By T.J. Jumper with input from Laura & Jim Jumper
All three of the Jumper Athletic Mentors played at some level in college as well as coached at the high school level. Athletics has taught us multiple life lessons and forced us to develop personal skills. Many resulted from hard lessons and difficult times. Notice the term “failure” was not used. This is because we believe in the growth mindset and that we are looking to improve or grow from each and every situation or result. Failure only occurs if you don’t learn from it and/or don’t improve. We have learned that this belief allows us to move forward and maintain mental well-being.
Some may see the term “well-being” and misunderstand this as meaning everything is positive. It is important to be “real” in the assessment and analysis of how one played or the team played. This allows the athlete not to be high or too low after a competition, but stay even keeled and move forward with a focus on improving to reach excellence.
Athletics has taught us the general lessons of hard work, responsibility, reliability, focus, performing under pressure, perseverance, teamwork, communicating with others, and what it takes to be successful. A price cannot be put on the lessons learned and how these have been incorporated into adulthood. So many times parents and adults take away or minimize these lessons in the moment because naturally we want to protect kids. It is important to coach, guide, and support athletes through those situations so that the life lessons are learned. As adults we have to make sure that we create an environment where kids are not afraid to fail and have the support needed to grow.
As adults it is very important that we keep open communication with our athletes to ensure our athlete’s mental and emotional well-being is not compromised. If an athlete’s mental and emotional well-being is compromised, it is important to make decisions to protect and support the athlete. This is not an easy decision at the time, as an adult you may have to remove the athlete from the situation and/or may have them seek professional help. We have all been in this situation and have had to make these decisions and at times it is some of the hardest decisions we have had to make. Through our own mistakes and experiences we have learned this. Later in the blog we will share some strategies and questions that help the athlete move forward and keep the tough situations as learning lessons.
Each of the Jumper Athletics Mentors were asked what was an important lesson(s) they learned through athletics and how did they learn it.
Jim – Communication is highly important. From coach to player, coach to parents, and coach to school. This is also true with the reverse. As an example, it is Important to communicate one’s role on the team to the player. Must have open lines of communication both ways. Learned this through the multiple years of leading and coaching high school sports
Laura – You have to do what is right for you as an athlete and person. It is okay to put yourself first. Learned this in college when approaching her coach about an injury and the coach wanted her to continue training and competing. After getting an outside diagnosis on the injury, had to go to the coach and discuss what was best for her long term. This is when she discovered the business of division 1 college athletics. Ended up making the tough decision not to train and compete because that was better for her in the long term.
T.J. – learned how to handle defeat and persevere to be successful. Developed an understanding of what it took to be highly successful. This was learned after slipping in the high jump at the state track meet during my high school junior season and getting injured and then returning my senior year to win a state title. Used this life lesson in my professional life and also to earn my doctorate.
The learning lessons typically come when the athlete has a bad game, loses a contest, and/or has a tough interaction with a coach. There is a fine line in the midst of learning a lesson and an athlete being depressed and being impacted mentally and emotionally negatively. Learning a lesson is hard and as a parent and coaches we have had our own experiences where we did not handle the situation the best.
Here are a few suggestions to make those tough situations into learning lessons (in a later blog post we will talk about an athlete’s mental health in more detail):
- As a parent remember the training and game is not about you, it’s about the athletes, team, and the progression to be better. Learned this the hard way when I would get too competitive and emotional at my kids’ games. Also learned that college coaches also recruit parents, so just cheering for positives during the game.
- During the ride home, as a parent, wait until the athlete is ready to talk about improvements. Stick to the positives during the ride home, or just be quiet. It takes a little bit to come down from the competitive mentality.
- Make sure your athlete understands they are more than the sport or the game. The sport is what they do, not who they are. Winning or losing doesn’t dictate who they are. There is more to life than just the sport. Everyone, including professionals, have a life after their career is over or outside of game and practices. In the future we will have a whole blog post about this topic.
- When talking or praising the athlete, praise action and not the result. For instance, “you played so hard.” Stay away from “you are a good soccer player.” The improvement process is not a straight line and there are many variables that play into an athlete’s improvement. One of which is the growth of height and strength. Also kids learn and improve at different rates.
- Focus on the process. The key to continued improvement is getting better technically, understanding the game, and adjusting to the speed of the game. Results early do not guarantee the same results as the athlete gets older. Also, an athlete can improve their process, but you can not improve the result because it is already history once the competition is over.
- Allow the athlete to have ownership of the improvement process. Ask questions like, “What did you do well?”, “What do you feel you need to work on?”, and “How might you go about working on it?” Then it may be a good time to add some of your thoughts of positives and improvement areas.
- Last and most importantly, if a game or practice does not go well, give a timeline to the athlete to be upset or frustrated and then say it is time to move on. Our rule of thumb is you either have an hour or the car ride home and then you have to move forward. During this frustration time is not the time to go into the improvement process. Give the athlete space and once they are in a better emotional and mental state then you can ask the coaching questions.
Thanks for reading our first official blog post topic. Our next topic will be the three basics that an athlete must possess to be successful. We hopefully will post on October 17, 2021. If you would like to get a notification when our blogs are posted or when we update the website as well as services please click on the link and give us your email. You can unsubscribe from our email list at any time by emailing us at jumperathletics@gmail.com