When you start coaching everyone’s dream is to coach great athletes, those athletes who are athletically gifted. I know that was my mindset. I had my dream come true in my first year coaching. The best athlete in the school, in fact one of the best in southern California, was a shot putter in the group that I was coaching. Initially I remember being somewhat intimidated, thinking what could I possibly do to make him better. After all this was my first time coaching and I was only three years older than him. The head coach must have sensed this because before the first practice he took me aside and reminded me that I knew more about the shot put than the athlete did, he told ne to be myself and coach him. It was a great experience; the athlete was the first star I got to work with. He was very cooperative and worked to fine tune his technique and improve his strength. He even helped with the younger shot putters. He was everything a star athlete should be. He won the state championship in spite of my coaching.
It is not always like this. The exceptional athlete achieves that status because they possess superior ability. For many those skills come naturally, they did not have to work exceptionally hard to achieve them. Others were able to achieve that status because they worked very hard. Regardless of how they got to that that high level we as coaches must be prepared to effectively work with this level of athlete. Generally they do have some special needs both physically and psychologically. Their situation is analogous to the gifted student, if not challenged they become bored. In many cases no one has required much from them in terms of extra effort or leadership. Their ability and performance have been good enough. Yet it is our job as coaches to get them better.
Exceptional talent can be a blessing or a curse. In their eyes they may be putting out the effort, yet in your eyes their work is not commensurate with their ability. This is one of the toughest situations I have had to deal with as a coach. I personally have found this common with the young college athlete who had great success in high school and thinks they can step into college competition and dominate like they did in high school, most of the time they are in for a rude awakening. As coaches we can clearly see the folly of their ways, but for the athlete to admit that they now must now work on their deficiencies is a bitter pill to swallow. We must understand where they have come from. Because they were so good no one has confronted them with the reality of being objective about their abilities. You may be the first person that has to challenge them on this.
The gifted athlete probably has never failed. Now you are asking them to do things they are not good at. To them this is failure; it is not work to get them better. Challenge them to challenge themselves. Understand their level of emotional and cognitive development. They just may not be mature enough to conceptualize what you want them to do.
As a coach you must be comfortable with this type of individual. Personally never having been a star athlete it has always been difficult for me to understand a gifted athlete who would not work to get better. I certainly relate more to the overachiever. Because of this I have often had assistants who worked closely with the gifted athletes. I think it is realistic to match coaches up with athletes they can work with more effectively.
One of the biggest difficulties I have seen with the driven exceptional athlete is the perfectionist standard they set for themselves. For those who approach everything so that it has to be perfect are setting themselves up for failure. It is our job to get them to understand and accept their limitations without thinking that we expect less from them. Try to be sure that we are not modeling that behavior ourselves because we know they are the best. Sometimes we need to set up the training as a time to take the pressure off, a time to risk and try new things where there is little or no consequence for not being able to reach their perfectionist standards.