Verified by 
It's playoff time.
College and High school basketball is over. College tennis are finals approaching. NBA playoffs have begun. Baseball has lifted off...
May is a great time to talk about coaching and the psychology of athletes...
As a coach I love my athlete when he's making great plays working hard, and in game situations raising the level of the team - basically the star is the star because he is doing all those good things we admire
But eventually even your best player will turn cold. When that happens, as a coach, you are faced with a tough choice.
"I've got to pull him out" you think, he's not helping the team. His wheels are off.
So you pull him out... no one can argue that you are doing the wrong thing, but the context of the next few moments is critical...
Sit him on the bench next to you — not down on the end removed from the center of the action — the last thing you want to do to any athlete is make him feel banished; banishment resonates with shame, the lowest performance state imaginable ... no one will play well in that state.
So you sit him next to you and you say:
"Hey take a breather. A bit of a rough patch but we will need you later. It happens to all great players and is in fact a necessary development. Overcoming the adversary will make you in the end more confident. You'll get past this I have faith and confidence in you, I trust and believe in your skills. Get ready to go back in, in five minutes or 10 minutes.
Pulling the player out might be good coaching, but you must avoid the unintended psychological and behavioral message: The coach doesn't trust me; he lost confidence in me.
An athlete going back in to play in that state of disappointment is a recipe for disaster for both the team and the player... Physiologically no one performs well under the emotional pressure of fear our bodies tighten up, our breath becomes altered, we are not relaxed, we lose confidence we lose intensity and focus. Fear is a performance killer.
As coaches we can add damage to the athlete's shaken confidence with miss trust or the understanding that,' the coaches love for me is conditional upon me playing well'.
When winning and playing well becomes the objective we've just moved away from performance excellence that comes from a place of passion of joy of the love of doing, down into a pressure packed place of expectations and outcome...very difficult to perform while under that restriction.
Giving that skilled athlete an opportunity to get back in the groove of performance excellence is really a key to getting him back... you must allow him to be creative, play fearlessly...in fact, that is the core principle behind temporary setback; the phoenix creates success out of the ashes of setbacks. It truly is a necessary step in the evolution of the athlete.
Establishing that trust is the best move a coach can make because it breaks the cycle of fear, poor performance,shaken confidence, error filled play, and replaces it with encouragement, passion and re-creation.
Peter J. Rappa, M.D.
Football/Baseball
Columbia College 1983
