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Wanted: mentors, not coaches

Elite sportsmen today don't lack motivation, nor do they need to be whipped into shape. What they need from their coaches is tact, judgement and clear speaking

Ed Smith

March 30, 2014

 

	The best way for a coach to win the support of his players is to convince them that he can help them play better © Getty Images  Enlarge

Imagine you are about to make a putt to win the Masters. The gallery is packed, millions are watching on TV, there is an eerie silence as the Georgia sun sets. You stand over a nasty ten-footer, the moment of truth. And then, at the peak of concentration, you see your coach jumping up and down, beating his chest, shouting at you, "Just don't miss! Put it in the hole! Show some guts! Don't back down now! Make bloody sure you don't bottle this one! What kind of man are you?"

Now imagine you are the first violinist, about to make your debut at the Royal Opera House. Just before the first chord, with the curtain about to rise, the conductor turns to you and whispers, "If you make a mistake today, any mistake at all, I'll stab you in the eye with my baton. Now let's play Don Giovanni with freedom and expressiveness!"

And how would you treat a surgeon about to conduct a life-saving operation on your wife or child? Would you threaten, bully and intimidate the doctor? Or would you try to avoid adding further anxiety to an already fraught situation? In all these three situations it is widely accepted that no sane coach, mentor or observer would seek to add to the anxiety or effort of the protagonist. It is taken as a given that the golfer, surgeon or musician is already trying hard enough - perhaps too hard.

And yet in most sporting contexts, the default position of coaches - and pundits who judge coaches in the media - is to assume that the problem afflicting a team or an individual player is usually caused by a lack of effort. If only players cared more, tried harder, felt disappointment more deeply. That sentiment, so widespread in sport, gives rise to the knee-jerk response: give them all a good bollocking; expect there will be plenty of strong words in the dressing room after that shot; wouldn't want to be standing near the manager at half-time.

We will soon look back on that view of how to improve professional athletes as comically old-fashioned, a cul-de-sac in the evolution of elite sport. After all, epic levels of discipline and commitment are non-negotiable if you want to survive as a professional sportsman today. The era of flabby, lazy athletes coasting through their careers while focusing more intently on hard living and nightclubs is pretty much over. Today's professional athletes are generally exceptionally disciplined, committed and determined. Given the scrutiny they face and the scientific testing of their bodies, there is no alternative. As a consequence, the "edge" - as gamblers describe the tiny opportunities for strategic advantage - will not reside in bullying and shouting at players but in honing their skills and freeing up their talents.

	In most sporting contexts, the default position of coaches - and pundits who judge coaches in the media - is to assume that the problem afflicting a team or an individual player is usually caused by a lack of effort: if only players cared more, tried harder, felt disappointment more deeply

It is time to re-classify elite sport and stop seeing sportsmen as a rabble of unmotivated wastrels in search of a sergeant-major to whip them into shape. Athletes in highly skilled sports, in fact, have more in common with surgeons and violinists. They need mentors, wise advisors, trusted confidants. Consider the art of batsmanship. What kind of discipline is it? It requires touch, feel, finesse, trust, freedom, poise and balance. On a spectrum (with skill at one end and brute force at the other) batsmanship has more in common with playing a musical instrument than it does with punching someone in the face.

There is surprisingly little consensus about how to help elite performers to get better. Musicians, once they have reached the top, tend not to have full-time professional coaches. They rely instead on trusted mentors, people who might spot a tiny difference or lack of form. They refer to these mentors as their "outside ears", as top musicians admit that what they hear in their own heads can be different from the "real" music that reaches the audience. The mentor, though not in a position of authority over the artist, is able to see and hear with objective clarity. The relationship is based on trust not power.

Something similar - though it is called "coaching" - happens in many individual sports. In golf and tennis, the coach works for the athlete, not vice versa. This is not only a reflection of economic forces. When Roger Federer hired Stefan Edberg, he did not want the Swede to shout at him, "Try harder, Rog!" That would be useless, indeed counter-productive. Federer sought a new dimension to his net play, and Edberg, as the greatest volleyer of his generation, was asked to supply his unique perspective. The foundation of the relationship was knowledge and mutual respect.

In team sports, there is obviously a complication. The coach is usually the selector, collective tactician, and effectively in charge of hiring and firing. That changes the coach-player relationship. But not entirely. Over the long term, the best way for a coach to win the support of his players is to convince them that he can help them to play better. Appealing to their rational self-interest is the most reliable way of getting athletes on side.

The problem, of course, is that helping players score more runs and take more wickets is a rare and difficult skill. It requires astute observation, tact, judgement, and a talent for clear exposition and metaphor. Good coaches are able to articulate the same point in many different ways - until, finally, one phrase or description clicks for the athlete. A great coach, then, has more in common with a teacher than a conventional boss or employee. Ultimately, his contribution is expressed through the sum total of the improvements he makes to his players.

I never met a sportsman who preferred failure to success, nor one who didn't suffer pain at disappointment. Rare is the modern sportsman who is indifferent about the chance to get better. In today's ultra-professional and highly disciplined era, the starting point for all coaches should be the presumption: these people want to get better, how can I help them?

