Power Talk by Jason Vittrup - Soccer Psychology

This article was taken from Jason Vittrup's book, entitled Into Soccer Psychology. Jason is a former State Director of Coaching for the Alabama Youth Soccer Association and is now the Director of Coaching at Les Bois United Soccer Club in Boise, Idaho. He has agreed to let us post his coaching articles on this website. You may contact Jason by e-mail at JVittrup@aol.com. This article remains the property of the author. You may also purchase Jason's videotape 25 Moves and Exercises (Order # 5042) on-line from Sysko's or at 1-800-932-2534.

Power Talk

     The words coaches use when speaking to players are very important. How important? Consider the effect the words of the Bible have had, or those of the Emancipation Proclamation. These words are not merely scribbles on a piece of paper. They have changed the world, affected more people than imaginable. Does the English language have a word that means, precisely, "the effect of the written word on the uncountable?" Not really. For this reason, we have a hard time experiencing the reality of the situation. Sure, we might be able to come close to what we think is visualizing it, or experiencing it through a feeling, but the additional dimension of articulation brings it to life. It becomes a reality that can be translated to others. The point is, without words to symbolize something, it is very difficult to experience. With words, however, change can be induced on a grand scale.

      Words are the building blocks of symbolic systems. They enlarge the mind's capacity to store stimuli, and open the way to abstract thinking. From the Greek original logos, words enable one to think logically. The power of a simple change in words can be seen in the experience of PIE, a national trucking service. A number of years ago, PIE discovered that it was losing more than a quarter of a million dollars a year because of mistakes by its own employees...mislabeling containers, misidentifying products...simple mistakes. After researching the cause, the company discovered that 60% of their products had problems. So PIE decided to change how their employees perceived themselves. By changing their perception, PIE hoped the employees would change their commitment to quality. So one small change in vocabulary was made.. -from now on, the employees were referred to not as truckers, not as workers, but as craftsmen.

      Initially, people thought the change was rather silly. What was the difference? The job was still the saute. But after a while, the employees began referring to themselves as craftsmen, and their perception changed. In less than thirty days, the mistakes were reduced to less than 10%, all beginning with the change of one word.

     The moral is this: if the only thing that changes is the word, then the experiences are scarcely affected. But if words succeed in changing routine emotional patterns, nothing is the same! Below is a list of words that can change the emotional state attached to both life and soccer: try becomes will, problems become challenges, substitutes become contributors, overtime becomes action time, losses become learning experiences, long distance runs become tension relievers, frustrated becomes temporarily blocked, practices become developmental sessions, wasted becomes un-resourceful, comer kickers become crossing specialists, lucky becomes opportunistic, fear becomes inaction, setback becomes feedback.

      Everything a coach does or says must have a positive impact upon his team, no matter how insignificant or small the matter seems. For instance, telling a player to "play the ball to your teammates so we can keep possession" has a much more positive effect than telling them, "Quit turning the ball over! " The player told in this manner is possibly more rattled now than if the coach had said nothing. To understand why, we must understand the psychology behind the statement.

     Despite what are probably good intentions on the part of the sender, the message received is loaded with explosives...beginning with the word "Quit..." Quit rarely brings to mind fond memories. Whenever you hear it, somewhere in the back of your mind, you might remember all the times someone called you a 'quitter'; or occasions when something was absolutely no fun, so you decided to do something else; or maybe the feeling of getting scolded for a certain behavior. Whatever the reaction, chances are, the receiver of the message has already been subconsciously sent into a negative state, with one word.

     The human mind, upon hearing the phrase "turning the ball over, " records it and, consciously or subconsciously, is further tempted to plummet. Why? First, we know that the subconscious mind records everything. This is why through hypnosis, the human mind is capable of revealing detailed information about even the most trivial matters. The player's mind is likely to record the negatives and, deep inside, allow them to fester, to infect, to wound. If the subconscious gets consistently plastered with negative statements, it is likely to either believe them (which lowers self-esteem), or resent them (which leads to rebellion).

      Secondly, I bet many of you reading this are visualizing the meaning of these words, "turning the ball over." Obviously, this is an image of failure. Intense visualizations have the ability to cause the body to respond in ways consistent to that experience. The body has very little recourse since it cannot distinguish between reality and perceived reality. So players who are told to quit "turning the ball over" are more likely to physiologically respond with increased anxiety...sweaty palms, a higher heart rate, tightened muscles, and a repeated visualization of failure...than if nothing had been said at all. Negative statements are most successfully used as a last resort...when all else has failed.

      Contrast this with the positive statement, "Pass the ball to your teammates." Remember: words send as many, if not more, subconscious messages as they do conscious ones. This phrase allows the player to visualize himself succeeding. Any time we have an image of ourselves succeeding, our chances for success have already skyrocketed. Why? Because the body begins to correspond with that vision: the muscles relax, the breathing process becomes deeper, the heart rate slows down, anxiety dissipates, and there is a progressive image to follow.

     But even more importantly, the player receives a message from the coach that says, "I have high expectations of you. I expect you to succeed." If that message is consistently sent, and it is sincere, it is hard for the player to do much less than adapt. And instead of causing a possible rebellion by using negative motivation - threats, sarcasm, shouting at him, cynicism - the coach now plants a seed for desire within that player. The bottom line is this - threats, sarcasm, being cynical, and shouting may cause the goose to lay one more golden egg, but it might be the last.

Jason Vittrup is the former Director of Coaching for the Alabama Youth Soccer Association and is currently living in Boise, Idaho and is the director of coaching for the Les Bois United Girls' Soccer Club.