I recently attended a sports coach training seminar for the Japan Volleyball Association’s “Level 2 Coach” certification. All the lectures were excellent, but I want to summarize the one that left the biggest impression on me.
You Can Coach Without Yelling
The lecturer who inspired me was Mr. Tadashi Ikegami.
Summary of his career:
After graduating from Osaka University of Health and Sport Sciences, he coached young children and elementary school students in soccer at Osaka YMCA. In 2002, he joined JEF United Ichihara Chiba as a youth development coach. As the leader of the “Soccer Delivery Team,” he coached a cumulative total of 400,000 children at 190 locations, mainly in Chiba and Ichihara cities. He left JEF on October 1 and became the chairman of the NPO L,K,O Ichihara Academy in the spring of the same year.
His lecture was titled, “You Can Coach Without Yelling.” When I first saw the title, I thought the lecture would be about anger management—how to control your emotions so you don’t get angry at players. In my own coaching career, I’ve often gotten emotional, and I expected to learn how to manage that.
However, the lecture was not what I had imagined.
It was about how to coach in a way that helps players think for themselves and act autonomously. It wasn’t about coaching techniques; it was about the more fundamental and essential question of why we coach in the first place.
The Origin of Sports is “Fun”
He argued that coaches don’t need to yell, shout, or intimidate players at all. His coaching philosophy is based on the idea that players do sports because they love them and it’s fun. The intrinsic motivation to play sports is simply joy. Everyone starts playing a sport for the same reason: because they want to.
We coaches should never forget this origin.
The Coach’s Mistake
Unconsciously, many coaches fall into the trap of only focusing on winning and getting results. I’ve often been in this state myself and have regrets about it. When players don’t perform as the coach expects, or when they lose a game, the coach gets angry and, for some strange reason, takes that anger out on the players.
And that’s when a coach uses the killer line: “I’m scolding at you because I care about you.”
With this phrase, coaches unknowingly try to control players and get them to do what they want. When a coach says these words, they genuinely believe they are acting “for the player’s sake”—which is almost always a huge mistake. Ultimately, they’re doing it for themselves, and that’s when they resort to yelling and, in the worst cases, physical punishment.
The Brain Shrinks and Deforms
So, what happens inside the minds of players who are repeatedly yelled at or physically punished as part of “coaching”?
Something truly terrifying happens. Research in neuroscience has proven that a child’s brain can shrink and deform from physical abuse and verbal violence.
reference:
Physical Punishment and Verbal Abuse Can Cause a Child’s Brain to “Shrink” and “Deform,” a Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Research Team Warns.（体罰・暴言で子どもの脳が「萎縮」「変形」 厚労省研究班が注意喚起）
You’ve probably experienced this yourself:
when you’re yelled at, you don’t think, “Why am I being scolded? What did I do wrong?”
You’re just consumed by the fear of “This is scary. I don’t want to get yelled at again.” Your mind goes blank.
When players experience this over and over, their brains shrink and deform, pushing them further and further into a state of thought paralysis.
That’s the reason we shouldn’t yell at players: it robs them of their ability to think.
So, how can we guide players to be better, both in their play and as people, without taking away their ability to think?
Keep Asking Questions
A coach should simply ask players questions.
- “What would make this better?”
- “What can you do to not fail next time?”
- “What else can we do?”
While the questions will vary depending on the situation, the key is for the coach to avoid giving the answers right away.
So, why shouldn’t a coach give the answers immediately?
One reason is that it takes away the child’s opportunity to think. But another important reason is that players will start to believe there is only one correct answer.
In sports—and in life—there is rarely a single, correct solution.
The only way for players to truly understand that there isn’t just one answer is to experience finding their own solutions. That’s why coaches must resist the urge to give an answer and instead ask questions.
It’s OK if it Doesn’t Work Out
Asking questions is difficult for both coaches and players.
Players might not have an answer right away, and even when they try something, it might not work out as they had hoped.
But those experiences are exactly what players need. A coach who gives a quick answer might solve the immediate problem faster, but players will never learn to solve problems on their own.
So, even though it may seem like a roundabout way, providing players with the opportunity to think and ask questions helps them develop the ability to find their own solutions.
The process of failure → thinking → action → success becomes an invaluable asset for a player.
When You Stop Learning, You Must Stop Coaching.
Some might think that just asking questions is easy. But that’s not true.
As mentioned, when you keep asking questions, players will come up with their own answers. There isn’t just one answer—there are infinite possibilities. A coach needs to have the ability to assess those answers.
To be able to assess the variety of answers players come up with, a coach must not believe that there is only one correct answer. The moment a coach holds that belief, they are likely to reject the players’ answers.
That’s why coaches must continue to learn every day. To be a good coach, you need to develop the ability to see the potential in all the answers players offer.
