Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #172: Gill1918 Presents Chad Gunnelson "Part 2 Lessons Learned from Coaching Great Women!"

Transcript

#172: Gill1918 Presents Chad Gunnelson "Part 2 Lessons Learned from Coaching Great Women!" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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  coaches, for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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  Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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  you grow as a coach. We're bringing the once a year
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  track clinic straight to your ears daily.
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  Interested in creating your own episode?
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  Everyone's welcome to participate.
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  Check out the show notes below For more information.
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  Now let's get into today's topic.
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  Now, talking about words mattering at home, I think it's
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  important to think about the language we use too as coaches.
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  Often I will be at a track meet or I'll even be at, well, no,
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  not at our practice anymore, but I will hear coaches or I'll even
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  your parents and I will hear someone.
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  Look to the new freshman. Tall gal, man, you're tall.
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  I bet you could be a good hurdler.
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  While the junior who's trying to make it to the state meet that
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  year in the hurdles sits 6 inches shorter than her and
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  hears you say, well, shoot, I'm not tall, so I guess I'm not
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  going to be a good hurdler, right?
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  I hear coaches mention things that are out of our control.
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  I hear coaches say things. I wish you were a little taller.
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  I wish this or I wish that about things that we as humans can't
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  control, OK? And that language, OK, matters
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  extremely differently to our women.
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  And we talk to them that way. We compare them to others.
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  And if you haven't heard, the cliche comparison is the thief
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  of joy. You need to write that down and
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  you need to tattoo it on your palm and you need to reload it.
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  Everything, every single time you go to practice, OK?
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  We need to think about the language we use as coaches.
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  Also, we need to think about the language that we allow the men
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  on our teams to use around our women, OK?
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  Women in the room that I coach know that I swear.
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  Yes, I do, OK. I do a lot of exciting, but I
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  love to be excited. I love to yell, but I never
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  swear at someone. I never swear about someone OK,
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  but there's a couple things that we will never say and are never
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  allowed to be said in our program.
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  The 1st and most important one is the B word.
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  OK, because more often than not, the B word is only used in a
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  derogatory way towards women. So you can drop the F bomb if
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  you want, but if you drop the B word, we're dropping you.
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  I'm serious. And so our men often learn at
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  home or they learn on TV or they learn somewhere else other than
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  our teams how they think it's OK to speak, how they think it's OK
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  to speak in public, how to speak in front of women.
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  And it is extremely important and another reason why I would
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  share that I think it is so important to somehow intertwine
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  or connect and work collaboratively with our boys
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  and girls teams or our men's and women's teams to help them
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  understand, OK. And so we need to make sure that
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  the language that our teams are using, OK, is thoughtful of
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  that. Now, when it comes to women
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  being different, it's also the words that matter, the language
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  that they use with themselves. All right, I'm just going to say
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  more often than not, I firmly feel that women will find a way
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  to ease anxiety through self deprecation.
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  So they'll come up to you and they'll say, hey, coach, I don't
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  know if this is going to be the best, but I'll do my best or
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  hey, coach, I haven't been feeling great today.
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  I don't want to let you down, but you know, I'll, I'll, I'll
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  run it if you really need me to. OK, If you ever walk around,
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  you're lot like, well, don't mention you're a male coach of
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  women. Don't walk around locker room.
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  But like if you walk around your cubby areas, you walk around
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  your foam rolling groups, you walk around kind of the, the
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  little circle when they're tying up, lacing up their spikes.
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  OK, the organic time, you can hear and find so many
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  conversations, so much outward self talk that's negative.
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  And so for our women, it is our job to make sure that we change
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  the language, OK, Words matter there.
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  So I want us to think about how they talk to themselves.
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  I want us to think about how they talk to us.
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  And just as we need to be like steadfast in those boundaries
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  that we hold for the men and how they speak, we need to do the
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  same thing in the boundaries that we hold for our young women
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  when we coach them. We need to think about the
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  boundaries that we as coaches hold for ourselves when we talk
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  to our young women. We need to change the narrative
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  for them. OK?
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  And they won't do it on their own unless somebody role models
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  the way lesson #2 confidence is cultivated.
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  You know, we, we're all track coaches here, right?
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  I think we all know that the most important part of our job
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  is genetics, right? Who's your mom and dad?
