In honor of Caitlin Clark breaking the NCAA Women’s Basketball All-Time scoring record this past week we wanted to pass on this activity based on a video featuring her talking with her mental skills trainer.

NOTE: As die-hard Nebraska Cornhusker fans we are stepping out of our comfort zone by sharing a resource featuring an Iowa Hawkeye. 😉 

This video (~2 minutes long) provides an opportunity to challenge athletes to reflect on how their body language, especially after mistakes, can impact their teammates.

After watching the video and giving the student-athletes the opportunity to share anything that stood out to them from the video.

Next focus in on the idea of cameras following them and recording their reactions to challenging situations and their mistakes. Ask the athletes to write down what they think people would see?

This may be difficult for them. Why? We don’t see ourselves react. The reality is their teammates & coaches would probably be better at describing their reactions. The eyes of their teammates and coaches are the “cameras” that are most often following them.

If your team is comfortable enough with each other, have them act out the reactions of different teammates. We would highly recommend you have the players act out the negative reactions of the coaches first. It is okay to laugh with each other, but this also gives you a great insight into how your players see you reacting to challenging situations. We would challenge you to take time to reflect on what you see from your players impersonations of you as their coach.

ACTIVITY: Asset OR Liability

Towards the end of the video Brett Ledbetter talks about being able to “Be an asset, not a liability” for your team. How often do we give our athletes the space to reflect on how their actions, both positive and negative, impact the team. This activity is designed to do just that.

NOTE: The form attached below was created for a basketball team we are working with. You can adapt it to your team or group by changing the categories.

After watching & discussing the video, give your athletes 5-8 minutes to fill this out. When you are done, ask them to share with their teammates one way they see themselves as an asset and one way they see themselves as a liability. When they are done, have them turn the form in so you can read through them as a coach. Where do you agree with what the athlete identified? Where do you disagree with what they identified?

This activity also provides you an opportunity to have future one-on-one conversations with each of your athletes. Two simple follow-up questions: I’m curious, why did you write about __________ in the Asset/Liability activity? Can you help me understand your thoughts here?

PASS IT ON!

If you found value in today’s newsletter, please share this link with someone you think would find value in it as well!

HOW DID IT GO?

When you use this activity, we’d love to know how it went for you & your team. If you have an idea to make it even better, we’d like to hear that as well. Reply to this email to share your thoughts!

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

Are you in need of a resource over a specific topic or issue to use with your team? Reply to this email with your request and you may see it show up in a future newsletter!