Stay Motivated
WHY STRONG COACH-ATHLETE RELATIONSHIPS ARE CRITICAL FOR LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT By Dave Peszek
It’s critical for long-term ski racing success to
step back and evaluate where you are, where
you’re going, and where you’ve been. As a
coach, you must be in touch with your own motivations in order to best serve your athletes
and your program. Are you motivated by the
challenges of coaching? The successes? Are
you coaching for yourself or the athletes? The
constant cycle of what’s next and new in our
sport? Are you motivated internally or externally? And as an athlete, you must continually
evaluate your personal drive. What inspires
you to balance a demanding sport, school,
friends, travel, family and life? For most of us,
the decision to ski race was because of group
dynamics — our friends were doing it, so we
would, too. At a young age, this is a terrific motivator. But as we get older, we have to choose
where to focus our time in a sport.
Julia Mancuso and coach Alex Hoedlmoser:
motivated in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria.
This becomes a crucial time for coaches,
parents and athletes to begin regularly evaluating motivations. If you’re 15 and your main
goal in ski racing is to beat racer X on the other
team, then what will you do once you meet that
goal? If you’re 19 and your only motivation is
to make the U.S. development team, then what
will drive you to move beyond that level once
you get there?
