Should Men and Women Be Coached Differently?
If one were to put a group of coaches from around the country in a room and ask the question; should male and female athletes be coached differently, a debate would guaranteed be started. Some believe males are better at handling hard driven criticism and can be yelled at more often. Others believe that women are more coachable athletes because males think they already know everything about the sport. The answer to this question is far less complex than what people make it appear to be. At the end of the day, every person, no matter male or female, prefer a certain coaching style that they believe is ideal and critical to their sport development. Coaching is not necessarily an issue on gender, but rather an individual preference.
Throughout society women are said to be more emotional. Along with this, many theorize that a woman is more likely to take overall team criticism personally and internalize it, leaving her feeling like a coach is directly attacking or correcting her. The female brain has a different structure than a males brain which produces traits such as the women brain being more sensitive to conflict and stress. So yes, a girl may walk away after a harsh team discussion about why they lost feeling as though it was all her fault because that is how her brain is wired to think. But that should not mean that she should be coached differently, that should not mean that a coach should avoid all large portions of intense constructive criticism when coaching a group of female athletes.
Coaches are also sometimes encouraged to coach female team sports differently as many believe that team chemistry and bonding is more important to women. Women are characterized to be catty and have not had the best history of building each other up. Every group of women is different however, and it is unfair to assume that every all girl team will have drama that could affect the team during a game. This should also not mean that coaches of male sports should not pay as much attention on producing team chemistry.
Coaching is a hard job and nobody can be the ideal coach for every player on the team. But instead of looking at gender differences, it is more important to look at how each individual best responds to corrections. Yes, maybe female brains are more likely to blame themselves for the teams losses, but that does not mean that there are not female athletes out there who best react to loud screaming from their coaching staff. This does not mean that there are not female athletes out there who could care less about what her teammate said about her last practice when she repeatedly messed up. Males and females have their differences, but so do all individuals, and it is vital to remember that gender is not necessarily impacting an athlete's response to coaching.
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