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  Coaches are really good at making a good athlete bad, OK,
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  But confidence is not something that's genetic.
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  Confidence is something that we cultivate as coaches.
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  And so as coaches of women, we need to think about how we do
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  that. I don't know if you're familiar
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  with the confidence checklist, but our athletes work through
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  this. They go through this on a weekly
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  basis, like a every mesocycle, every season.
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  We work through that together. And so the confidence checklist
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  is I understand what to do. I understand how to do it.
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  It's 2-3. I feel capable of doing it well.
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  4 is I spec, I expect good outcomes and then five, this is
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  the kicker. I feel capable of recovering if
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  I don't get the outcome I expect.
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  OK, so as coaches, I think very often we create cultures or we
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  unintentionally allow a culture to create itself that really
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  hinders or harms the confidence and courage of our young women.
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  I really, I've learned over the years, I used to think it was
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  like I used to be like I used to want to villainize cultures that
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  did that. And I realized most situations,
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  it's unintentional, right? Coaches unintentionally present
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  situations that may not lift up or elevate our young women.
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  And I really don't think that it's done on purpose.
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  But are we actually being intentional about how we grow
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  the confidence in our women? Well, I've learned about why
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  women are different is they care a lot more about the why, right?
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  I think we can all agree to that.
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  You got a a male on your team run through the wall, they're
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  going to do it. You got a female on the team,
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  she's going to do it better than him, but she's first.
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  She's going to ask you why. Coach, why do you want me to run
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  through the wall? OK, so that and knowing that
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  means that we need to even be more thoughtful about
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  cultivating confidence. Them wanting to know the why
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  takes care of one and two, right?
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  What to do and how to do. But where we come in as coaches
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  is making sure in our culture that they feel capable #4 we
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  make sure that they can expect good outcomes, right?
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  Talking them through that negative self talk, helping them
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  to get to a point where they can manifest the positive outcome
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  that they want. But now where we come in most
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  and where our greatest responsibility, I believe as a
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  coach and in particular male coaches of women is how are we
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  making them feel as if they can recover if things don't go as
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  planned. So I want you to think about
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  that. I want you to think about a
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  moment when someone fouled a jump, fouled a throw, dropped a
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  baton, OK, False started. In that moment, as coaches, did
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  we cultivate confidence by making sure they knew that, hey,
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  it's not OK, but it's going to be OK and we're going to find a
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  way into the blocks again. We're going to find a way to do
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  another run. We made the finals, so we've got
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  three more chances. Or do we get upset and show it
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  on our face where we pissed off that they fouled because we
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  wanted them to jump farther? That's the most important one as
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  coaches when it comes to cultivating confidence.
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  Now, kind of the last thing as it relates to cultivating
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  confidence is the concept of love.
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  Oh, I forgot some confidence picks.
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  OK, the concept of love. I got some more bad advice once.
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  I went to a clinic and there was a coach that said you should
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  never say that you love your athletes, you're the coach,
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  they're the athletes and you should never love them, blah,
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  blah blah, right? And of course me, my gullible
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  naive self and gung ho, I'm like, I'm never loving an
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  athlete again, went back, I don't love you, I don't love
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  you, I'm your coach. Don't we don't talk like that.
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  And then all of a sudden, I realized we want them to grow up
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  to love what they do, to love who they are, to love the people
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  in their lives. And how are we supposed to do
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  that if we don't role model it? How are we expecting them to?
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  How do we expect them to pour love into what they do if we
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  don't pour any love into them? So that's a big lesson that I
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  learned when it came to cultivating confidence is if we
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  are a coach, this is a labor of love, OK?
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  And our labor is to serve our women, our athletes, and we've
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  got to role model that. Now, I've got a fun quick pick
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  here, some Comic Relief, although you've been laughing a
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  little bit already. I appreciate that.
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  When it comes to cultivating confidence, it is often that
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  people have shared. And we know that our society has
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  has said that women are capable of less.
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  Women aren't as strong, women aren't as outgoing, right?
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  All these things get said all the time and I know we think
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  we've made some monumental movements and monumental steps,
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  but I think we know currently right now we're a long place
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  from home and so I love these pics.
