This is an article I like to include each year in our player’s notebooks. I also think that these qualities or any mental or intangible qualities you are looking to instill in your players must be a part of your improvement season or out of games season workouts or practices.
A certain amount of growth in maturity (or any other character trait that we value in our programs) will develop with returning players being a year older. But, my belief is that for those traits to reach the level I want them at for the entire season, I must work to develop them from April to October in addition to the daily work we do on them during the season.
I hope these ideas have some value to you and can use them to help your players to improve mentally.
Maturity Is…
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- The ability to do a job whether you are supervised or not; finish a job once it is started; carry money without spending it, and be able to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.
- The ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction.
- Patience. It is the willingness to postpone immediate gratification in favor of the long-term gain.
- Perseverance, the ability to sweat out a project or a situation in spite of heavy opposition and discouraging setbacks.
- The capacity to face unpleasantness and frustration, discomfort and defeat without being bitter, complaint or collapse.
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- Humility. It is being big enough to say, “I was wrong” and I am sorry.” And, when right, the mature person need not experience the satisfaction of saying, “I told you so!”
- The ability to make a decision and stand by it. The immature spend their lives exploring endless possibilities; then they do nothing.
- Dependability, integrity, and keeping one’s word. It coming through in a risis. The immature-have excuses for everything. The immature are masters of the alibi. They are confused and disorganized. They are the chronically tardy, the-no shows the gutless wonders who fold in the crises. Their lives are a maze of broken promises, former friends, unfinished business and good intentions that somehow never materialized.
- The art of living in peace with that which we-cannot change, the courage to change that which can be changed and the wisdom to know the difference!
- Something each of us possesses large-or small-pockets of immaturity: the totally mature individual does not exist. Nor does one grow up all at once. Like physical growth, emotional growth is achieved one day at a time.
- Unselfishness, responding to the needs of others.
“Our coaching staff believes-through extensive experience-that competitive athletics contributes materially to maturity.”
