The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a practical method for coaches of any sport team to improve team performance and cohesion through inter-squad competition and intra-squad cooperation.\u00a0 While the concept of intra-team competition to improve cohesion and team performance is not new, this paper describes a practical, task driven approach for coaches to use.\u00a0 For purposes of clarity, American football is the example used to describe this approach.\u00a0 Although, this task driven competition format can be applied to other sports teams, American football has more distinctive task oriented positions than other sports, thus providing simplicity.\u00a0 Also, football teams use the most formal off-season competitive scrimmage strategies in which the first team offense and first team defense play each other in order for the coaching staff to assess players and test game schemes.\u00a0 This widespread tactic is useful for coaches, but it can be argued this creates division with the rest of the team.\u00a0 In-fighting among the individuals in each squad (i.e. wide receivers, offensive line, etc\u2026) can prevail, and a counter-productive attitude may develop that breaks any cohesive advantage gained as players begin to focus on the amount of playing time they get in relation to their teammates.\u00a0 However, if coaching staffs adopt a task oriented system in which the squad coaches encourage group success and teamwork, and the coordinator level harnesses the competitive spirit, players will be more likely to encourage each other to become better.\u00a0 Pre-season scrimmages should not be scored in a traditional, regular season-like format.\u00a0 Instead, scrimmages should be scored by accumulating points for successful plays executed by any player from a specific squad against any opposing squad with naturally opposing tasks.\u00a0 This means receivers would be competing two levels up at the Coordinator level, and not among themselves.\u00a0 Building off past research, this should also diffuse anxiety levels of players since each cohesive group will be focused on building up the less talented players, instead of trying to dominate them for increased playing time.<\/p>\n
Keywords<\/em>: competition, cooperation, group dynamics, motivation, team cohesion<\/p>\n Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a practical method for coaches of any sport team to improve team performance and cohesion through inter-squad competition and intra-squad cooperation.\u00a0 While the concept of intra-team competition to improve cohesion and performance in sports teams is not new, this paper describes a task driven approach for coaches to incorporate.\u00a0 For purposes of clarity, American football is the example used to describe this approach.<\/p>\n Although this task driven competition format can be applied to other sports teams, American football has more distinctive task oriented positions than most other sports, thus provides simplicity.\u00a0 Football teams also have the most formal off-season competitive scrimmage strategies in which the first team offense and defense play each other in order for the coaching staff to assess players and test game schemes.\u00a0 This widespread tactic is useful for coaches, but it can also be argued that this creates division with the rest of the team.\u00a0 In-fighting among the individuals in each squad (wide receivers, offensive line, etc.) can prevail, and a counter-productive attitude may develop that breaks any cohesive advantage gained as individual players begin to focus on the amount of playing time received in relation to their teammates.<\/p>\n If coaching staffs adopt a task oriented system in which the squad coaches encourage group success and teamwork, and the coordinator level is where the competitive spirit is harnessed, players will be more likely to encourage each other to improve their performance. \u00a0Simply stated, the pre-season scrimmages should not be scored in a traditional regular season format, but should be scored by accumulating points for successful plays executed by any player from each squad against an opposing squad whose tasks are in opposition naturally. \u00a0This structure would encourage players that play the same position to cooperate in order to improve each other\u2019s performance.\u00a0 A cooperative attitude at the lowest level of a football team\u2019s hierarchy will lower the anxiety levels of many players early in the team\u2019s formation, before the season starts (Teymori, Khaki, & Nikbakhsh, 2014). \u00a0For example, the entire wide receiving squad, whether first team starters or bench players, would receive points for every completed pass.\u00a0 The defensive backs would receive points for every pass not completed because they batted the ball away, intercepted it, or disrupted the play by preventing the wide receiver from running the appropriate route.\u00a0 This means receivers would be competing two levels up at the coordinator level, and not among themselves. \u00a0Building off past research, this should also diffuse anxiety levels of players since each cohesive group will be focused on improving the performance of the less talented players, instead of trying to dominate each other for increased playing time.<\/p>\n Discussion <\/strong><\/p>\n The foundation of this process is for the coaching staff to encourage unit cooperation in distinct groups that are either one level up or down as described in the coaching hierarchy (see Figure 1).