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The Coach's Dilemma: Balancing Playing to Win and Player Development

Coaches are both teachers and game-timemanagers striving for victories. These two roles can at times appear at odds with one another and challenge the coach’s ability to make wise game-time decisions. Striving passionately toward the explicit goal of winning games and championships can prove to inhibit a player’s development. Likewise, the coach that fails to appreciate the value of “playing to win” at certain levels of competition does not best serve athletes. During competition it is important that a coach wisely manages the tension between “coaching to win” and “coaching for learning.” In order to successfully balance these decisions, one must reflect on the developmental needs of young and older athletes, understanding what leads to athletic excellence. The following article presents a developmental model for understanding coaches’ competitive decision-making when working with athletes from childhood through adulthood. Player development and game-time coaching is an imperfect process; however, this model should assist coaches in making well-informed choices and allow the coach to trust that short-term sacrifices lead to long-term successes, and that there is a substantial benefit to the athletes when outcomebased decisions are made. It would be nice if coaches were only teachers. The playing field is certainly a classroom and coaches are the pedagogues who walk the sidelines. Coaches are teachers—and they are also managers. While these two roles are not necessarily in conflict, managing athletic teams to victory can appear to be in discord with intrinsic teaching motives.