Evaluating My Team Motivational Climate

I have been sitting on this type of post for almost six months. Lots of different thoughts have come and passed through my mind during this time period. Time was necessary as I did not want to write in a state of irrational anger or frustration. I also did not want to operate out of a lack of broader perspective that disallowed examination of different perspectives or experiences. Basically I did not want to sound like an idealist jerk.

The topic of motivation has sailed many ships in the world of sport psychology. There are amazing authors out there who have done hours of research, or teamed with those professionals who have done so, to give coaches like myself tools to help create team climates founded on healthy psychological foundations. That includes both performance motivations and, for those of us who value educating for life, motivations for living a life of purpose day to day.

First, I need to acknowledge that I come from a position of privilege in many aspects of my life. I have two great parents who loved and continue to love me from childhood through to my adulthood and where I stand today. They were both supportive and corrective in my personal formation and gave me a base that a lot of my peers and even more of the generation I now coach do not benefit from today. I'm also a white guy from a mostly middle class existence that had exposure to mostly decent educational opportunities. We were not well off and I never had my own car or my own personal computer or other things that many around me did have in my small town in middle America. But these key areas did and do set those like myself up for better prospects down the road as an adult.

I say all that as a prologue to my point in this post so you know I recognize my perspective is inherently biased in some ways. But my point is, I am sick and tired of the "hater" culture athletes and coaches seem to have latched on to as a source of motivation in sport. From post-game interviews to social media to in-depth sports desk TV pub pieces the words hater, doubter or critic are used synonomously with the who, what, and why of athlete motivation.

We all have rival athletes, coaches or teams that bug us and our motivation is often spiked on the days these groups are on the schedule. But what happens when you erase all the room for doubt about your accomplishments? What happens when you climb the mountain and put your flag on the surface of unexplored continents or planets? What happens when you set all the records and claim every accolade available? And you are 25 with 45-55 years left in your life?

Sure there will always be the naysayers and those that refuse to acknowledge the greatness of your exploits no matter how much gravity those accomplishments obviously create. But when the singular extrinsic motivation of your life's work is the opinion of others who have a bias against you, there will likely never be a resolution and thus never a final satisfaction. After you reach the apex of athletic or personal endeavor and there is still much living to do in your life the faulty apparatus you used to fuel your fire often disappears with time as you move on past your greatest achievements. Those haters and doubters have moved on to the new, latest and greatest (Wilt Chamberlin to Bird & Magic to MJ to Kobe and now to LBJ) and you are on a island of those time forgot.

What my upbringing and experience created for me was a climate of support and belief, not influenced by fear of failure, but reinforced by my value as member of the team and the community around me. My parents poured their lives into supporting my interests. My high school teachers and college professors encouraged me, through both positive affirmation and firm corrective measures, to continue the pursuit of improving my writing skills. High school and college coaches pushed me every day, sometimes with hard doses of reality and correction, to focus on the beauty of hard work and dedication producing the best version of team and self possible.

It was not a story book life and will not likely be made into a movie like McFarland, USA. But it spoke to me that ever day is an opportunity that is endless and that they fully believed in my ability to make the most of those chances. It spoke indirectly, that for these educators, coaches and family members, love is stronger than hate. It spoke that their love for me and the things I brought to the table every day, though sometimes rough around the edges, were worthy of their lives work.

I every day I swing the hammer and go to work chiseling out the final product of my life, I remain motivated by those who believed in me before I knew AP style or won any coaching awards or worked with all-Americans. Coaches who believed in me before I finally reached the relatively unimpressive feat of breaking five minutes for 1600m on a track as a high school senior. Educators who emptied their red felt-tip pens on to my papers and articles so that I could become some one who is paid to write. These are the faces of the who, what and why that motivate me today.

As a coach, it remains my focus to fill the young people I work with so full of belief and love that they can run faster than they ever thought possible. But I also want them to know that they can come up short of a personal best and the team can finish out of the running for championships and its okay because they laid it on the line for weeks and months and, sometimes, years and did all they could with the opportunities available. 

People will question and doubt and maybe even hate what you try to accomplish. I want to be someone who speaks life and hope. I want my team to be a place where those who have never experienced positive extrinsic motivation can learn how to embrace both the disbelief of others and the eternal opitmism of a family that accepts your success and failure all the same. As a coach I take it as my responsibility to build a climate where opportunity is the buzzword and family is the motivational cliche. Those two items never go out of style and though media may not find a juicy quote in those locker rooms they will find men and women prepared to face the day after sport is no longer the biggest mountain that remains to climb.