On Peter Roebuck by a former student

Fabian Muir

I met Peter Roebuck at boarding school when I was nine years old. It was his first summer in Sydney, having come from England in the off season to teach at Cranbrook School, where he was also a tutor in the junior boarding house.

Even then it was clear that Peter was different. Although already playing for Somerset, this thin, bespectacled Englishman seemed more bookworm than sportsman.

He would wander the halls with his hands behind his back, admonishing boys for saying they were "good" rather than "well". When he was meant to be supervising the students, he could often be found on a nearby bench, his well-developed nose buried in a tome. In the boarding house, a hostile world in which a book-burning never seemed far away, this already marked him as eccentric.

His liking for the unorthodox was further underlined by his instant friendship with another tutor, Mr Griffiths, a nutty professor with messy hair, who played the organ like Lon Chaney and crunched on bulbs of garlic as others do on apples. To this young schoolboy, they were beacons in an otherwise bleak environment.

One holiday weekend I was the only boy left in the house and Peter was "master on duty", giving him the dubious distinction of supervising me for three days. In retrospect I think he used those days to test me.

First we went to a dusty tennis court to play cricket. Subcontinental conditions, no pads, hard ball. It was a scorching summer's day, the kind that exists only in a childhood memory. Peter faced my pale imitations of Dennis Lillee and graciously allowed me to dismiss him once or twice, but I would never be one of his leatherflingers.

When it was my turn to bat, he showed less mercy. He bowled spin unlike anything I had seen before, the ball fizzing through the air like a hornet and skittling me repeatedly. We repeated the exercise in the days that followed, but my enthusiasm outweighed my talent. I failed the test.

So he tried another route. Over dinner he asked me how I felt about War and Peace, a classic question to any nine-year-old. By chance I knew the story, having taken a fancy to Natasha Rostova after seeing the epic Russian film version with my father. Peter's eyes lit up with impish enthusiasm and he began to discuss the novel. He extolled the writing and expressed his own admiration for the character of Pierre. This makes sense to me now, for Pierre was also a seeker, slightly out of place everywhere, yet deeply sympathetic.

This was the way Peter operated. He would search out your strengths and weaknesses, then work on both.

Believing he had identified a strength of mine, he nurtured it in years to come, first with reading, later with writing. He would visit the dormitory and pass me "subversive" literature, samizdat-style, to help me on my way. Narziss and Goldmund was one. His standard greeting became, "Hello Fabes, what are you reading at the moment?" I had to have a good answer ready.

I did not understand it then, but in short he was becoming a mentor, a word mentioned often in the tributes that have flowed since his death. He was naturally suited to this role, because he came from that breed of teacher who takes a genuine interest in individuals and thrills in their development. He cared.

His ability to build a very personal rapport made him born to share knowledge, be it in the classroom, on the field or in the commentary box. This is the reason why many readers and listeners felt they knew him, and this is the reason he went on to maintain contact with many students once they had completed their schooling. Our own friendship would last for over 30 years.

Mine was by no means an exceptional case. Peter built long-term friendships with a great number of former pupils, charting their growth and proud to think that he might have played a role. He often became close to their families as well. In reverse, we took equal pleasure observing Peter's own progress, first as a cricketer, coach and teacher, later as a writer, commentator and philanthropist.

Having had the benefit of reading the articles since his passing, it seems a number of professional colleagues found Peter somehow inaccessible. Many of his students and those he coached would feel differently. That is not to say they knew him fully, but it is possible that his guard was lower with people he had known from an early age.

By nature he was shy, but to say he was aloof or reclusive is to misunderstand the man. In fact the reverse was the case, for Peter's love for and curiosity about humanity gave him an insatiable appetite for new people and experience. Far from being withdrawn or, worse, elitist, he was in his element chatting to strangers. An Antiguan fruit seller, Mumbai chaiwallah or Sydney taxi driver - he would talk to anyone. More importantly, he treated them all as equals, honoured their opinions and feasted on their stories. He loved life's colour and different cultures, and understood that the big picture is about ordinary people, not celebrities. His pieces were more likely to contain a quote from his local Italian than from a player.

It was this humanist approach that so often set Peter's writing apart. It was this humanist approach that legitimised the decision to read the newspaper from the back page. Cricket, a dramatic sport that ruthlessly exposes a player's resolve and frailties, a sport that reveals more about the human condition than any other, was tailor-made for Peter's sensibilities.

Fascinated by the triumphs and follies of man, he was always trying to get beneath the surface and discover the causes. To meet him personally meant you had to be willing to answer a series of thoughtful, interested questions, which were sometimes direct but never intrusive. And he would absorb the answers. Often he would refer to remarks made during conversations that had taken place years earlier.

For those more accustomed to reading his columns and hearing his commentary, the skill of Roebuck the listener may come as a surprise. For it is a skill, an important one, especially in a world where so many people prefer to talk about themselves. Peter was a two-way street.

It seems he also had his demons. I never saw them. That he had made some mistakes is established fact. Sometimes he would make veiled references to the past, which showed that it had burdened, chastened and hurt him, but otherwise his view was to the future. It is possible that the charitable work he would go on to perform was in part born of a desire to wipe the slate clean.

