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Coaching,
Cliques and the Positive Impact of Teambuilding
by Mike Divincenzo
Editor’s Note: Mike is a very successful second year
teacher and coach at
Maine West High School coaching cultural cliques and the power of
teambuilding. He wrote this piece as an undergraduate student.
As a coach/teacher,
how can you get thirty different individuals with
different abilities,
experiences and races to work together? For the past
two years I have
been coaching high school soccer and have asked myself that
same question.
After taking an Adventure Education class at Northeastern
and seeing, first
hand, how these activities work with total strangers, I
was convinced to
try it with my soccer teams. The tools and activities I
used included a
value contract, having partners, setting short- and
long-term goals,
talking circles, and team building activities.
The value contract
helps set the environment to be safe for all who
participate in your
programs. The rules that I used were: 1) The team
comes first;
2) no put downs or negative talk; 3) give 100% at all times;
4)
be your own doctor and sit when you feel you don’t want to
participate; and
5) I, as your coach, will do everything to make this a
safe environment.
This contract is extremely important and needs to be
completed by the
first practice of the season. This will help your
students/players
to open up, share feelings, and prevent them from being
afraid of failing.
Having partners
is important in helping them monitor their goal setting.
Our team sets team
goals for the year and sets individual short-term goals
weekly. The
partners were set up by myself using Smith circles to try to
get all the partners
to have mixed abilities and different ethnicities. The
partners are responsible
in helping you when you feel that you’re having
troubles or miss
any practices. It was also their responsibility to
communicate and
make sure their partner was staying on tract with their
short-term goals.
The team building
activities help set the situations where the players have
to work together,
trust each other, problem solve, and communicate. The
first activities
were set up to help the players let down their guard.
Smith circles were
used until the groups were divided by multiple abilities
and ethnicities.
The important part here is that their interaction involved
the players' running,
laughing, touching, and working together. This helps
break down any barriers
and helps them feel comfortable and trust each
other.
The team building
activities are important, but the most important part of
the program is the
talking circles. This gave the players a forum to
express feelings
and frustrations. These circles sometimes can be very
emotional and it’s
important that the players speak for themselves and the
only use of “I”
statements if when discussing a conflict on the team, or
with an individual.
This process helps the players to understand where
others can get frustrated
and get made at each other. We used talking
circles after every
activity as a tool to listen to each other. The circles
are also used to
help keep the team focused on our goals.
The end of
the year talking circle was set up where each partner had to write a
one-page letter
to their partner. The letter had to be about how they felt
about their partner
and what they felt they brought to the team. They also
had to share these
letters with the team in a talking circle. This was a
thrilling experience
for me because the players really shared feelings and
genuinely developed
a new friend.
One of my players
wrote, “We came in as thirty individuals and are leaving
as thirty teammates.”
That statement told me that all the time spent
talking and working
together work was worth the effort. Another example of
a letter was a Caucasian
player who talked about his partner who was Asian.
He went on to say
he had gone to the same school with his partner since the
first grade and
had rarely spoken with him. However, now they call each
other on the phone
and hang out, and say “hi” to each other as they pass
through the halls.
One player expressed how he felt about the team. He
said, “At first
I didn’t want to play, I didn’t think everybody would accept
me. I was
surprised to see people helping me out. It gave me the
confidence I needed
to play and become better.”
The year before
we, as coaches, were having a problem with the varsity
team. It had
been the most successful team to come through in years and was
full of talent.
However, for whatever reason the team was split by
positions and it
just so happened that each position had certain ethnicities
in them. The
forwards and mid-field were all Hispanic and the defense and
goalie were all
Caucasian and Polish. The two groups wouldn’t pass to each
other and would
be very negative toward each other. The team went through
some team building
activities after a three-game losing streak. The players
were very skeptical
at first and some even sat out. Those players who sat
out were back in
and participating by the end of the day. The players then
participated in
a giant talking circle and shared their feelings. Several of
the players were
so frustrated they began to cry It was amazing to sit and
watch and listen
to them working things out, and share ideas on how to resolve
their problem!
The team went on to win their last two games and started to
talk to each other
again. I know the teambuilding and talking circle
sessions made the
difference in our season.
Mike Divincenzo
Maine West High
School
1755 S. Wolf Road
Des Plaines, IL
60018
Phone:
847-803-5903
E-mail: MDivincenzo@maine207west.K-12.il.us
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