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  Couple Wisconsinites up there. Actually, Jenna's from Jenna's
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  dad is the AD at Slinger. Her grandpa Mel Highmark, if
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  you've been at the state meeting, I think he's one of the
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  longest volunteers the state meet.
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  So she's up there. She is rear foot elevate.
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  Rear foot elevate is split squatting 225 lbs.
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  Abby's doing a step up at 3:15. Kerry at 118 lbs is doing a step
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  up with 375. And then Aaliyah who's from
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  Janesville is doing a 255 LB back squat while the men's
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  baseball team is sitting there like they just like they'd never
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  even put that. They can't even lift the plates
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  up on the bar and then she's lifting it.
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  And So what I realize is we have to put, we have to present
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  situations in their life to allow them to overcome, to allow
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  them to prove to themselves, OK, that they can do it.
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  And so when I went back and looked for pictures, I just, I
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  love these. And I had to, I had to share
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  them. Now lesson #3 our last one.
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  We need to pave the way. I shared earlier it is incumbent
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  on us if we want to grow women in coaching, OK, we need to pave
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  the way. And by doing that, I don't mean
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  bulldozer parenting or bulldozer coaching.
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  I don't mean helicopter coaching.
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  I mean truly showing a path that they can walk themselves.
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  So I have a couple questions I want to ask you and we'll take a
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  little time to kind of think on this, but my questions to you
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  are how are you promoting coaching to women, not women in
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  coaching, but coaching to women? How are we recruiting women to
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  coaching, not women in coaching, but women to coaching?
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  How are we guiding and leading our young women to value sport
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  and to value coaching despite our societal impact, our
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  societal drivers? So think on that pause for
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  effect, all right? The first step in paving the way
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  for us is making sure as coaches that we are truly environment
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  engineers. Our team culture does matter.
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  We cannot just hope that things will work out.
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  Hope is not a strategy, OK? That environment needs to allow
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  our women to meet us where they are and to become who they want
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  to become. They come to us in a position
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  where their parents have told them who they should be.
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  A lot of times, coaches tell them who they think they should
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  be. Their teachers tell them who
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  they think they should be. They scroll Instagram and TikTok
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  and think they need to be something else.
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  But we need to make sure that our environments, our cultures,
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  on our teams as coaches, whether it's an event, groups or on the
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  whole team, presents them with an opportunity to be their
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  authentic self. That's the first thing we need
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  to do is we paved the way. We need to let them feel as if
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  they can be safe to be themselves.
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  Now as coaches, we cannot settle for that.
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  We need to make sure that we are helping them strive to be the
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  best version of themselves, OK? We need to be the coach that
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  they need, not the coach that they want, right?
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  We will have freshmen come to us first years after four years of
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  high school. And they have been both
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  conditions, and I think they have both learned a way to
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  negotiate out of stuff. OK, you agree?
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  All right, that's good. And I think too often we let
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  them off the hook. I think too often we think we
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  need to be the coach that they want.
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  And I'll just be real. 15 to 18 year olds definitely don't know
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  what they need. And no offense to the couple 18
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  to 22 year olds in the room over there, but they don't
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  necessarily always know yet as we go from 15 to 22, the amount
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  of autonomy that they seek and the amount of autonomy that the
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  athletes we coach need is much higher.
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  But we need to start being the coach that they need.
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  That's how we keep them on the path.
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  That's how we show them the path.
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  We've got to stop being the coach that they want because
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  that's not going to get them where they want to go next.
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  We need to provide a platform for them to lead.
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  You can see on here, Captain my first year at Augustana, Hannah
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  Johnson at the podium, speaking at our senior blanket ceremony
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  on both sides of the screen. Cora Heller, sophomore, pole
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  vaulter. Kalia Knox, sophomore
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  pentathlete, heptathlete. There One is speaking to our
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  team in our team meeting. 1 is speaking at our National Girls
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  and Women's Sport Day event that we did on Tuesday this week.
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  OK, you see down the bottom, we've got a couple of in the
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  room, but all of the women in our track club, our youth track
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  club are coaches. OK?
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  Are you as a coach always the one delivering the pump up
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  speech? Are you as a coach always the
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  one leading the warm up? Are you as the coach always the
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  one who's telling everyone where to go and what to do?
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  We need to provide our platform for our women to lead.
