Sport is simple. We win, we lose or we have deadlock (in some cases deadlock is resolved by use of another mechanism).
On this scale a coach has a simple task. To win.
Now, it does not take a doctorate to decipher that there is much more involved than achieving victory. The context in which a coach operates will dictate their purposes. The participants might be in a sampling or participation context, a development context, a performance context, or even the much-vaunted elite context.
Whatever the context is a coach will struggle to succeed without the ability to engage their participants. Thus, as coaches we are always on the alert for methods and plans that can grab their attention and achieve “buy in”.
I was a writer before I became a coach. Even now I can’t make up my mind if I am a coach who writes or a writer who coaches. In 2005 I spent some time at New York Film Academy (London campus) learning about screenwriting. As a part of this course I became aware of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey and Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. These books have remained with me, percolating in my mind.
The two books outline a series of character archetypes, for both storytelling and life.
Hero
Mentor (Wise old man or woman)
Threshold Guardian
Herald
Shapeshifter
Shadow
Ally
Trickster
The journey of the hero is the crux of storytelling. Campbell considered our lives a story, of which each of us is the hero of our own story, if we are fortunate we may briefly be the hero of the story of another, and let us hope that our actions never make us the true villain of another’s story. Vogler identified twelve stages of the story.
Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting with the Mentor
Crossing the First Threshold
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach to the Inmost Cave
Ordeal
Reward (Seizing the Sword)
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return With The Elixir
Without too much thought we can recognise many of these archetypes in story telling as well as the stages of the journey. In Avengers: End Game both Tony Stark and Thor refuse their calls to adventure. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker’s ordinary world is disrupted by the arrival of a droid who plays a call for hope, he hesitates until he meets his mentor.
Importantly, these stages are not only applicable to the story as a whole, they are applicable from scene to scene or sequence (a series of scenes representative of a key part of the story) to sequence.
When we look at these stages through the lens of life they can represent a day, a week, a year or the entirety of our own life. On an even grander scale they could represent the story of an epoch, a period or the entirety of existence. Or, they may represent something as simple as a meeting, a season of football, or a single training session.
The Chicago Bulls documentary The Last Dance took its title from coach Phil Jackson framing the entire season within that phrase. It was to be their last season together, a last dance, framing the narrative from which they wove the story of the season.
Stories posses the power to captivate and enchant. If you tell the write story, people will remember them forever.
As coaches we may choose to take such a long to medium term approach to the story telling technique or we might choose to frame smaller passages of time. Doing so has the potential to fit with aspects of a curricular approach or periodized cycle.
From this point on I am going to propose an example of story driven coaching. This can not exist in isolated general terms, it needs to have context. For the sake of ease and familiarity I will take my own context as coach of an under 18 (2020-21 season) male grassroots team, who train once a week and play on a Sunday. This group of players are very good in the build up phase and working their way into the opposition final third, but can then struggle with their penalty box entries. Against better teams they have tendency to drop deep in defence very early, inviting pressure. From here a story can be constructed.
THE SEIGE
Our six-week story is the siege. Told across six episodes (sessions) will be the epic tale of one sides bold defence of their castle while the opposing forces seek to gain entry. Hunting down the weak spots and claiming their victory.
This story provides many options and allows key roles for certain individuals within each episode. We have an ensemble cast, but without doubt there will be certain stars at the forefront. Working out who those stars are will allow the coach to understand their characters and create individual plans. The individuals may also be able to provide their own input into their role.
Great stories have antagonists and protagonists. In this instance I would break the narrative structure and have twin protagonists (this does occur in certain genres of fiction, especially the love story or romantic comedy), unusual for what would appear to be a war setting. The besieged are the heroes of their story, while the invaders are the heroes of theirs.
If possible two sides in opposition should each have their own mentor. Within a story telling approach the coach will take up varying roles. As such we might view them as a shapeshifter, but there is a duality to the existence of the coach in this setting. They possess a meta position as both creator and actor. The coach is invariably the writer of the story, perhaps the writer/director, an auteur in the Hitchcockian mould. Being an auteur does not mean being autocratic, for there is much scope for collaboration, but the our coach auteur will need to act as a catalyst. Ideally there would be two coaches, two writers, one for each side. In some contexts this may be possible, I am not sure that it would be in mine.
We have our twin protagonists. Who are the stars? The heroes? This will change depending on the episode but for the besieged it is most likely that the stars will be the goalkeepers and the central defenders. What are their roles? Which archetypes best define them? They are clearly heroes, but heroes have differing guises.
Willing hero
Unwilling hero
Anti-hero
Group-orientated hero
Loner hero
Catalyst hero
Looking at the list our defensive unit are likely to be group-orientated heroes, but there may be scope to create other situations. The unwilling hero could provide a narrative of a player playing out of position. The catalyst hero might be the moment when a counterattack is launched by an individual, or an individual comes up with a plan or strategy.
For the invaders, the heroes are highly likely to be our creative players. Attacking midfield players and wide players possibly more than strikers if the story is about breaking down the walls. These are very likely to be willing heroes, wearing the mask of the trickster. Their form may be a loner, looking to do the work with individualism. They may become a group, working together to create opportunities. We have six episodes in which to discover their character.
From the perspective of the invaders defenders would act as threshold guardians, the penalty box the inmost cave. Breaching the penalty box, the reward but the act of scoring and winning the ultimate elixir. For the besieged, their story is somewhat simpler. Keep out the invaders, though there may also be aspects of counter punching involved. This will likely be the arch across all six episodes, with a final denouement unveiling whether the invaders or the besieged are victorious.
A final consideration is the shape of the individual episode. The choice of pedagogical model is a constraint upon the storytelling device. Fiction famously is constructed around three acts (though be aware that there are also four and five act dramas). This might appear to align itself with a traditional technique, skill, game method. It may also align to a whole-part-whole method. In my version I am opting to use a variation on the video games design approach and adopt the use of levels. There will be an opportunity for players to practice a scenario or situation before enacting it within a game. We may also choose to use an arrival activity, in which case this needs to be attached to the story. There is potential to use this as an opportunity to recap the previous week, a common practice in episodic television. The use of levels creates a narrative, which I feel fits with the overall nature of this approach. In this game the attackers and defenders will have tasks to complete in order to move on to the next level. On each level they will have a time out they can use and I will also have time out to use. If there are three levels there are potentially nine time outs, that equals a lot of coaching points.
Part one examined what opportunities might be afforded by a story telling approach. Part 2 will be an examination of how storytelling approach might be play out across the six parts.