Good coaching equals winning athletes, exceptional people
“Good coaching, like good leadership, is having the ability to cause positive change,” says Dr. Kent Schlichtemeier, Concordia Hall of Fame Women’s Basketball coach and professor of Principles of Coaching and Leadership at Concordia University Irvine. In coaching, he says, “you’re striving to cause positive change in the lives of athletes while helping them compete successfully.” In addition to creating winning athletes on the field, good coaching is about creating championship people through character development, says Dr. Schlichtemeier. “Character comes from the Greek meaning ‘to engrave.’ So parents, teachers and coaches, and clergy seek to engrave positive values onto the hearts of children from the day they’re born,” he says. “Good coaches strive to reinforce the parent’s pursuit of inculcating positive values into the lives of kids so that they will be successful, productive, happy citizens throughout their lives.” Because coaches have an athlete’s undivided atte