Skip to main content

The Name of the Game is Leadership

Men's Soccer Coach Ben Schneweis
talking to one of his players.
Photo by: Cobber SID
     In today’s day and age, sports hold a huge importance to multiple people across the globe, whether it’s watching the Olympic Games to playing at your collegiate institution. But, of course, everyone has to start out somewhere as to why they either fell in or out of love with their said-sport(s). Sometimes it’s the influence of friends; sometimes it’s the influence of family; sometimes it’s the influence of the media. Many times, though, it’s the influence that coaches have on their players. This has a lot to do with their style of leadership and how they form and maintain relationships with their athletes.

     According to an article written by Callow and colleagues in 2009, transformational leadership “involves the building of relationships with followers based on three different types of exchanges: personal, emotional, and inspirational.” In recent years, institutions throughout the country have started to form to this style of leadership, especially the aspect of relationship building. Here at Concordia, multiple coaches are starting to form to this style of leadership. Transformational leaders have an ultimate goal of changing a program [whether it’s right away or over time] while always presenting their values, ideas, rules, etc. in a positive manner to their athletes. Positive environments have a higher chance of leading a program to success, which is the goal of both the coach and athletes, along with the higher-position holders in the athletic department.
Head Football Coach Terry Horan
hugging a senior after a game.
Photo by: Cobber SID

     Coaches at Concordia have started to take on a more transformational leadership style, especially in more recent years. One, upon many intriguing findings, was that a lot consider themselves as a “player’s coach," meaning they adapt and accommodate [to a certain degree] to their players’ wants and needs. Terry Horan, Concordia’s head football coach, said, “For me, it’s always about the kids and about them having a great experience.”

     With that being said, coaches also stress how important individual relationships are with their athletes. At the Division III level, it is prohibited to give athletic scholarships out, so in technical terms, athletes are paying to play their sport. “Relationships with your athletes are extremely important—that’s why you become a coach. If you’re in it for fame and glory, you’re in the wrong business. Seeing kids grow over their four, sometimes five, years is rewarding,” said women’s ice hockey coach Maureen Greiner.

Head Women's Ice Hockey
Coach Maureen Greiner smiling at a player.
Photo by: Cobber SID
     Student-athletes host an immense amount of stress in their bodies. Having to balance the 3 S’s (Sports, School, Social) is very hard, and for a fair amount of athletes, work is also in the picture. Coaches need to have a fair understanding of this and take action if needed to help the athletes’ difficulty with balancing these factors, which can overall can help an athlete’s situation and satisfaction. Transformational leadership is a positive, forward way to find success in today’s coaching world. Coaches that can change programs in these ways increase the overall satisfaction for both their athletes and themselves.

Comments

  1. nsiedeDecember 1, 2018 at 12:30 PM

    I really enjoyed this article because it incorporated the research and personal perspectives of those who work in coaching/leadership roles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 4, 2018 at 7:53 PM

    I found this article to really interesting because it was something I had been curious about throughout my life as an athlete. You do a great job at displaying the coaches more as humans because I think a lot of times, athletes will view them as all knowing and it is hard to relate. It is an interesting perspective to think of athletics from the coaches view point. I also really enjoy how you relate it to Concordia by interviewing coaches here and including pictures from our teams.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eli SwansonDecember 4, 2018 at 8:30 PM

    It would be interesting to study how the relationship between coaches and their players differ at the various levels of NCAA athletics based on power. Obviously at the D3 level the players have much more collective power because they all could quit at any time and suffer no real consequence other than possibly annoyance that they don't get to play the sport they love anymore. On the other hand, D1 coaches always have scholarships to dangle over players. And although college athletes often don't get a fair chance to use their scholarship to actually get a comparable education to those who don't play sports, the knowledge that you could lose your ability to get a degree at any moment is probably quite daunting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lily OlsonDecember 6, 2018 at 12:01 PM

    After learning more about managers, and managerial traits, I thought it was interesting to make connections between what is considered a good manager, and what is a good coach. There are a lot of similarities, and it was cool to read about some of the tactics the coaches on our campus have with their teams. I am wondering if teams can thrive still if their coaches may lack some important leadership skills? If they do, is that the point of having captains?

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousDecember 6, 2018 at 1:59 PM

    I liked the structure of this post and the way you incorporated local pictures of Concordia couches. It would be interesting to have a small student athlete perspective on how couches motivate them through their leadership. What can coach's do to ensure that student athletes are balancing the three S's? Are there steps in place now or does it wary based on individual coaches?

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousDecember 6, 2018 at 6:15 PM

    This article really highlights the different perspectives of coaches and players. I really appreciated your approach with the emphasis of transformational leaderships, but would like to see this analysis more with other coaching styles as well to provide greater context. Also, I think exploring the ideal of player's coach and the coaches viewpoint vs the teams could be an interesting point, because I know a lot of coaches that think they are a player's coach, but the team disagrees. Finally, I understand the 400 wordlist hinders this, but I think adding context about the different divisions in college and the contrasting styles would be a good thing to add to the blog.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gender Discrimination: Why are we punished for being who we are?

Gender Discrimination in the Classroom & Office  Learning about gender can be traced back to childhood. Parental interaction with their children early on in life influence how that child will display their gender through play, how they parent and what career they decide to go into. Understanding gender communication in the workplace is important to an organization's structure. Gender not only affects communication, but also promotions, leadership opportunities and how we understand each other as individuals. We are socialized to act in a way that our gender defines us and through this gendered lens, we are expected to belong to and associate with a certain organization while upholding special roles within that organization due to our predetermined gender roles. What's the difference between sex and gender?  Sex is based on our biologial sexual reproductive organs at birth.  Gender is something often associated with sex but is actually a learned behavior....
7 comments
Read more

How Environmental Nonprofits can increase participation

There has been a big push in being green in the last 20-30 years and one of the best ways that a person can do this is by involving themselves in an environmental nonprofit. Environmental nonprofits are based around volunteers getting active and working through the nonprofit to make a difference and dedicate time to the improvement of the environment. The photo to the left was taken from a place that I went to by being involved in an environmental nonprofit. Many of these organizations will involve you being out in nature and spending time in the natural world. Motivating volunteers for these nonprofit is difficult because the organization must find a balance. Their message cannot be so strong that it deters people to participate but it must also not be too weak where people do not see the importance. Since nonprofits are based on volunteer work, they need to be able to recruit people to come and work for them. People need to want to donate time to a good cause that they can be pas...
5 comments
Read more