\u00a0 At the same time, coaches two levels up encourage competition.\u00a0 In a pure, fully staffed football team, this would leave the head coach as an active observer who is not emotionally attached to any individual player.\u00a0 The head coach is responsible for managing the competition between the offense and defense, and is free to concentrate his or her attention on team schemes and strategy without being bogged down with individual performance.<\/p>\n Although most football teams require some coaches to perform two or more positions, all teams follow a standard hierarchy and division of labor (see Figure 1).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The head coach typically has three coordinators that manage the offense, defense, and special teams, respectively.\u00a0 These coordinators in turn, have individual position coaches that train and manage each player.\u00a0 While the coordinators are responsible for the overall schemes of either the offense or defense, position coaches are charged with the development of individual players that are grouped together by function.\u00a0 The wide receiver coach, for example, is in charge of the development of all wide receivers. \u00a0It is also important to understand that most of the tasks that position coaches train are individual tasks such as catching, running, tackling, or blocking.\u00a0 These tasks, by nature, are coactive tasks.\u00a0 Therefore, the majority of tasks taught by position coaches are individual efforts whose outcome is aggregated for the team\u2019s success or failure.\u00a0 These coactive tasks are similar to a collegiate golf team in which each golfer\u2019s score is not dependent on the other players, but does influence the team\u2019s overall performance. \u00a0Because these coactive tasks are fundamental skills of the particular position players, these tasks are the primary focus early in the training cycle when the team is first being formed.\u00a0 Typically, coaches spend this time focusing on player competition in order to set an aggressive tone early in the season.\u00a0 Aggressive and often negative language is used while running fundamental drills during practice and even during conditioning workouts.\u00a0 However, if coaches use this time early in the training cycle for cooperative teambuilding attitudes, versus the usual competitive philosophy of the players fighting among themselves for starting positions, position coaches will be able to identify the various informal roles within their particular squad.\u00a0 Instead of encouraging competition between individuals of the same position, by encouraging cooperation among those players, the position coach will have formed a group that is in constant interaction.\u00a0 Not only will this interaction be constant as players are working together and not as individuals, their interaction will be positive in nature.\u00a0 This positive interaction will help the position coaches quickly identify the informal leaders since the players will be focused on working together instead of trying to beat each other out for a spot in the starting lineup\u00a0(Cope, Eys, Beauchamp, Schinke, & Bosselut, 2011).<\/p>\n Traditionally, the position coach level is where the intra-team competition occurs, as individual receivers compete against each other for playing time and the accolades placed on them by the coaches.\u00a0 In this system, there is little incentive for players to encourage other players to be better, because the starter may risk losing playing time. \u00a0This player versus player competition at the lowest level contradicts a multitude of research that proves when coaches engage in positive, task-oriented interactions with players, a higher perception of team cohesion and improved performance is achieved (Carron & Eys, 2012, pp. 284-288).\u00a0 Thus, when position coaches encourage competition at the lowest level within the hierarchy of a football team and in the smallest groups, these coaches are missing opportunities to establish a team comprised of many smaller, cohesive teams that can influence the overall performance later in the training cycle as games approach.\u00a0 Not only will small groups of players with like task responsibilities be cohesive early on in the training cycle, but roles and norms of appropriate attitudes of those players will be clearly defined.\u00a0 Role clarity is important to establish early in the formation of any sports teams, and the more clarity assigned those roles, the more cohesion and collective efficacy will be present\u00a0(Hodge, Henry, & Smith, 2014).\u00a0 Meanwhile, before and during the season, most coaches attempt to shift their focus on the cohesion of the entire team.\u00a0 This shift conflicts with months of players competing with each other, and is arguably too late for the team to reap any benefits they would enjoy from a new practice of cooperation among players.\u00a0 This shift from competition to cooperation can be confusing to many players, thus resulting in interpersonal conflict and a lack of cohesion among players (see Figure 2).<\/p>\n One level up from the position coaches is the offensive, defensive, and special team coordinators.\u00a0 The coordinator is two levels up from the players.\u00a0 Because of the separation between the coordinator and the players, the coordinator can safely encourage competition when interacting with players as individuals.