When we are passionate about what we do, our excitement is contagious, energizing the athletes we coach.
Explore John’s book The Coaching Zone. We asked John to tell us a little about himself.
As a former athlete and a coach at the high school, college, and professional levels, I am a lifelong learner. My role models have been coaches who have continually reinvented themselves as they strove to bring out the best in themselves, their athletes, and their teams.
I have always tested my ideas about effective coaching behavior, for example, in my doctoral work at Boston University and as an assistant professor in human movement in Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education. Later, as a student in the country’s first graduate-level applied positive psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania, I focused on developing specific strategies to bring out the best in coaches, athletes, and teams. Currently, I am the chief education officer at Yeager Leadership, working with sports, business, and education clients.
For over 40 years, I’ve worked with many high school and college coaches and their teams, sometimes as a colleague, sometimes as a consultant invited to help a team emerge from a slump and/or move to higher levels of performance. I find that it always helps if they spend time clarifying the why, what, and how underlying performance. A huge differentiator of effective coaches is that they are skilled at self-management, leading and empowering individual athletes, and systems-thinking for the whole team.
Yours to Create’s theme and interludes are by Maisie Bull. Yours to Create is produced by New England Innovation Academy.
R. ALLEN BABCOCK, DEAN OF COMMUNITY LIFE
R. Allen Babcock has taught at five boarding schools on three continents, in subjects including acting, directing, musical theater, and theory of knowledge. He is passionate about helping schools transition from diversity language to true cultural inclusion.