Role Playing

It's a challenge to sit on the bench as a coach and give feedback to a player who's just been pulled from a game for reasons unknown to him. As an experiment, I offered to manage our post player rotation and laid out some pre-game plans, clearing them with him before each contest. I also shared that rotation with the players prior to the game, letting them know that conditions could change as the game went on. The confidence that they could make some mistakes as part of their growth without being removed could aid their development (or make them softer, depending on their attitude).

Often, the rotation did change in the course of the game, just not of my own making. Coach Goldman's gut instinct overruled mine, and multiple times I was instructed to bring players in at times that I otherwise wouldn't have. We won those games, and Coach has every right and more experience in picking the most victorious mix. There's nothing wrong with that style of management, because I've seen it work time and time again with other leaders. It's just a style that doesn't suit me well. My misunderstanding was in thinking that "managing the post rotation" meant that I had more extensive authority, so it created confusion for the players and some backtracking on multiple occasions for me after I would tell a player what was going to happen in the next few minutes, only to be overruled without discussion.

The heat of a game doesn't allow things to be planned like they are around a corporate conference table. But in the surge of jelling team chemistry, this arrangement was holding us back ever so slightly, and frustrating me at the same time since my approach as a supervisor is to rarely if ever overrule one of my managers. So it was an easy call to officially surrender the post rotation back to Coach, and continue to learn as I have throughout the season - by watching him run the show and cultivating that same quality gut feel that he's developed through trial and error. Pride and ego and conflict have no place on the bench, and the growth of the team and its players into men takes the front seat.