The effects of yelling on performance
Last week, I tweeted “This isn’t a coaching style” over a video of a popular college coach yelling at a player in a close, late-game situation titled, “Can this coaching style work in the modern era?”. Many defended his right to yell at players, pointed to his record as a coach, used examples of other vociferous coaches, and complained about today’s generation being soft. All typical responses. We are very protective of a coach’s right to yell at players.
I specifically wrote “coaching style”, not “coaching” as the original comment added style, and nobody yells all the time. Screaming at players constantly is not a coaching style, and I do not believe anyone engages in such behaviors, so the answer to the original question is clearly no: Coaches do not constantly yell at players, even the ones we catch yelling at players occasionally during games.
I have no idea what caused the outburst. Yelling happens. I yell. Everyone yells at some point. I find the defense or excuses more troubling.
What would happen if a player yelled at his coach in the same way? For example, imagine the coaching staff drew up a bad play, called an inopportune timeout, or substituted for the wrong player, and a player walked over to the coach, got in his face, and screamed at him. Would the Internet defend his right to yell at the coach? Unlikely. We expect players to respect their coaches. Many criticized Cal’s Fardaws Aimaq this week because he went into the stands after a game and confronted a fan who called him a terrorist. If we cannot stand behind a player chastising a fan for abusive behaviors toward a student-athlete, will we really support a student-athlete embarrassing his coach?
Coaches screaming in players’ faces demonstrates characteristics of bullying (I am not calling the coach a bully; the rest is general commentary). “Bullying is aggressive behavior that occurs repeatedly over time in a relationship where there is an imbalance of power or strength.”1 There is an imbalance of power if we do not support players yelling at their coaches: One person or group can engage in certain behaviors, but not others.
The line between motivation and abuse is sometimes thin. The player reportedly appreciated his coach yelling at him; he may have felt it motivated him, whereas another player may have felt otherwise. “Bullying is partly defined by the athlete’s subjective experience.”1 A previous boss taught me a player’s subjective feelings cannot be wrong; a person feels what he feels. This does not mean the subjective feelings are objectively correct. Often, it is difficult to discern the thin line between abuse and motivation because individuals, experiences, backgrounds, and relationships differ. A key distinction when labeling something as bullying or emotional abuse is consistency: Players feeling shamed, frightened, or anxious due to constant shouting, name-calling, or threatening.1
An emotionally-intelligent coach should be able to determine the style of coaching a player needs and differentiate between players. Yelling at a player one time likely is not a sign or bullying or emotional abuse, but if the player suffers from the outburst, and the coach continues over time, not recognizing the player’s subjective feelings, then the yelling or demeaning becomes bullying. I have worked for multiple bosses who were bullies toward me, but I just did not react, partially to keep my job and partially to prevent their satisfaction. That does not mean their behaviors were appropriate.
The traditional belief is children and adolescents need tough love to prepare them for the real world, which I find amusing, as my bosses outside of sports have treated people more respectfully than many bosses inside sports: The real world, in my experience, is often a nicer place than the athletic offices infested with bullies, racists, misogynists, and homophobes.
The traditional mindset is “threat, intimidation, fear, guilt, shame, and name-calling are viable ways to push athletes to excel.”1 I imagine some of this comes from Hollywood portrayals of coaches, which generally are extreme versions, and football, a sport built around aggression and physical domination. I will not pretend to understand the mindset necessary to run head first at 20 mph into another 250-pound human also running 20 mph, but I imagine it differs from the one necessary to coach adolescents or make a game-winning free throw.
The tough love may not have its desired positive effects. According to a study by Dr. Stephen Joseph, 33% of children who suffer verbal abuse demonstrate significant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).2 Even children who merely observed bullying felt more anxious and disliked school.3 The behaviors may have a deleterious effect on the entire team, not just the individual.
Last season, I coached a player who managed to play for two coaches during her college career who were fired for abusive behaviors. In one situation, the behaviors brought the players together; they bonded through the trauma to help each other survive. Before the reports surfaced, outsiders commented on the players’ togetherness and attributed it to the coach’s environment. They were, in a sense, correct, although not in the way in which they believed. The coach’s environment did create the togetherness due to the shared trauma.
Another player described abusive behaviors by two of her college coaches, although both continue to coach, and she did not call the behaviors abuse. She considered one tough love and the other bad coaching or favoritism. Everything she described was consistent with abuse: Name-calling, shaming, threats, favoritism, and more. I coached four players on one team who had played for eight coaches at a total of seven colleges, and four of their coaches demonstrated abusive behaviors. Those numbers align with other reports estimating roughly 45-50% of coaches have bullied an athlete previously.1
Enduring emotional abuse or bullying elevates cortisol, the stress hormone, after recent abuse and when abuse is anticipated.4 Performance tends to decline with raised cortisol.5 If a player or players feel the coach’s yelling during a game is emotional abuse or bullying, it may negatively affect performance regardless of whether the yelling is directed at the player. The yelling may increase anxiety, which is unlikely to aid performance, and/or cortisol levels, which increases stress and diminishes performance.
