Stages of Being an Athlete
Joy Stage
- Positive: just love to play; play without supervision or direction; make up own games; looks forward to both practices and games.
- Neutral: I need to learn how to be part of a team — expectations and lessons.
- Negative: nothing.
Technical Stage
- Positive: feel the need to learn more about the game; start learning strategies, more advanced skills, team play; enjoy learning.
- Neutral (a fact of life at this level): the score of games begins to become more important. The technical stage of coaching/being an athlete — the initial process of improvement, requiring practice and correction — requires that the athletes are willing to make choices different from what they "feel like doing" at the moment.