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The Role Of A Coach And Their Athletes Essay

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Communication and Reinforcement are essential in the relationship of a coach and their athletes. Athletes need to be able to understand exactly what it is their coach wants from them and the coach needs to be able to clearly convey what the players should be doing. This paper will dive more into that relationship and how critical it is to success. First off, I’ll talk about the two practices that I was allowed to observe. The first was my cousin’s Park Valley United club soccer team that was practicing in Golden Valley, Minnesota. This practice had more of a developmental feel as the Coach, who shall be referred to in this paper as Coach A, was very insistent on the technical instruction and specific positive reinforcement. The second practice was a morning practice with the River Falls Renegades, which are a minor league hockey team. Their coach, Coach B, was more focused on general punishment and general technical instruction. But before I dive too far into the difference in coaching styles, I’d like to take a quick look at my observation results. Park Valley’s practice featured specific positive reinforcement and general technical instruction as the two most frequently used communication/reinforcement behaviors. As an athlete, this is the type of behaviors that you’d like to see the most. There’s technical instruction so the girls know what they should be doing and they also receive some encouragement to help reinforce that correct behavior. As a result of this

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