	It was an unusual experience to arrive at Roebuck's front door - always wide open - and peer down the corridor. His clear voice would penetrate the gloom, after which his physical form would slowly materialise in the shadows like the Tardis. I quipped about this once and his response was typically elliptic: "Only moths need bright light"

Upon reflection, perhaps something could have been read into his Bondi home, which he kept in a state of almost complete darkness. It was an unusual experience to arrive at his front door - always wide open - and peer down the corridor while announcing one's arrival. His clear voice would penetrate the gloom, after which his physical form would slowly materialise in the shadows like the Tardis. I quipped about this once and his response was typically elliptic: "Only moths need bright light."

Certainly the good he achieved far outweighed any indiscretions, but the modesty of the man meant that the broader public was unaware of much of it. Only now are people learning of the hundreds of underprivileged children who received an education through his unstinting efforts, frequently at his own expense.

This was a natural extension of his first instinct, which was always to help. Often he would do so without even asking if help were needed. He began by helping privileged children in Sydney, but moved on to the far more meaningful task of youths from Zimbabwe and India.

I asked him not so long ago whether he missed having had a family. "What do you mean?" he retorted. "I have the best family a man could want, look here." He then, glowing with pride, fetched photos of a number of his "sons" in South Africa.

For, of itself, cricket had become too small for him. Not meaningless, just small. Around 2007 we were sitting in his backyard and he said that, having become pre-eminent in his field, he had nothing left to achieve in cricket and that "my priority now is helping these kids, that's how I can really change something". If he enjoyed charting the progress of his former pupils, then charting that of the former teacher was much more rewarding.

Another word that has been recurring since his passing is "complex". It is a dangerous pastime to analyse people who are no longer able to present their own view, but it is no doubt true that he combined many qualities that appeared to be at odds with one another. Sensitive yet tough; a maverick yet a stickler for tradition; humble yet intensely proud; a great success, but with no interest in wealth; a man of coruscating intelligence, but given to faints of unexpected vagueness; an introvert with the courage to bare his opinions before millions. He was, one might say, the Morrissey of cricket writing.

In many ways he was born out of his time. Nineteenth-century England might have suited him better, where he would have dined with Sir Richard Burton or been an envoy to the Khan of Samarkand.

Perhaps the key element of the "Roebuck conundrum" was that of a private and retiring individual becoming a public figure. Had he been able to choose, he quite likely would have eschewed the limelight, but it inevitably came with the territory. More usefully, it gave him access to certain people and opportunities to pursue his humanitarian goals.

Never did the limelight's glare find him more spectacularly than when he called for Ricky Ponting's sacking in 2008. We had dinner several weeks after the article appeared and it was noticeable that a number people stared as he entered the restaurant. "I've crossed the Rubicon," he said. "People now know who I am. That was never my intention." I asked what his intention had been. "To say what I thought at that moment." In other words, to do what he always did, often as a lone voice, come hell or high water.

Peter was at times criticised for supposed inconsistency in his articles, writing one thing one week, then something rather different down the line. He also softened on Ponting. What this really showed, however, was his willingness to reconsider his initial opinion, reshape it and even admit a mistake. The same exacting standards he imposed on others he imposed twofold on himself. This was honesty not hypocrisy, a strength not a weakness.

Why was he a mystery to many who knew him? Perhaps experience of how the English media can handle public figures had made him build his walls a little higher, even in Australia. But there was a gate in those walls, which had only to be lightly pushed. Those who passed through it found themselves in a quite extraordinary garden, which revealed something new with each visit. On the 13th I wept as I was forced to accept that I had seen that garden for the last time.

I could weep again now when I think of all the lines left unwritten. Instinctively the eyes of readers will search for his column and the ears of listeners will strain for his voice - the twitches of a phantom limb. Or more accurately, the gap he leaves will hurt like a pulled tooth.

An evening with Peter was always stimulating. The wine was usually cheap but the debate was champagne. 

His mind was incisive, his humour oblique; his idea of a good joke was to ask Prime Minister John Howard on air whether he did yoga.

More often than not, our discussions did not concern cricket, rather literature, travel or politics. Sometimes we talked about relationships and the beauty of Russian girls. I know of at least one woman whom Peter loved and lost.

We also discussed death on numerous occasions. He was not preoccupied with it, but he was intrigued by cricketers who fall into a hole and contemplate suicide upon conclusion of their playing careers. Not for him, however. He believed that the simple solution lay in finding a worthwhile and satisfying alternative, something he had surely managed for himself in several fields.

He did not rule out life after death. He considered this presumptuous, for there was too much unexplained in a miraculous universe, where everything seemed possible. At our last meeting this year, he had no intention of discovering the answer anytime soon, declaring, "Death is about confronting your own mortality, but I don't have this problem because my starting point is that I'm immortal!"

Tragic events have proven otherwise, with draining suddenness. Truly immortal, however, are his words, which cannot be wrenched away from us so brutally and will remain as a permanent gift to all.

Fabian Muir is an Australian writer now based in Berlin

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