Raised cortisol levels also diminish people’s ability to think clearly and learn.1 Yelling at players directly before drawing up a play or changing a team’s strategy in an important moment may increase the likelihood of players forgetting the plan or not executing correctly, which often leads to more yelling. However, athletes may not recall the abusive statements after being yelled at because the increased cortisol diminishes the ability to think clearly.1
The recent incident created an online stir, and the defense of the actions and yelling in general were troubling. Why do we believe coaches should have the freedom to yell at players? What are the positive responses we believe the yelling will accomplish? Can we not accomplish these without yelling and screaming?
Everyone loses his or her temper on occasion, and that does not make one a bad person or coach. In my first season as a college coach, our best player played poorly in a road game. She looked out of it. I tried to be positive. I tried to sub for her. She appeared not to be there, which was uncharacteristic. At a timeout, I walked out, met her, and yelled at her. I was not even mad, and my volume was not too high, as nobody heard what I said. I was trying to motivate her or wake her up. She was not herself, and nothing seemed to work.
The players still talked about it the next season because it was so out of character with my normal behaviors. It shocked all of them. It was a mistake with her and the team, and it affected our relationship for at least another week. I had the best intentions and my actions were not out of anger or fear or an attempt to do anything but help her perform better, closer to her full capabilities, but it was still wrong. Even if her performance had improved, the method would have been wrong. Sometimes players (and coaches) have bad days.
The idea players need tough love, and therefore coaches should yell at, physically punish, and/or embarrass players is outdated, but it has nothing to do with this generation being soft. These behaviors adversely affected numerous players and people in previous generations, but less was shared publicly. My high-school coaches would never get away with things they got away with then, and that is good because several were awful humans and coaches, regardless of their records. Elevating and improving coaching behaviors is not a sign of a lost generation, but progress. We should want to treat people better, including our players. Holding players to high standards does not require yelling, demeaning, or threatening them. Coercing certain behaviors through threats is not coaching, although it certainly occurs. We should strive to uplift our players and to hold ourselves to higher standards as coaches, while also acknowledging that the three-second highlights we see on social media do not encapsulate the entirety of a coach’s behaviors, actions, or style.
References
Schinnerer, J. (2009). The consequences of verbally abusive athletic coaches. Psych Central.
University Of Warwick. (2003). New research dispels popular myth that a bully's words will never hurt you. ScienceDaily, April 17.
Nishina, A. & Juvonen, J. (2005). Daily reports of witnessing and experiencing peer harassment in middle school. Child Development, 76(2), 435-50.
Carney, J. V., Hazler, R. J., Oh, I., Hibel, L. C., & Granger, D. A. (2010). The relations between bullying exposures in middle childhood, anxiety, and adrenocortical activity. Journal of School Violence, 9(2), 194–211.
Lim, I.S. (2018). Comparative analysis of the correlation between anxiety, salivary alpha amylase, cortisol levels, and athletes’ performance in archery competitions. Journal of Exercise Nutrition & Biochemistry, 22(4), 69-74.
Youth sports is one of the spaces where the coach maintains complete control and power— and it’s a huge power differential between an adult and a child to begin with, let alone adding control over starting positions and playing time. While I believe there is a fair amount of exaggeration about how prevalent this kind of behavior is, it’s really difficult to overstate how disturbing it is to see a adult berating a 4th or 5th grade child for something that happened on a basketball court.
The irony is that the impulse to berate a kid over a mistake, in my opinion, is born of the coach’s fear that he or she will be judged based on a child’s play. It’s as if they’re trying to communicate to the crowd “See? I know he made a mistake! I’ve told him a thousand times! This happened because he’s being a bad player, not me being a bad coach!!!”
If you’ve ever seen a kid on the receiving end of something like that, it’s ridiculous and completely heartbreaking.
I yell sometimes: usually when players are talking to each other or distracting another player when I am explaining a point. Not always on the first offence, but definitely after the third or fourth attempt.
I also yell when I see a potential accident/ safety issue 'STOP'.
Otherwise, I have learnt that yelling was often a sign of my fatigue/frustration rather than the players doing anything wrong.
I asked one athlete, who was struggling at a National Championships, 'Would it help if I gave you a massive kick up the backside?' she said, 'no.' But it broke the tension a little.