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  If our women go through every single year of sports and their
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  coach has always done everything for them, how on earth do we
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  expect them to think about going into coaching and be prepared
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  when they do it? So what I would ask is you think
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  about rotating. Who leads the warm up?
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  Rotating. Who gives the brief for the bus
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  time and the itinerary in the meet schedule rotate?
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  Who's the one that maybe talks about areas of improvement at
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  the team meeting now I will share.
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  You can ask if they want to. Sometimes I do that, but it's
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  usually ones who I know are going to say yes.
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  But then sometimes I have to go and I have to say, hey, you're
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  going to lead today. They're going to feel exactly
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  like I felt when I was told I was going to be the girls head
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  track coach. But they're going to step up.
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  They're going to do it so well. And then all of a sudden they're
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  going to realize that they're on the path to leading and they're
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  going to have experience to draw on in a job interview.
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  They're going to have experience to draw on as they have to lead
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  themselves through life. So we need to provide a
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  platform. We need to provide a podium as
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  coaches for our women. Now we also need to be willing
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  to fire bad coaches. When coaches cross boundaries,
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  especially male coaches with women, especially coaches who
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  are negative, coaches who sow doubt, coaches who don't uplift
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  and elevate voices of our young women, we need to be willing to
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  fire them. And I understand sometimes you
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  may think, you know, it's hard. We haven't had a hurdle coach
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  for 10 years and we finally got a hurdle coach.
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  But they're just so mean. Fire them.
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  We are responsible for the role models we put in front of our
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  young women. And if we allow role models to
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  teach them a way that harms their courage, harms their
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  confidence, that deviates them from a path that's best for them
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  in their future, we're complicit in that.
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  And so we have to be willing to either check coaches at the door
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  or we need to show them the door.
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  Finally, I'm asking that you rethink your team culture,
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  rethink your approach. Think about how we coach to make
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  sure that we teach and how we teach and what we do extends
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  beyond the classroom. It extends beyond the season,
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  beyond the track, beyond the ring, beyond the runway
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  retention. I've been in season, I've been
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  on teams. I talked with with Haley, one of
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  our our captains who's here, she's coaching junior high.
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  And first couple years I had to do a rebuild at East, right,
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  then a rebuild at UD and then a rebuild at Augustana.
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  And every year, the first kind of initial phase, right, people
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  leave. People struggle with the idea of
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  change, all right, but we need to make sure that the culture
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  that we're providing is maintaining standards,
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  maintaining those boundaries, Some of those that I especially
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  talked about earlier, but we need to make sure, because our
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  women care about this. We need to make sure that what
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  we teach them extends beyond their time with us.
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  That is how you retain women on your teams.
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  That is how we show young women that there is a reason to become
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  a coach. If we think that we're just on a
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  team to wrap up our self worth, our personal value in APR, it's
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  not going to work. But if we let our women know
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  that the reason for being a great teammate, the reason for
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  being a great competitor is so that we can become a great
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  colleague. We can become a great partner,
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  we can become a great parent, we can become a competitive
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  salesperson, we can become an engineer.
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  We can fight for that promotion or the raise our women care
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  about more than the guys do, right?
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  They're not actually going to see the big picture right away.
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  But we have to make sure that we are coaching to the bigger
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  picture for our women. If we truly care about women in
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  coaching, we need to be willing to help women find coaching.
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  And we need to keep our women in coaching.
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  And that starts to making sure that they know that their
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  experiences with us are going to transcend their experience
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  beyond us. So in closing, and I don't know
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  if there'll be questions or not. I don't know if we do that for
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  this thing, but I asked you how do we drive positive change for
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  women to coach and for women in coaching?
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  And I'll tell you my answer. It starts with our female
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  athletes. So thank you all.
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  If you don't have questions, it gives Michelle some time to get
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  set up and but I appreciate you being here and I appreciate what
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  you do. And let's make sure we got more
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  women in coaching as we go forward.
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  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
• 22:27
  episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
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  It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
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  amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
• 22:38
  The Guild 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
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  build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
• 22:46
  heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
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  there. So please get a hold of me,
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  E-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
• 22:57
  and let's help create your episode of the Guild 1918
• 23:00
  Project. Hope you enjoy the day, they
• 23:01
  will see you tomorrow.