There are many types of coaching styles ranging from gentle coaching to harmfully aggressive coaching. Many coaches say there is an element of aggressive coaching that needs to be implemented for athletes to respect them, but it is also important in being gentle towards players. 

Aggressive coaches can be beneficial to push athletes to push past their limits, but sometimes there are situations where constantly pushing athletes can break players. Aggressiveness in conditioning and weight training can be beneficial as long as the push that the athletes are receiving doesn’t put their bodies under so much pressure that they cannot play anymore. 

Though, there shouldn’t be aggressiveness outside of the game. Coaches can have their competitive and cut-throat edge during a game, but there should not be so much of that aggressiveness that it makes athletes feel like they cannot talk to a coach or cannot trust or rely on that coach for help or to tell them about an injury. Arguably, the worst aspect of a program having a coach that is too aggressive is the athletes are pushed too hard. As a result of this, none of the athletes feel comfortable telling the coach the physical pain they are in that is too much because they may fear consequences, whether they be physical or related to playing time. This can cause the players’ bodies to break down and diminish during the season. 

There is a strong difference between competitive and overly aggressive. Competitive coaching is doing what must be done to win. Competitive coaching is pushing to a point where a player’s body is tired but can break records. Competitive coaching is bringing a team together with the intent to win for the sake of putting everything they worked hard for on the floor or field and proving their work was worth it. Overly aggressive coaching is running athletes into the ground so they are throwing up every time they are conditioning. Overly aggressive coaching is demeaning athletes off the court or field for not being good enough. Overly aggressive coaching is benching players for speaking up about their concerns for their mental or physical health but overworking them in practice.

Coaching competitively is beneficial to a successful season. A competitive edge can bring a team together, it can make the fan base more proud of a team because they can see the drive of the athletes. A competitive edge gives athletes a reason to push themselves in practice and in a game, not because their coach is screaming at them to push a new personal record, but because they want to hit that new record or win that championship game or earn that championship title. When a coach is dedicated to seeing a team healthily come together under that desire to compete rather than forcing a team to come together and tearing them down individually, there is an element that makes the game more enjoyable to the athletes, fans and even the coaches themselves. Competitive coaching is what makes the greats great. They understand being competitive doesn’t have to mean being overly aggressive.