The problem with so-called conditioning consequences

Someone posted in a coaches group asking “What conditioning consequences do you implement and for which actions ? (Tardies, unexcused absences, missed serves, drop balls, etc)” My reply to that post was:

Next to none. If you want consequences for game elements (e.g. missed serves) factor them in to how your score/count. For off-court issues I look for something that contributes to the program to make up for what was taken out of it. Didn’t get your physical paperwork in on time? Spend an hour helping the trainer with their inventory.

Like many coaches of my generation, these sorts of “conditioning consequences” were regular practice in my early career. After all, that’s what I experienced as a player and saw in other coaches. It was the default setting in my coaching brain. As such, it was the go-to, particularly in the quick decision moment when something negative just happened on the court. (See Why Do We Think Physical Punishment is a Good Teaching Tool in Sports?)

I’m not that coach anymore. Haven’t been for a while.

It was a process, but gone are the days when I automatically think I need to make the team do sprints for something like letting a ball drop. I have been moved in this direction by a number of factors. Learning about research findings on punishment is part of that. Looking hard at what these punishments actually do with regards to the athletes physically is another.

And a big one is learning to take the emotion (and to a degree the ego) out if it. They aren’t making volleyball mistakes on purpose. They aren’t trying to make me look bad. The errors are usually coming from honest effort (specific behavioral issues aside). Why should I get angry, unless it’s at myself for not doing my job well enough? Especially if I’m also yelling at them.

Then there’s also the question of looking at things more deeply to understand the root cause. For example, instead of jump straight to punishing the outcome of a ball dropping base automatically on the assumption of a negative attitude or lack of attention, I consider whether there isn’t instead a problem with players reading the play and/or knowing whose ball it is. In other words, I try to treat the disease, not the symptom.

So now, when I see the following I can’t help but wince. Someone posted it in response to the question I started this post with, saying it came from a college (JUCO, I think). It came in the form of a graphic with that…