Sunday, October 10, 2010

How To Spot A Loser And Keep Them Off Of Your Team

When you hear the word "loser", you think of awful people with no ambition in life. But that's not always the case, sometimes they are incredibly talented, charming, and fun people to be around. Sometimes they're your captains, your leaders, and the people of influence on your team. They're tricky, those losers.

They can sometimes even look like winners...until you delve a little bit deeper. Both winners and losers are skilled, but losers have an innate quality that will eat away at the fabric of your team. Want to learn how to stay away from those losers? Well, read on!

10 Traits Shared By Losers...and Feared By Coaches

1. Indifference: While winners are passionate about their sport and getting better at it, losers are just "meh". They're the folks you look at and think, "if only they would work hard, they'd be so good." But they won't work hard, because they're fine with just getting by.

2. Disorder: Winners thrive on discipline...of mind and body, while losers are free wheelers. You may think that your player is a winner because you haven't done anything that negatively impacts them. But bench them for a play or sub them out of a game and you'll see that they are unwilling to follow the game plan...which will of course lead to disorder.

3. Selfishness: Losers are selfish, it's all about them. If they do something great in a game, they're excited and seeking out high fives. But if they make a mistake, they withdraw and reject any efforts by their teammates to console them. These are the players that make it difficult to maintain any sort of team chemistry.

4. Disrespect: While winners spend tons of time studying film and finding out how to be a better athlete, losers slide by on natural talent. As the rest of the team is scouring over their scouting reports pre-game, the loser sits in the locker room texting their friends...they don't respect the game or the effort that is essential to become good at it.

5. Narrow focus: You can tell a winner that their teammates are essential to the team's success and they'd agree, but a loser? They're so focused on themselves and what they need that they may have forgotten that they even have teammates!

6. Fear: Winners take chances while losers hold back. Losers are afraid to take risks, so they do things that they've always done that have always worked...they are firmly entrenched in their comfort zone. Their coaches will scratch their heads wondering why the player hasn't gotten any better, but unfortunately they will be the dreaded player with "potential" that is never realized because they're afraid of making mistakes.

7. Weakness: Sometimes losers can camouflage themselves as winners...until crunch time. While winners will rise to the occasion, losers inevitably shrink under pressure. They don't mind being "the man" when everything is great, but when you need them to make their free throws...you can't find them.

8. Freedom: Leadership is something that winners willingly take on, but losers will shirk this responsibility. Don't get me wrong, they may be a captain, but that certainly doesn't make them a responsible leader. Losers want the freedom to slack off on their summer workouts, go halfway in the weight room, and be contrarian in practice. With all of that freedom, who has time to be a leader?

9. Defeatism: As we talk about these losers, I don't want you to think that these are bad people. It's probably quite the opposite, you probably really like them. Sometimes a player becomes a loser because they're soft-hearted and can't let go of a mistake or a loss or a criticism. They ruminate, they play it back in their heads over and over...they're so stuck in the past that they're of no use to your team in the present.

10. Reality: Losers can only see what's in front of them. The winners on your team can close their eyes and see their goals coming true in the future. Losers only see what is instead of what could be.

There you go coaches... now stay away from those losers!

By : Dawn_Redd

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