So what does that mean?  This means that I, as a coach, must constantly be assessing not only the talent of my players, but also my talent as a coach.  I have to become the best possible teacher I can be in order to benefit as many players as I possible can.  It is my obligation to create a system that will produce the greatest number of players that can function in our sport at the highest possible level.

In my mind the “best” means players that fit into a particular system that produces a result that their coach is looking to develop.  My coaching style is very different than most.  That does not mean that it is better or worse, it just means that it is different.  In my mind the best players, no matter what sport they play, can adjust and adapt to the changing landscape of the environment of the contest around them. Having the ability to adjust means that a player is able to react to anything that develops. 

I believe this ability to react can be defined as creativity.  Being a creative player is not easy.  There are very few players who naturally possess the ability to be creative.  There are many components that are required to be creative such as athleticism, knowledge and quick thinking. 

Raw athletic talent is often a natural gift, but is also something that can be developed through hard work in the weight room and on the track.  Learning how to become a smarter player takes a relentless desire to evaluate how the game is played and is often dependent upon how a player is coached.  Quick thinking is a result of having great athleticism coupled with the ability to rely on your knowledge of the game to react to different situations. 

When I look at what makes a great player I see a player that can pair great athleticism with a solid physical and mental fundamental knowledge of the game, and be able to apply all of those different yet simple components together and tackle complex and ever evolving landscapes within the environment of an athletic contest.

A player that can do all of this, in my mind, is athletically creative.

So, what allows a player to become more creative?  Can we develop a sense of creativity in our athletes?  In order to understand how we can make this a reality we need to look at what makes certain people more creative than others.

Studies have shown that people who are left brained are more analytical. Michael P. Pitck has stated, “The left brain is associated with verbal, logical, and analytical thinking. It excels in naming and categorizing things, symbolic abstraction, speech, reading, writing, arithmetic. The left brain is very linear: it places things in sequential order -- first things first and then second things second, etc. If you reflect back upon our own educational training, we have been traditionally taught to master the 3 R's: reading, writing and arithmetic -- the domain and strength of the left brain.”  

He goes on to describe the function of a right brained individual. “The right brain, on the other hand, functions in a non-verbal manner and excels in visual, spatial, perceptual, and intuitive information. The right brain processes information differently than the left brain. For the right brain, processing happens very quickly and the style of processing is nonlinear and non-sequential. The right brain looks at the whole picture and quickly seeks to determine the spatial relationships of all the parts as they relate to the whole. This component of the brain is not concerned with things falling into patterns because of prescribed rules. On the contrary, the right brain seems to flourish dealing with complexity, ambiguity and paradox. At times, right brain thinking is difficult to put into words because of its complexity, its ability to process information quickly and its non-verbal nature. The right brain has been associated with the realm of creativity.”

So again, what does this mean?  And what does this mean to athletic development of young people?  It means that in order to perform creative, or more right brained functions, a player must master remedial tasks or, left brained requirements.  If we want our players to be more creative on the field of play we simply need them to become instinctively proficient in the basic fundamentals, or left brained tasks, required by whatever sport they play.

We, as coaches, in an attempt to develop more creative athletes must provide our players a system that enables them to master fundamental basics to allow the right side of their brain to perform creative athletic results. 

In an athletic age where so much emphasis is put on games, playing and winning at younger ages, we poorly serve our young athletes by not focusing on more practice, more basics and more fundamentals.

If our ultimate goal, as coaches, is to produce the most creative athletes, able to adapt to any scenario they are faced with, then we, as coaches, must provide them with an athletic system with a true focus and commitment to the foundation of any great athletic career.