How to Overcome High Expectations on a New Team

 

Being the ‘new kid’ is tough, especially when joining a youth sports team that has been together for several seasons.

Even just one new player can cause a big shift in team chemistry and roles. This sometimes creates a high-pressure, high-expectation situation in which:

• Returning players may feel resentment toward a newcomer who takes over their old position;
• Teammates become frustrated if the new player’s ability doesn’t improve the team’s overall play;
• A new athlete may ruffle some feathers by assuming a leadership position their teammates may feel is unearned.

Fortunately, how to deal with these new-team dynamics has been studied by sport psychologists, and their research shows several ways parents, coaches, and athletes can help minimize the pressure and maximize performance.

 

HOW COACHES AND PARENTS CAN HELP

In the article Coaching Strategies for Helping Adolescent Athletes Cope with Stress sports psychology researchers Jenelle N. Gilbert, PhD, Wade Gilbert, PhD, and educational researcher Cynthia Morawski, PhD share ways coaches and parents can ease high-expectation stress:

Critique Skills, Not the Person

When offering critiques, make it about the athlete’s skills or technique, and not them as an individual. You should also shift the athlete’s focus to what they have control over (form, strategy, etc.) and not to outside stressors they don’t (others’ expectations, the final score, etc.).

Establishing individual performance goals with each athlete in a one-on-one coach’s meeting can also help create a more focused environment on overall improvement. An additional benefit of this meeting is that it provides an opportunity for the coach to build a stronger relationship with each athlete. As noted by Jenelle Gilbert, “When an athlete knows that the coach cares, the athlete is more likely to hear what the coach has to say and work toward getting better.”

Create a Supportive Team Environment

Youth sport coaches should do everything they can to make a new athlete feel welcome and part of the team. This can be done any number of ways:

• Rotate starters and allow all athletes to play different positions and roles
• Set team and individual performance objectives that aren’t win-loss oriented
• Establish group pre-game routines and warm-ups
• Keep a positive attitude, highlight things done well, and praise effort (not just results)
• Organize team activities unrelated to the sport at-hand
• When errors are addressed, make it about the team and not the individual

Remember the Person

A major stressor for young athletes comes when they only identify themselves as athletes.

Before practices and games, coaches should take time to ask about their team’s lives outside of sport. This indirectly communicates that the next two hours aren’t the beginning and end of the coach’s regard for them.