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Getting Everyone on the Same Page: Coach Ralph Munger Talks About Building Confidence

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By Jared Wood, Sports Psychology Consultant

 

 

Preparing for the mental and emotional challenges of football can be confusing. How are coaches to know what works and what doesnt? One way would be to ask successful coaches about how they prepare their teams. Another would be to learn about research in sport psychology. This article attempts to help you do both. Parts of my interview with my high school football coach, Ralph Munger, head coach of the Rockford High School Rams (2004, 2005, and 2008 Division 1 State Champions in Michigan), are presented here along with information about research-based theory in sport psychology. By presenting perspectives from coaching and psychology, I hope to get us all, on the same page, as Coach Munger often says.

 

The Research on Confidence

 

Most coaches agree that confidence is an important component of the mental (i.e., what players think) and emotional (i.e., what players feel) aspects of football. In sport psychology research, confidence (called self-efficacy in the research literature) typically is seen as having four sources: 1) mastery experiences, 2) modeling, 3) verbal persuasion, and 4) physical states that encourage confidence.

 

In football, mastery experiences are past performances. Simply put, players gain confidence in their ability to perform certain skills by correctly executing those skills in practices and games. As players master more difficult challenges, their confidence increases. Modeling includes helping a player understand what you want him to do by showing him the correct technique of another player (either in person or on film), showing him his own correct performance (on film), or getting him to imagine or visualize his own correct performance.

 

Verbal persuasion includes everything spoken to a player to boost his confidence, encourage him, or make his attitude more positive. Finally, certain physical states, or feelings that accompany physical states, encourage confidence. For example, feelings of strength, energy, trust, happiness, and love (passion) tend to produce physical reactions that promote confidence. In contrast, confusion, surprise, anxiety, and fear tend to produce tense or uneasy physical states that promote a lack of confidence.

 

Ive included parts of my interview with Coach Munger to illustrate the four sources of confidence and point out some great techniques he uses in his program. Within the interview transcript, Ive inserted some notes, called Teaching Points, to help you recognize each of the four sources of confidence.

 

Jared Wood (JW): Coach, what is your philosophy on the mental side of the game?

 

Coach Munger (CM): The first thing that comes to mind is to instill confidence and remove barriers. I want to create a deep sense of oneness. Athletes have to set aside their egos and buy into our team approach.

 

Teaching Point: Although its not one of the four sources of confidence, teams with a sense of oneness, chemistry, or unity tend to have higher confidence. This is likely related to their greater collective use of the four sources of confidence.

 

 

JW: How do you build confidence?

 

CM: If my guys hear it once, they hear it a thousand times: Trust your technique, trust your coaching. We also try to get everyone on the same page in everything we do, even down to the effort given in practice. Everything is built in the week of preparation, but spirit, passion, and intensity are important. Youll get beat without it.

 

Teaching Point: This response hits on all four sources of confidence. First, his answer gets to the issue of mastery. If you trust your technique, it is because you have performed it so many times it can be executed automatically. Mastery is also referred to by, Everything is built in the week of preparation. Second, Getting everyone on the page in everything we do, implies that members of the team lead by example. In other words, they provide good role models for each others effort and behavior. Third, verbal persuasion is implied when Coach mentions that he tells the players to, Trust your technique, trust your coaching. Finally, trust, spirit, passion, and intensity, all are words that describe players experience of confident physical states.

 

JW: Can you talk about building game performance in the week of preparation?

 

CM: To be at the top of our game, we have to play within ourselves. We have to prepare the best we can with what we have and what we think is the best game plan. I always make sure the guys are prepared, so nothing is surprising. I dont want them thinking about it. Anything that diverts their attention from the task at hand reduces their effort, so I take away as much guesswork as possible. For example, weve even filmed field conditions and other aspects of visiting stadiums so that our players know exactly what they are getting into and are confident about it. No surprises. We want to know all of our playing conditions as well as we know our opponents.

 

Teaching Point: Playing within oneself is another way of saying that players will perform well if they stick with what they have practiced over and over thats mastery, the primary source of confidence. Much of the rest of the answer deals with eliminating surprises or confusion, which are detrimental to confidence. As coach discusses, taking the guesswork and surprise out of a game builds confidence through a positive physical and mental state. Knowing coach, I am sure this also entails verbal persuasion in the form of telling or reminding the players they can handle anything that happens. Finally, filming playing conditions helps players visualize themselves in those conditions. This is a vicarious source of modeling that can build confidence. 

 

JW: Coach, how do you build confidence when its low?

 

CM: I always try to set challenges for the kids so that they are always experiencing opportunities to grow. Also, if a kid has a big challenge in a game, Ill let him know that well get him some help. Ill tell him, Youve got a big challenge this week. But you can do it. Ive got a plan to help you out. Then Ill show him how were going to help him get the job done.

 

Teaching Point: Constantly increasing the challenge after one is met is a way to make sure that players are always increasing their confidence through mastery. Coach also mentions explicitly showing and telling a player how he is going to help him play well in a given week. Showing a player how he will play well, through film or visualization, is a form of modeling. Telling him how he will play well is verbal persuasion.

 

 

Putting the Sources of Confidence to Work in Your Program

 

How do you put this information to use in your program? First, understand the four sources of confidence so that you recognize them in your own program. This will help you fine-tune your use of confidence building techniques. Analyze what you are doing to see if it measures up to the research-based sources of confidence.

 

Second, know the sources so that you can recognize sound confidence building techniques from other coaches or leaders in other fields. If they have a strong, research-based technique, it might be worth implementing in your own program. Finally, if you stick with the four sources of confidence, you will help ensure that your players confidence is based on a solid foundation. For example, there is a difference between confidence gained through a coachs verbal persuasion and confidence gained through reading a newspaper clip from an overly enthusiastic journalist one is a good source of confidence, the other is not. By sticking with what is proven to work, you will help your players avoid complacency due to unjustified overconfidence.

 

About the Author:

 

Dr. Jared Wood is a psychologist in Oakland County, MI. He specializes in athletic performance consulting for Champion Mindset Group (champmindset.com, @champmindset, @woodjared). He may be reached by email at jaredwood@mac.com or by phone at (248) 535-5358. His AFM writings are part of a broad mission to teach coaches and athletes about the connections between the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of the game so that they may experience better play and more enjoyment out of football. He is currently putting the finishing touches on a book called It's Only Cold On One Sideline, an entertaining and informative read about his experiences as a player, coach, and sport psychology consultant.

 

Ralph Munger is the Head Coach of the Rockford High School Rams, the 2004, 2005, and 2008 State Champions in Michigans highest classification, Division 1.






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