Your job as a coach isn't just to tell people how they can play better pickleball; you need to convince them to buy in. One of the most effective ways to do that is to let the data do the work. Here's an example:
Roy and Kim are coaches are working together. The lesson plan calls for a focus on deep returns of serve. After warming up and playing a real game for 10 minutes, four players are sent to Kim's court and four are sent to Roy's.
Roy addresses his players: "Ok folks. Today we're going to concentrate on returning serves deep. It's a good way to keep you out of trouble when you're up at at the net, since your opponents will be hitting from pretty far away.”
Meanwhile, Kim is talking to her players too: “Good work. So, can we agree that deep returns of serve are useful — they help keep you out of trouble at the net since your opponents are far away? Well, I have a confession to make. While you were playing your warm up game, I was keeping track of something. I was counting how many times your returns of serve landed deep — specifically, within 6 feet of the baseline.”
The class looks at each other. Kim continues: “Well, I counted 20 returns of serve. Anyone want to guess how many landed within 6 feet of the baseline?” The class stays silent. “Six”, says Kim. “Six out of twenty returns were in the back part of the court. That means that 70% of the time our returns were either short, or out of bounds.” The players look at each others, smiling sheepishly. “That’s ok” says Kim. “It’s normal at our level. But if we want to advance as players, we need to get better at this. Are you ready to work on it?”. The class nods in agreement and Kim sets up a drill.
In both cases, the coaches did a good job of explaining the topic (returning serves deep in the court) and why it was important (to make life at the net easier). While Roy explained what was on the lesson plan, Kim made the case for why the topic was there. Her delivery was more effective because the players understood in a very real, evidence-based what that this was something they weren’t that good at. She didn’t make them feel bad about their errors, but used simple data collection as a way to make the case that this was a necessary area to work. Which group do you think is likely to work harder at improving this skill?
