This is going to be my 17th season as a strength and conditioning coach working with athletes and preparing them for the upcoming football season when we begin in January. There has been tremendous growth in the field of strength and conditioning during the years since I first began in this profession. The emphasis on the athletic development of athletes has exploded on both the professional and the collegiate football scene. This emphasis on athlete development has now trickled down to the high school level. Many high school programs are now placing tremendous emphasis on the development of their athletes through comprehensive yearly strength and conditioning programs. High schools are now building weight rooms that rival many of the FBS universities that their students will one day attend. High schools are also making a commitment in terms of staffing for these facilities. Many high schools are hiring very qualified strength and conditioning professionals with collegiate experience to oversee their programs.
When I first became a high school strength coach, it was rare that a high school had a coach that just dealt with the strength and conditioning program. I was just a stipend coach who showed up every afternoon in the beginning of my career. A strength and conditioning coach was a luxury that most schools could not afford during the late 90’s. Times have certainly changed.
There has also been a monumental shift in the mentality of the athlete during my time in this profession. The athlete of this generation can be very difficult to deal with at times. Today’s athletes are very different from the group that I began coaching 17 years ago. This is a touchy subject that I know many coaches are dealing with these days. This generation of athletes is growing up in an age that many of us don’t understand. We didn’t have to deal with all of the social media outlets and technologies that this generation uses on a daily basis. Social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. have totally changed our society. They have all the technologies as resources that are available at the drop of a hat. This has created both physical and mental deficiencies in our athletes.
The current crop of athletes we are coaching has also grown up in an age where parents are much more pro-active in their children’s athletic lives. Parents travel all over the country and spend thousands of dollars a year on club and AAU sports chasing college scholarships. This has helped to create a sense of entitlement among many of our young athletes in this nation that we deal with at both the high school and collegiate level. All that being said, in my experience, this is a generation that lacks true confidence. They are not confident in their abilities because they haven’t been allowed to succeed or fail on their own. They have grown up in a time that has de-emphasized competition in many ways. Many of the old “hard line” methods of coaching are becoming outdated with this generation of kids. They do not respond well to yelling and negative reinforcement. They have grown up in a much easier world and they struggle with even constructive criticism. I have talked to many coaches who are experiencing the same issues with their current crop of athletes.
It is our job as coaches to evolve and find out what makes this generation tick. This is why I recently took a trip to the University of Missouri. During a recent visit with Dr. Pat Ivey, the Associate Athletic Director for Athlete Performance, I saw the evolution of coaching first hand at it’s finest. The University of Missouri’s Athletic Performance staff does a tremendous job of motivating their athletes through positive measures. They place a tremendous amount of emphasis on their sport psychology program, and it has helped their program be very successful in the Southeastern Conference. I believe that for coaches to be successful with this generation, we will truly have to work to understand what motivates them. We must question what we think we know. Dr. Ivey talked to me about current research in the field of strength and conditioning and how some new findings are changing the way we train our athletes. Dr. Ivey asked me “How much do we really know?” That is a great question. I think Dr. Ivey was telling me that we must be opened minded as strength coaches to find ways to motivate and train our athletes. We must think outside the box and try some unconventional methods at times in order to get the absolute most out of this generation of kids. I really believe he was telling me to never stop learning and never stop growing.