At high level sports some athletes feel as if  pressure is put on them by their coaches to win. Sophomore Brandon Goins on the RBHS baseball team has experienced harsh coaching firsthand.

“Some students respond better to yelling, some better to encouraging, but it is on the coach to learn that about his players,” Goins said.

As athletes becomes older, they come to realize their coach wants the best from them and there is a reason for the harshness.

“I know that any time I am being yelled at, it is because my coach knows I can do better and expects more from me,”  Goins said.

Other students do not view yelling as such a good thing. Kids have the ability to receive pressure in the wrong way. Some coaches, especially if their student is young, have the option of being nicer and find a different way to motivate their students.

    “I think our [rock bridge] coaches do a great job of building relationships with their students and embrace the fact that so much of being a coach is about fostering those great relationships,” Athletic director David Egan said.

As time passes, sports occasionally become not as much of a fun activity to do in someone’s free time. Instead, kids pushed to be champions, could be enjoying other parts of their childhood. Doing something they used to love but now hate can often be the fault of the people surrounding them.

“It’s too much negativity,” sports psychologist teacher and tennis coach Ben Loeb said. “Some kids can handle the yelling well, but not the majority. It’s too much negativity.”

Coaches pressure kids to play an excess amount miss out on some of the childhood experiences they would have had, had their coach made the correct approach toward them.

    “I consider the individual,” Loeb said. “Because it [pressure] can definitely discourage them from the sport.”

By Tess Lovig