Setting the Standard
Most coaches in today’s time struggle in this area of getting players to give maximum effort. To get players to give maximum effort all the time, you first have to set the standard as the coach. This begins with meeting with the team at the beginning of the season. In this meeting you will explain your philosophy and what you expect from the team during practices and games. The benefit of addressing everything upfront with your team minimizes the number of players making the excuse of “Coach I didn’t know what you really expected from us”. So now you should have everyone on the same page. However, you are not done you must continue to reiterate you expectation of the team during the practices.
Raising the level of Expectation
The next thing you should focus on is raising the level of expectation of each individual player. When you let every individual player know what your expectations are of them then that gives them something to strive for. A lot of times you have players playing with no expectation for them which results in poor effort in practices and in games. Also when you let the players know one on one what you expect from them it will raise their level expectation of themselves. To have success as a team you need players to have individual success. When everyone has success then the team ultimately has success.
It starts in practice
As the coach it is your job to find ways to organize practice where the players will be challenged. Putting players in situations where they are force to get outside of their comfort zone forces them to go a little hard to accomplish the task at hand. When the practices are layout where there is no challenge then the players tend to just do enough to get by. Then they try to turn it on in the games, but they find out they can’t the things that they want to do. So they get frustrated and regress instead of progressing. So make it a point to implement challenging drills in your practices.
Showing Your Passion
It will always be the coach’s job to lead by example. And that starts with expressing our passion for the game. The players feed off of our energy, so when we are going hard in practice motivating and pushing them to their max in return they will give the same effort in return. So always remember to lead by example and your team will have success.
