Here’s an excerpt from There’s Only One Way To Win, a book Dick wrote about his dad, the legendary Coach Chuck DeVenzio, better known as “Coach DV.” Dick played for his dad in high school, where their undefeated 1967 Ambridge team has been called the best in Pennsylvania history.
- Coach DV and Dick
Though Coach DV was often criticized for tearing down ath- letes’ confidence, he was actually a master at building it. The criticism came nearly always in the same form: some parents were upset because their son was afraid to shoot or afraid to take initiative since Coach DV would take him out of the game for one bad pass or one missed shot.
In a sense, the parents were correct. Coach DV would be quick to inform them that he didn’t want their son to be confident, that their son wasn’t good enough yet to try things or to take shots, so if their son did overstep his ability level, he deserved to come out! What could be simpler? In their son’s case, DV wasn’t interested in building confidence. Their son had to build his own confidence by significantly increasing his skill level.
Needs to be balanced with a lot of encouragement to try things and risk failure during practices, or kids will just stay in their comfort zone. Will not develop either skill or confidence.