Coach K Communication

When broken down, coaching is, essentially, being a leader. A coach is the leader of a group a players, a coaching staff, and any other members of the basketball program. As with any leadership roles, there are effective and noneffective ways of leading. Each coach must learn to adapt the way he leads with each team that he coaches (Calipari, 2014). Players follow where their coach leads (Dorfman, 2003). If leadership is abused or not taken advantage of in a positive way, players will either be led astray or will not follow a coach’s leadership any longer; a team with a good leader tends to be unified (Dorfman, 2003). A coach should never manipulate his players, only encourage them (Dorfman, 2003). Coach K leads through the captains of his

Effective communication is defined as sending the message you want to send in a way that is desired and understood by the receiver of that message (Burton & Raedeke, 2008). Coach Calipari (2014) put the importance of communication very simply: “Quiet teams don’t win”. Coach K considers communication to be one of five key points that makes a team great; he even went as far to say that a good team never stops talking to each other (Krzyzewski, 2001). However, not all players know how to talk effectively; learning to communicate effectively can only happen through time and effort (Krzyzewski, 2001). Coach K attempts to develop communication skills alongside physical talent (Krzyzewski, 2001). How a team communicates starts with the coach and how he communicates with his team (Calipari, 2014). In a study of over seventy coaches and nearly one thousand athletes, it was found that players responded positively to coaches who praised for a good performance, encouraged and taught when a mistake was made, and were generally positive and supportive no matter the performance of the athlete (Burton & Raedeke, 2008). Conversely, coaches who did not bring positive attention to good performance, solely criticized mistakes, and critically helped fix mistakes (Burton & Raedeke, 2008). In addition to being careful with the words a coach uses, he should also be very careful about his

Because of this, a coach should strive to have the best possible relationship with his captains. In order for a coach to show his trust in his captains, he should give the captain an opportunity to give his opinion on what to do practices and how to prepare for games. In addition to giving the captain a sense of a leadership role, this also allows for a coach to get a deeper insight into the captain's knowledge of basketball and how they think (Krzyzewski, 2001). Coach K chooses his captains before the season starts; he prefers for his captains to be upperclassmen (Krzyzewski, 2001). While Coach K chooses his captains before the season, Coach Calipari (2014) prefers to wait for practices to start so that all of his players, including freshmen, have the opportunity to become a captain. As far as criteria, Coach Calipari (2014)looks for a player who leads both verbally and through his work-ethic. The ability of a leader to keep his team calm in times of adversity is invaluable. Having captains that know how to lead effectively can change how a team