TAKE A SEAT…
Why don’t they just put them on? Why do they keep starting? Why didn’t they change it sooner? Why don’t they just pick their best seven?
There is a particular kind of confidence that comes from not being the person who has to make the decision. From outside The Chair, some things look remarkably simple. And then you sit down, and the decisions are all yours
Welcome to the Chair, the place where ‘why don’t they just…?’ becomes ‘oooh…’
Most coaches start with a qualification. You do your course, you write your session plans, you demonstrate that you can deliver something safe and purposeful. And then somebody gives you a piece of paper confirming that you are now a qualified coach. And somehow that piece of paper appears to confer something else entirely - the ability to make decisions, manage people, shape a culture, and LEAD. There are suddenly a whole load of people standing in front of you who expect you to know what to do, and the truth is that being a qualified coach is a tiny part of what you need.
Knowing netball helps; of course it does. Knowing netball can tell you why the feeds aren't working. It can tell you that the shooting percentage has dropped. It can tell you where the space is, which combination might work better, what the opposition has changed and what you might do about it.
But… Look Again.
Because sometimes the feeds aren't working and the shooting percentage has dropped, and it turns out the thing that needs coaching has almost nothing to do with anyone's ability to pass the flipping ball or put it through the net. Sometimes it's about confidence, or trust, or leadership. Sometimes somebody needs to understand not just what they're doing, but how what they're doing affects the people around them.
Knowing netball isn't enough for that.
Knowing netball doesn't tell you what to do when a player has a confidence crisis two minutes into the final quarter. It doesn't tell you what to say when someone is angry or upset. It doesn't tell you how to make a decision when the right thing for the team might be painful for an individual. And it definitely doesn't tell you what to do when everyone is questioning your decision and, somewhere underneath your calm coaching face, you're beginning to question it too.
When you first sit in The Chair, I'm not sure you suddenly see more. I think you feel more.
Imagine that everyone in your squad has tied a string around you and started pulling. This player wants to win, this one wants to start, this one needs court time, this one is returning from injury and desperately wants to play but desperately doesn't want another setback, this one has had a crap week and a good game could lift them, while a bad one might destroy what little confidence they have left. Or this one wants to play a particular position because that's important for their development, this one has something going on outside netball that almost nobody else knows about, this one has trained brilliantly and this one hasn't. This one is exactly what this particular game needs.
And every one of those people is a human being who wants to feel that they matter and you feel all of it because, for that moment, you're carrying everyone.
Then the whistle goes. Now you decide.
And this is when coaching can feel remarkably like a grown-up version of Buckaroo - you keep adding pieces and trying to find the perfect balance without the whole thing being flung into the air.
Except there is no perfect balance. Because everything comes with something else and that's one of the hardest things to understand when it’s not you in The Chair.
A player sees a decision. The coach has to consider everything they know is attached to it.
I should have gone on.
Maybe. But putting you on might use a quarter that affects your eligibility later. It might alter somebody's return-to-play plan. It might solve one problem and create another. It might be right for your development and wrong for what the team needs now. It might be brilliant in three weeks and disastrous today.
The coach doesn't think I'm any good.
Maybe. But far more often the thought inside The Chair is something much more specific: You're not the right player right now. Those two things can feel exactly the same to the person sitting on the bench but they aren't.
And a good coach has to care about both. Seeing the person doesn't absolve you from making the decision - it changes the quality of the decision you're capable of making. Outside The Chair, you get to consider the decision. In The Chair, you have to consider the consequences.
None of this means the coach is automatically right. Being the one in The Chair doesn't confer wisdom. But it does confer responsibility. Coaches miss things. We can give too much weight to the wrong information. We might have biases. We sometimes trust the wrong instinct. We might make changes too late and sometimes too soon. Sometimes we simply get it wrong and sometimes we make a perfectly reasonable decision, and it doesn't work. Those aren't necessarily the same thing.
That's why one of the most important things I've learned in The Chair is to listen. Have the humility to let players speak because volume does not equal value.
The view from The Chair is privileged, but it is definitely not omniscient. A player knows what it feels like from their spot on the court, an assistant coach sees something from theirs, the stats can tell you something else. You have to listen and decide. Because ultimately, that's still the job. I'm responsible; therefore, I have to make the decision, and I owe it to the people affected to have thought properly about it.
