Aggressive Coaching

Chances are you’ve seen or had a few aggressive coaches if you’re in sports. Some think that aggressive coaching can motivate an athlete to play with more effort. A coach might yell louder or verbally abuse an athlete to get an athlete to try harder. Aggressive coaching seems to have been around forever, but is it actually effective?

Why Aggression?

Many aggressive coaches want their athletes to perform better under pressure and aggression. The coach may be mad at the athlete’s performance or something completely unrelated. A coach’s own personal frustrations can at times be misdirected onto the team, manifesting with verbal abuse. Since aggressive coaching is heavily based on emotions like anger and frustration, it isn’t the most methodological approach to coaching.

Is it Effective?

It is generally thought that either an aggressive coach or a nurturing coach can be effective depending on the athlete, but many studies, such as one conducted by the California State University Chico, show that a nurturing coach is more effective for most. The study shows that a nurturing coach can develop a stronger relationship with the athlete and help raise an athlete’s enjoyment level when participating in a sport.

Conversely, an aggressive coach will likely not have a strong relationship with their athletes. Their athletes will grow to distrust them and feel resentment if they are always subjected to verbal abuse. It can make an athlete less motivated to play or practice with full effort, resulting in decreased performance. If an athlete feels that they will always be abused and rendered worthless whenever they practice, why would they want to put in extra work only to be further abused? Additionally, verbal abuse instead of reassurance during a practice or game might only increase an athlete’s worries and hinder their ability to focus on the task at hand.

Overall, aggressive coaches have been shown in studies to reduce athletes’ enjoyment and performance in their sport and have even been shown to make athletes quit altogether.

Mike Rice and Rutgers Basketball Team:

A study was done by researchers at Clemson University on the aggressive coaching method of Mike Rice, the coach of the Division 1 Rutgers College Basketball team. The results supported the idea that an aggressive coach isn’t effective. Under Rice’s coaching, the team went on a losing streak and many athletes on the Rutgers team transferred out of the team due to Rice’s aggressive coaching. 130 college athletes participated in the study and a statistically significant amount of them reported that such coaches would hinder their athletic performance.

Conclusion:

Coaches are leaders and are responsible for the success or failure of their teams. A team is only as good as their coach since that’s who they look up to and follow. If a coach is always negative, that negativity will spread to the rest of the team. Aggressive coaching methods rarely work to improve a team’s performance and most of the time, they only result in the opposite.

Sources:

Irvine, Martha. “Coaches, Sports Psychologist Consider Effectiveness of Aggressive versus Nurturing Coaching Styles - The DePaulia.” The DePaulia, 27 Sept. 2021, https://depauliaonline.com/55012/focus/coaches-sports-psychologist-consider-effectiveness-of-aggressive-versus-nurturing-coaching-styles/.

Auerbach, Nicole. “Study: Aggressive Coaching Isn’t the Best Coaching.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 16 Apr. 2013, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2013/04/15/clemson-study-aggressive-coaching-mike-rice/2084539/.

Duque, Victor Hugo, et al. “Analysis of the Different Scenarios of Coach’s Anger on the Performance of Youth Basketball Teams.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Jan. 2022, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8744875/.