Anson Dorrance on Parents

Took our daughter Taylor to her first U11 soccer practice this afternoon and while she was playing I sat on a picnic table and caught up on my reading of Anson Dorrance's "Vision of a Champion." Coincidently, the chapter I read centered around players and their parents and some of Dorance's thoughts made me think and are definitely worth mentioning here.

"What doesn't work is a daughter without strong character and the same type of parent. Those two, who are not willing to take personal responsibility for anything, bond together and develop a self righteous, judgemental view of the world, which is especially damaging to the daughter. What you have in this dynamic is a player who whines to her parent, and a parent who supports and justifies the whining and then whines to everyone else."

"Almost every stressed out, self destructive (soccer) player is characterized by overmanaging parents."

"In fact, in my experience, players whose parents keep their distance actually end up developing faster and better, and with less stress and pressure, than those whose parents want to be overly involved in everything."

"The way parents can help their children. . . . . is by not comparing their children's performance with a rival teammate or by jumping in with both feet and fighting any of their children's battles. If sports can have any value off the field it is in the athletes dealing with the difficult, but ultimately empowering challenges on their own."

So good luck this season Taylor. I am not going to be one of "those" parents. Listen to your coaches. Play hard. Compete every day. Don't whine, complain, make excuses, or blame anyone else. And above all else, remember that being an athlete is not about what you can get but it's about what you can become!

Winning Mentality

One of the books that I've been reading lately is "Vision of a Champion" by Anson Dorrance, the UNC women's soccer coach and winner of close to two dozen NCAA Championships. In the book, Dorrance talks about such things as working towards personal excellence, the competitive cauldron, and developing a winning mentality. He also devotes a chapter to parents and other supporters who, if not careful, can do more harm than good to their child's long term success. So far it's a great book that should be read by coaches, athletes, and parents.

Here's a short excerpt from Chapter 5: "The winning mentality is partly optimism, but mostly its a combination of focus, pride, competitive anger, relentlessness, hardness, fitness and courage - all the most descriptive words for competitive athletics. This type of mentality is not about skill or tactics. What it comes down to is intense desire. To get this winning edge you need to build an indomitable will. This means you must be relentless; you must never give up."

"What I love about this mentality is that it's not a talent; it's not part of a genetic code you're either born with or not. It's a choice, a decision you make to develop it. It's not an easy choice, but it is what is going to elevate you from the ordinary player. The question is: Can you make the choice to be indomitable?"