I've also learned that not everybody will like you, and that's okay. Not everybody will like your style; not everybody will agree with your decisions. Some people will choose to leave, and other people will choose to join. You cannot keep everybody happy with the same story because the same story cannot possibly suit everybody, so don't try. Don't tell people what will make them happy in the moment because you're frightened of what the truth might cost you later. Don't try to control somebody else's reaction to your decision by making a decision that isn't true to what you believe.
Be clear, and be kind. Listen, and decide, and understand that somebody can still be disappointed because whilst you are responsible for your decision, you are not responsible for making everybody like it.
Then reflect, properly. Not the kind of reflection where you work backwards until you've assembled enough evidence to prove that you were right all along. Look Again. What did I see? What didn't I see? What did I know? What do I know now? What would I do differently?
And here's something I wish more coaches were told:
‘What would I do differently?’ is not the same question as ‘Did I get it wrong?’
You can make a reasonable decision with the information you had and still make a different one next time because now you know more; that's learning. We expect it from players, and we should expect it from ourselves. Never tell yourself the easy truths, because the hard ones will find you at 2am, but don't sentence yourself to live permanently in every decision you've ever made either.
Take what you need from it. Learn. And then… Next ball.
Because The Chair will come home with you sometimes, and that's another thing nobody puts on the coaching course. You'll replay the substitution, you'll wonder whether you said something badly, you'll think about the player who didn't get on, you'll wonder if the person who said they were fine was actually fine, you'll think about the message you might get tomorrow asking whether you can just have ‘a quick chat.’
Sometimes the relief of winning will be accompanied by the weight of having to explain why somebody didn't play. Sometimes the crucial win will come at the cost of disappointing someone you care about. Sometimes you'll achieve exactly the outcome you wanted and still wonder about what it cost.
Everything comes with something else.
‘Welcome to The Chair’ isn't where I tell you that you got it right. It's where you don't have to pretend it was easy, or that whatever outcome you achieved came without cost. So please, exhale.
Because here's the other thing nobody tells you about The Chair. It's bloody brilliant.
Yes, occasionally there are the enormous things that are a massive buzz. The tours, the finals, the extraordinary places sport can take you.
But they're rare. The real magic is much smaller. You repeat a coaching line until you're sick of hearing yourself say it. Then one day you're standing on the sideline, and you hear your players screaming it as encouragement to each other. You talk to somebody about something they could try. You work at it together; they struggle, then try again. And then one day: NOW LOOK AT YOU.
You get to watch somebody laugh after a day when they arrived barely able to smile. You get to see people carry one another when things go wrong. You get to see joy and elation. You get to be the person somebody looks for in a difficult moment and say: It's okay. I've got you.
You get to show somebody that they belong. You get to help people be brave. And, perhaps even better, you get to help people become the kind of people who help other people be brave.
None of that is shooting technique or defensive set-ups. And all of it is coaching.
We don't coach netball players. We coach people who play netball. Sport gives us this extraordinary place in which people get to discover things about themselves, and sometimes our job is to help them notice. Not look at what I made you. Never that. But look at you now. Do you realise what you just did? Do you realise where you were six months ago? Do you realise that you stayed? Do you realise that you're smiling again? Do you realise what you just gave somebody else?
The netball matters; of course it matters. Hone the skills, chase the results, plan the sessions, analyse the game, remember the matchday sweets and, for God's sake, wash the bibs.
But don't become so focused on the destination that you miss the journey happening in front of you, because the learning is never done, and that includes yours. There will be diversions. Road closures. Potholes. Stop signs. Speed limits. Occasionally you'll become convinced you've taken the wrong flipping turn entirely and have no idea where you’re heading.
Some people will leave. Others will arrive. You'll change. They'll change. Look Again.
Sometimes that means looking at the problem differently; sometimes it means looking at yourself. And sometimes it means looking backwards for just long enough to realise just how far everybody has come.
That's why, knowing everything I now know about how difficult this can be, I'd still take The Chair. Because the best seat in the house isn't the one from which you can see the whole game. It's the one from which you can see the whole journey.
And here's perhaps the loveliest thing I've learned about those strings that once felt as though they were pulling me in every possible direction. They don't only run one way. You carry people, they carry each other, and sometimes, without even realising they're doing it, they carry you too.
So help people be brave and help people to help others be brave. Listen, learn and always look again.
And if you get it right, every now and then they'll help you be brave enough to stay in the damn Chair too.
Because sport needs you. Someone needs to sit there. And hell, you were brave enough to take the seat.
