Negativity in the Sport

Negativity in the Sport

“A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere until you change it.”

Negativity is inevitable in sports. We have it among players, parents, coaches, opponents, umpires, tournament directors, and so forth. We can only do what is best for our athletes; teach them to stay positive and work hard, to fight for the best outcome, to never allow someone else to control their game, and to never give up! There will be people who they know and who they don’t know who will doubt them, try to hold them down, ignore them, and not put 110% into doing their job or helping them. We need to help them runderstand and remember to not mind those against them, because they are just mud on their cleats.

We have coaches who instead of talking mistakes out, explaining situations, and teaching them what they can take away from each game, yell at their players, take them out of the game right away, and never talk through the mistakes or situations that occurred; leaving the team at the same level, instead of giving them instruction and knowledge that they can use to apply to their next performance while becoming better and more knowledgeable within the sport or area they struggled in.

There’s players who are negative when they or another person makes a mistake. They allow umpire calls, teammate performances, coaching decisions, and their parents to affect their attitude in a negative way when the choices made are out of their control and not in their favor. Instead of resetting their mindset during the inning for the next play or in their at-bat, asking questions, or being encouraging to their teammates and using what is happening as fuel to learn and help their teammates and their selves, they take negativity from the situation and bring themselves and the team down, causing a lack of learning, understanding, or seeing anything positive from the situation.

We feed onto the energy around us, especially when a game is crucial and competitive. When umpires are making bad calls behind the plate or on the field, whether we are a parent, coach, player, or fan in the stands, words and reactions affect the emotions of the players, parents, coaches, umpires, and the overall energy of the game. It doesn’t help us. It causes negative thoughts, words, actions, and behavior within the competitive environment.

As a lover of the game, we have to make sure we look for the positive in all the situations. We may get two bad calls in a row, but our players still have to work hard! We shouldn’t let them get down, upset, and negative. We have to keep the energy up, keep their heads held high, and to keep them competing! We shouldn’t allow ourselves or others dictate how we feel, but to use the situations to learn, teach, and apply. It will help everyone in the situation become stronger, smarter, braver, determined, and motivated to keep striving to be the best player, coach, parent, and team they can be.

So get rid of the negativity, and start looking for the good in the situation, because if we don’t, we are letting our athletes and everyone involved down.

“Every day may not be good, but there is good in every day.”

Written by Nikoli Sharp