PARENTS: RACA THE BREAK

As most programs head into some sort of break, whether that's a natural school break or otherwise, the time at home can be pivotal to ensuring a successful reflection on the first semester and a preparation for the second semester. The influence of a parental or mentoring relationship during this time, when student-athletes are spending more time at home than they have in a long time, can either contaminate or contribute to the experience. As a parent, you can have a tremendous impact on how your child sees the experience they've had and re-centers their mind on the experience they want to have. 

One of the key things to remember, before we even launch into questions or thoughts, is that your child has changed. In college, they've been living on their own, have built in friend groups, and their social structures and schedules are vastly different than at home. If a high school athlete, the everyday interactions they are having at school or in their locker room or on their playing surface are just not there, even if for a few days. This adjustment alone to coming back to "civilian life," can be difficult, even if you talk to them every day and you feel like you have a good handle on where they are mentally and emotionally.

Question 1: What has brought you the most joy?

This question is a great one to lead with because it recenters the experience on their choices. What choices have they made that bring them joy? Have they leaned in to the relationships and the human component with their teammates and coaches? What was the most joyous experience they've had? This is especially important for freshmen in college to re-engage about. If they aren't having a great experience, is it the entire experience or is it here and there that they feel miserable. That's GOING to happen - no one can have a saccharine, positive experience all the time. However, when we phrase it as "what brings you the most joy," we have a starting point to delineate the things that lead to that joy and understand how much of that is in our control, as well. 

Question 2: What was the last conversation with your head coach like and who initiated it?

The answer to this question is going to tell you, as a parent, a lot about the interactions your child is having with their coach, especially the head coach. If a head coach is committed to the #HumanComponent and is #RecruitingEveryoneEveryday, this should be an easy question for your child to answer. However, it is not solely the coaches' responsibility to engage in that recruiting process. The players bear that responsibility as well, which is where the second part of that question matters. If it is ALWAYS the head coach initiating that conversation or if it is ALWAYS the player, then the relationship is not 100-100, it is a disproportionate and inequitable relationship. That doesn't mean that one party is right or wrong - it means that there is now a chance to create a conversation about growth and advocating for oneself. In any other relationship, if that were the case, the people would have left that relationship a long time ago or they'd figure out a way to make it work if they were committed to it. As we've said before, coaches are often the #LeastCommitted in the room, but they are also in charge of X number of players to maintain those relationships with. Thus, it is imperative that the players do a self-assessment about those interactions, begin to recruit their coaches, and expect that their coaches do the same with them. By creating a plan with the answers to these questions about HOW to recruit everyone every day, we can start to shift the tide on the player/coach relationship for the better.

Question 3: how do you know you’re adding value to the team climate?

Any coach or team can talk about culture. Culture is fine, but it isn't the end-all be-all of what a program is about. CLIMATE, the every day decisions we make and the feelings in the room about those decisions, is significantly more important to understand and get, "right," than "culture." Culture is historical, it exists in the background - climate is RIGHT NOW. What is your child doing to add to that climate? What decisions are they making in the locker room (keeping their locker pristine, ensuring they are picking up after themselves and others, the way they speak about the team/coaches in the LR, etc) or on the court or in the classroom? Even in the dining hall or the cafeteria - are they making decisions about controlling what they eat so as to ensure they are fueled for the betterment of the team? How about their sleep habits or they way they recruit their teammates - are they recruiting them to the highest ideals of the program or not? They can also affect the climate by how much extra they are willing to do - asking questions, film sessions with coaches, getting on the court for extra work. Bottom line: are they #StackingTheDeck in their favor and in the climate's favor by doing everything they possibly can, within their control, to contribute?

Question 4: How clear are you on what’s required of you by your head coach?

This question is related to Question 2, but is vastly different. Most players are unclear on what their head coach wants...which is simply a function of many head coaches not knowing what they want or what is required for success in their program. This question, when posed to a student-athlete, is the starting point for creating a plan to get clarity and reach alignment with the decision maker. 

Think about it: if you were working a job for someone else, and every day you got a memo that the vision has changed yet again, but that memo is post-dated three days ago and the next one you get is post-dated to today but three days from now, you're always going to be behind. Vision stability (listen to the podcast on this vision roadblock1) is a key factor in determining the success or failure of the collective AND individual experience. 

By asking this question, you are attempting to access whether the experience is equitable AND whether your child has the relationship to ask for this level of clarity. This is a question that can also contribute to the recruiting relationship between a player and their head coach, and make the head coach have to be more reflective about what's actually being internalized by the players. It may be that the coaches THINK they have been clear, but in reality, they are simply not. Players should never walk into a conversation or meeting without a piece of paper and a pen to write down what the coach says - if they can't remember it when you are asking them, they likely couldn't remember it as soon as they walked out of the room or out of the conversation. 

Question 5: what do you want your second semester experience to be**** and how can i/we support you in that?

The reality is - the experience is theirs, not yours. The reason there are asterisks next to the first part of the question is that there have to be some caveats to the subject matter. Playing time is not the experience - that's PART of the experience. Outside of playing time or scoring opportunities or whatever the external formulas are about having a great experience...what else is there? Are we only on the team to hoop or play minutes? If that's how we value the experience, then there's going to be some serious disappointment no matter what unless you're playing 40 minutes and scoring 40+ a game. What ELSE do you want from the experience? Think back to Question 1: how do we make that a harder question to answer, not because there is NO joy, but because there's a competition for the things that bring us joy? The answer is likely going to be found in Questions 2 and 3 - the interactions with the coaching staff as well as finding ways to make decisions that add to the climate. Further, as the player continues to RACA with their head coach and forcing clarity through Question 4, (take notes on ALL those conversations - make sure they are in alignment and ASK if they are not!) their enjoyment should increase exponentially. It doesn't mean they will play a lick more, but at least they will have stacked the deck in their favor to ensure they are not leaving anything on the table or on the floor and they've exhausted all possible opportunities within their control to create alignment in what they want their experience to be and the actual experience they are having. 

Your job then, as the parent, is to ensure that you are not enabling the behavior that is antithetical to what they said they'd do and what they want out of it. Continuing to follow up on the things they said they want is a great way to teach the value of committing to behaviors regardless of circumstances WHILE still recognizing that the circumstances might not be ideal. 

The Moral of the story

As players go up in levels and gain more independence, we as the adults in their lives have to equip them with the tools to have these conversations. You can make or break your child's perception of the experience they are having. By engaging, however, in a RACA process with them, you may find that they are able to come to their own conclusions free of bias that might serve them better in the long run. Try these questioning strategies without injecting your own thoughts about what's going on and see what happens. At first, players may be reluctant to talk about it or want to give you the answer they think you want. The same thing happens with the coaching staff, too. It's up to all of us to be able to recruit each other with these RACA type questions and create transparency about the answers so we can make informed decisions. That's the role of the sport parent and how you can, in this way, support both your child and the coach they play for by making sure the player continues to grow their ownership over their own experience.