I remember the day I understood for the first time the importance of teaching my young athletes to stand out, to be ok with being in the spotlight. Up until that day, it had never occurred to me that it could be a skill, let alone one that could be taught!
It was a Saturday morning practice and I had two dozen of 11 and under swimmers all at the regional level under my care. I was a new coach in the club so the athletes and I didn’t know each other very much yet. I knew of their goals and aspirations, as I had asked them recently.
I had planned to have a competitive game with them during the last minutes of the practice. My intent with this game was to end the week on a fun note, to observe how the swimmers would relate to one another, to give an opportunity to a few swimmers to stand out and see how the swimmers would react to a bit of pressure. All that information would help me determine the lessons they were calling forth and would help me plan future sessions to suit their needs.
“Everybody out of the water!” I screamed loudly to make sure the kids in the far lanes could hear me too.
I had to repeat myself several times before the bulk of them had begun coming out. They were wondering why they were coming out of the water with 20 minutes left to the practice. I had not told them the plan when explaining the practice, I wanted this activity to be a surprise.
“Ok, let me explain what we’re going to do now.” I said loudly as the swimmers gathered around me.
“Remember, this is the time to practice listening.” I had taught the swimmers to “listen” a few weeks prior and reminded them to practice whenever I needed their attention.
I touched two swimmers’ head randomly and said: “Tony and Lucy, here will divide the group in two. If you take too long, I’ll do it for you.”
They wanted to know what it was for but I didn’t want them to know until the teams had been done. Had I told them before the teams were done, I would have observed a different aspect of their group dynamics.
They got themselves into two groups without much delay or anyone being left out or unwanted.
“We’re going to do a game. The team that wins gets a lollipop each!” I said showing them the bag of lollipops I had kept hidden until then.
Many swimmers smiled and got exited at the sight of the lollipops!
“Think of a race between a 50 and a 100, where you think you could beat your best time the easiest. If you don’t know your best time, check it here.” I said posting the list on the board.
“Only 3 swimmers in each team will race. The time difference below or over the best time will be added for the 3 racers. The winning team is the one furthest below the combined best times. Select your 3 racers wisely. You’re looking for the one of you who has the easiest best time to beat. It has nothing to do with who is the fastest or slowest in your team.”
For some time, I listened, watched, read their facial expressions, body postures while they were trying to figure out who would be the racers.
They were all looking at each other and checking the board for their best times. No one was really excited to race, but they all seemed excited for someone else to race for them!
“You should race!” One of the tallest girls said to a younger girl.
“You haven’t swum the 100 breast in 10 months, you can do your best time for sure!” Another girl added.
Seeing it was going nowhere with this girl, the focus changed to someone else.
This was quite revealing. Not one swimmer was willing to stand up and race for his/her team. Some swimmers had best times in events they had not swam in months and it would have been a piece of cake for them to obliterate them. All 24 swimmers were behaving timidly, reserved and refused to step in the spotlight. I had not expected this scenario at all!
Since they had recently shared with me their dreams, goals and aspirations I became aware of a contrast. It’s not possible to excel at swimming without attracting some form of attention. Before any of them could achieve the feats, they aspired to, they would have to become able to step in the spot light, to be the center of attention, to stand out.
Seeing no one was going to step up until I intervened, I decided that the best value I could get from the remaining 10 minutes of practice was to sit with everyone and have a discussion on what I had just realized.
“Alright everyone, come and sit down around me here. Instead of the game we will discuss what just happened. No one is in trouble and no Jack it isn’t your fault!” I said jokingly to loosen the atmosphere. (Many swimmers looked as if they thought they were in trouble because no one had stepped up to race for their team.)
Once everyone settled and were practicing listening, I shared with them my realization.
“Do you all know Michael Phelps?” I asked knowing full well they all did. (This is happening in the fall of 2016)
All the swimmers nodded, not knowing where I was going with this.
I continued with: “How many people in the world, do you think also know who Michael Phelps is?”
“How did all these people come to know him?” I asked and then paused to let them ponder on this.
I could see one boy was very eager to share his opinion.
“We all know him because of the media!” he said with a smirk.
“Yes, very good. And what makes the media wanting us to know about him?” I asked while making my eyes big and inquisitive, inciting them to answer me.
“Michael is the fastest!” Judy in the back said without raising her hand.
“Yes, it’s true, it’s because Michael does things no one else can do or very few people can do that he is in the spotlight, in the media.” I said while watching how they were absorbing my words.
“We can also say that swimming really fast makes him “Stand Out” which puts him in the spotlight. Are you clear on what standing out means?” I asked as I saw in many of their faces that they might not know precisely.
I took my phone out and googled “stand out”. I switched to the image tab and showed them the pictures. Everyone understood how swimming fast made one stand out.
The mood in the group changed instantly when they heard me say: “Now that we are clear of what it means to stand out, let’s look at what happened before we sat down.”
“In that game, how many opportunities to stand out were there?” I asked looking for someone to answer me.
“6, coach.” Answered Mike with confidence.
“Right, good answer! There were ONLY 6 of you, who could have taken the opportunity to stand out.” I emphasized the word only, to help them see the value in the opportunity.
“I almost received everyone’s goals list and although I believe firmly that you are all capable of achieving your goals and beyond, I really wonder how you will be able to achieve all these great accomplishments, without ever standing out, being in the spotlight! Can you help me understand, please?” I asked funnily to be clear with the swimmers that no one was being reprimanded and that I was really wondering how they would do it.
“When you think about the day your goal comes true, do you think you won’t be in the media, that people will want to interview you?” I could see they were thinking and following me.
“Imagine if Michael Phelps had held back to purposefully not break his first world record, because he didn’t want to stand out too much, or because he didn’t want to be interviewed after the race. Is this even possible?”
After letting them think for a short while, I continued: “Do you think if we did this activity again that we would have a hard time selecting the racers?”
The swimmers were unanimous in believing it would be completely different. They understood the idea but I knew it would take quite some times before the fear of standing out would stop interfering in their behavior.
As time ran out someone asked me about the lollipops. I decided to give them one each even though the practice had not gone as I’d planed.
“Alright, let’s say then that we’ll do this again next week with the same teams as today.” I said just before letting them go.
After this experience, all I had to do to help my swimmers grow out of this was to point out their behavior whenever it was affected by the fear of standing out.
“A case of don’t want to stand out?”
The junior coaches and I also created many opportunities in practices and meets for the swimmers to stand out in something and be recognized. Over time it became part of the culture.
Stand out swimmer of the week and notable mentions: Swimmers who impressed the coaches with either of these: effort, team spirit, character, honor, perseverance, etc.
Stand out swims: performances that catch the coaches’ eyes for a specific achievement EXCLUDING final time.
Stand out swimmer of the set: swimmer who impressed the most the coaches with his/her effort in a set.
Stand out kicker: swimmer who used their kick like never before for a good race win or loss.
Basically, anything can be made to be something to stand out in. In time, this became an amazing and powerful tool for the coaches to isolate and work on any specific elements of performance.
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