Focus on playing the right way, not wins and losses

Winning isn’t everything – it’s the only thing. Quote made famous by Vince Lombardi while coaching the Packers. It captured the worlds attention as it drove home our obsession with proving dominance. At the professional level, I agree. Winning is everything. If you don’t win, it doesn’t matter how well you played you will be out of a job. But bringing this mentality into youth sports? Not so much.

Let’s get this out of the way:

Do I believe in winning and losing at the youth level? Yes.

Do I think participation trophies in almost all competitions are idiotic? Yes.

Now back on track – winning and losing is not as important at the youth levels as player development is. Youth athletes are establishing their foundation in which a potential career is going to be built on. If that foundation is reinforced with bad habits because it was helping them win in the short term, eventually it will catch up with them and they will lose.

Take a quick example for a short term gain everyone loves: shooting the puck high. It is an obsession with every child and parent to have a coach teach them to shoot high. For most youth athletes, lifting the puck is a limitation due to the weight of the puck. It’s not something that can be taught. However, the coach won’t get paid or returned business unless the child can lift the puck. So coaches teach them tricks to manipulate their shot to get the puck off the ice. Instead of teaching them the right way to shoot, they are taught the wrong way. Fast forward a year or two, a child who was taught how to shoot properly with the right mechanics, will have a harder and accurate shot leading to better performance. Where the child who is lifting the puck by flipping or some other way has a muffin and now has to re learn how to shoot.

Short term gains do not lead to long term successes. This journey of sports is not a sprint it is a marathon. And it doesn’t just attribute to athletic success but for 99.9% of youth athletes it will transfer into success outside of the playing field. Or failure.

Let’s look at this a bit more. First the sports lesson: Not playing well with a winning result leads to losses eventually. You hear it a lot where a coach or commentator would say they got lucky to win because of the way they played. Maybe it’s the lack of defense or lack of hustle. This also translates to a player. A player might be playing like crap but goes on a 5-game goal scoring streak. Because they put up numbers, the thought is they are playing well so they don’t change anything. Eventually, the goals stop. Now they are just playing like crap and eventually aren’t playing at all.

Translate into everyday life. Not studying because they were able to get through high school easily but now in college it’s harder. The habit of not studying needs to be addressed into a good habit during a time of stress. We can go to an extreme that if someone gets away with stealing over and over again eventually they will get cocky to go after more. And then caught. Or something simple all parents can relate to. Potty training. This is a little different but the concept is he same. A child was told doing the business in their pants was appropriate. It was reinforced by praise. Then all of a sudden they are faced with it is wrong and they go through struggles to re learn something they already hardwired as habit. All of the examples could have been fixed if the original habit was stopped at the first occurrence and corrected.

This is the point of youth sports. Shift the mindset from wins and losses to how well did we play. What things can be built on and what needs to be addressed. Get better everyday and do what is right. Most of the time it does not pay off in the short term because of a variety of reasons. But I promise you that it will pay off in the long run.