Sport Family Coach David Benzel educated the Austin Tennis Academy coaches, players and parents yesterday, about the distinct roles of parent and coach, and the importance of leadership in a young athlete.

 

“The ATA is committed to developing great relationships with the parents of our students,” ATA CEO Jack Newman said. “By bringing in an outside expert like David Benzel, to help educate our coaches, players and students, we are separating ourselves from our competitors in the junior tennis marketplace.”

 

Mr Benzel is an author, athlete, sport-family coach and nationwide speaker. He brings an athlete’s discipline, a coach’s inspiration, and a parent’s experience to teach parents and coach’s skills for succeeding in the athletic arena.

Benzel began his day at ATA with a two and a half hour seminar with the ATA coaches and staff.

Benzel explained to the coaches that the ultimate criteria for coaching is how well you help the kid get from point A to point B. However, a good coach gets the child from point A to point B athletically, while a great coach gets the child not only from point A to point B athletically, but also in life’s journey as well.

“I’m looking for the part of your brain that can understand empathy,” Benzel said at the opening of the meeting. “ I want you to be able to read between the lines with a kid.”

The focus of the presentation was how coaches are conditioned into viewing things analytically, and immediately finding deficiencies, followed by suggestions from Mr Benzel for more effective coaching and communicating.

 

“We rush to judgment almost all the time,” Benzel said. “We almost always look for what is wrong with a kid first.”

He explained that a young athlete will give you what is focused on the most, and that it doesn’t make much sense to dwell on the negative when the opposite is the goal.

“We are trying to create an impression,” Benzel said. “Whichever it [the subconsious mind] sees the most of, it gives you. Our assignment as coaches is to help athletes with what they believe to be true about themselves.”

Benzel had many suggestions for more effective coaching methods, from focusing on short-term process goals, praising effort rather than traits, and approaching coaching Socratically to allow progress to happen internally from the athlete. But ultimately, the main point came back to counteracting our deficiency-seeking left-brained selves.

“Ultimately, nothing good at all comes from negativity,” Benzel said.

Later in the day, Benzel spent an hour with the juniors and seniors to talk about the importance of leadership. Then at 6pm, around 60 parents filled the fitness center for their turn in the 2-hour seminar, talking about their role as parents, and the possibilities of blurring the line between parent and coach.

 

The process, the journey, the experience is the most important,” Benzel said. “Your assignment is to give your child unconditional love no matter how they perform on any given day.”

The responses to Mr. Benzel’s presentations were overwhelmingly positive, with many people from all groups expressing how eye opening much of it was to hear.

 “I have to say he and his approach to parenting and coaching inspired me,” Coach Brian Notis said. “It definitely gave me some food for thought when it comes to communicating with our players.”

You can learn more about Mr Benzel and his material at his website, growingchampionsforlife.com.