-season training is not only used to improve physically but also
to bond and come together as a team. But for this to happen,
we as coaches, parents and teachers need to do a better job of teaching
our children and young athletes about being good people.
We need to instill in our young
athletes that nothing in life is going to be handed to them and that
things need to be earned through hard work and effort. We need to
instill in them that showing kindness and thoughtfulness will determine
your relationships. We need to teach them to respect their elders
and that if they are told something wrong that they did, to accept it and
learn from it instead of making excuses. Technology is here to stay
and has been a huge part of our lives, but we need to do a better job of
keeping our young athletes more human than machine.
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