\u00a0 The coordinators\u2019 emphasis on competition would negate any pitfalls of social loafing that may occur among groups of players of any given function. \u00a0A leading cause of social loafing, the phenomenon in which individual effort is reduced when participating as part of a group, in sports teams is that many players will become too secure in their status on the team as either a starting player or a substitute player.\u00a0 If players do not believe consequences, good or bad, exist for the amount of effort the player puts forth, then social loafing can occur during practices (Bohlander & Snell, 2010; Carron & Eys, 2012).\u00a0 Two-level-down coaching focuses on individual performance and allows for self-enhancing attribution that will increase the motivation to seek self-improvement by each individual (Carron & Eys, 2012, p. 293 and p. 334).\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Position Coach is constantly reinforcing teamwork and improvement, as he or she is charged with the performance of each player that plays a certain position (see Figure 3).\u00a0 This method of one-level-down coaching shifts the focus of the players to team enhancing attribution at the earliest time and the lowest level.\u00a0 This shift of emphasis on the team\u2019s performance by the smallest groups of players institutes social norms of individual responsibility in relationship to team success or failure (Vincer & Loughead, 2010).\u00a0 While this conflict between coaches may seem to be disruptive, the level of interaction between each coach and each player is not balanced. \u00a0Therefore the cooperative encouragement of the position coach would have more impact on individual players when it comes to player-to-player interaction.\u00a0 Since the position coach would monitor individual, skill-centric drills early in the training season, a sense of cooperation would first be established throughout the entire team.\u00a0 Therefore, long before the spring practice game, the composition of the team would be a collection of smaller teams whose focus is to make each particular team better through cooperation.\u00a0\u00a0 This part of the theory captures the conclusions of the Carron et al. study in which they hypothesized that \u201cincreased cohesion would be a catalyst for increased coordination in sports where task interactions are essential for group success\u201d (Carron, Colman, & Wheeler, 2002, p. 172). \u00a0Although Carron et al. found that there is no cohesion-performance correlation based on task type, using a Group Environment Questionnaire to provide an operational measure of team cohesion, they did find evidence that coactive sports have a stronger cohesion-performance relationship.\u00a0 In other words, increased cooperation from coactive competitors, such as the individuals that play the same position, raised the performance of the group.\u00a0 For example, the collective group of wide receivers would perform better in their assigned tasks if they all viewed themselves as part of a cooperative whole, despite the fact each individual\u2019s ability to accomplish a given task does not affect the other receivers\u2019 ability to do the same task. (Carron et al., 2002, p. 182)<\/p>\n Once the team\u2019s training shifts toward more collective preparation, running plays for example, the individual players would already be cohesive in smaller groups, and have improved each other\u2019s performance.\u00a0 As the groups of players are organized by functions without delineation of starting players and bench players each group would begin to compete against the other groups with the position coaches continually encouraging cooperation in order to defeat another position coach and those players.\u00a0 Scoring of inter-squad scrimmages should be conducted by the functions that are required by each position.\u00a0 During the scrimmage, position coaches are still encouraging cooperation within each group, but the coordinator challenges each individual to beat out the other players for a spot in the starting lineup (see Figure 3).\u00a0 Receivers are cycled through plays against the defense; the receiver coach is actively keeping score of how many catches the whole group of receivers make.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the coordinator is challenging each receiver to be the best receiver of the group by providing rewards for them.<\/p>\n Rewards should be centered on an appearance of expert power.\u00a0 For this example, the wide receiver who makes the most catches is awarded by being assigned as a trainer for the other positions that may have similar functions, such as the tight ends and running backs that often catch passes.\u00a0 Thus, the coordinator would be effectively encouraging cooperation one level down as players of different positions would join together to create a better offense in order to compete against the defense and vice versa. This model also works for other positions.\u00a0 This includes offensive linemen teaching running backs pass blocking techniques, running backs teaching receivers how to break tackles after the catch, and even physical training like tight ends teaching offense linemen techniques to improve quickness and agility.<\/p>\n![\"fig1\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thesportjournal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fig1.jpg\")
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