Thank You Rocket

[ledge]

Re: Thank You Rocket

Do you think it actually helps though? I think more often than not it doesn’t.

Pick your targets yes it does, I think it all depends on the collective team and make up , back in the day it would happen at game breaks if you put in a shit quarter, but if the team you were playing were too good you knew it wouldn’t work.
Remember terry Wallace and the “I will spew up” rant ? It wasn’t personal I know but it worked I have no doubt.
I guess a rant is ok if it’s deserved and the players admit to not doing what you have been training to do all year.
A lot of variables to a rant and you can’t just go on a clip of a rant, the history of why and what lead to it have to be looked at.

[AndrewP6]

Re: Thank You Rocket

I was once coached in wheelchair basketball by a guy who went on to coach the national team to a gold medal at the Paralympics. He used a similar style. As the Brothers Gibb once sang, “It’s only words”.

[Bornadog]

Re: Thank You Rocket

[EasternWest]

Re: Thank You Rocket

Very funny. Bob doesn't have a bad voice.

[Murphy'sLore]

Re: Thank You Rocket

As a youth Bob was tossing up between music and football. Turns out he can do both!

[Twodogs]

Re: Thank You Rocket

As a youth Bob was tossing up between music and football. Turns out he can do both!

I'm glad that he did footy first though.

[Bornadog]

Re: Thank You Rocket

As a youth Bob was tossing up between music and football. Turns out he can do both!

At a Family day many years ago when Bob was very young, there was a band playing up on stage and I said to him, "you should be up there" and he said, No way, I know my limits.

[Bornadog]

Re: Thank You Rocket

One for Sedat

What it’s like to cop a Rocket by ED Barlow

I will never forget a game I played for Western Bulldogs against the Gold Coast Suns in 2011 when I went against the game plan and didn’t kick down the line, like I was told. Twice.

The runner came out and pointed to the bench, where the dreaded phone was waiting. Any player will tell you: ‘No one wants to answer that phone.’

I picked it up and Rodney ‘Rocket’ Eade was waiting on the line. I soon made my third mistake that day.

I tried to explain myself and boy did I get one of Rocket’s famous sprays — an animated emotional response to an action that he disagreed with.

Rocket’s sprays were often talked about throughout the club rooms, and, having been at the Sydney Swans for the previous five years before I became a Bulldog, there were two things in my AFL career I wanted no part of: a 6am punishment session or a Rocket Eade spray.

By now, you’ve probably heard the Rodney Eade coaching box recording, or at the very least had someone from the football world tell you about it. Some of you might have listened with disgust or amazement. Others would have gotten a laugh out of it. And for some it might take them back to a coaching spray they once endured.

Before I try to explain my own thoughts on the Rocket recording, I want to impress that I do not condone what’s in it. I have seen and received coaches’ comments many times over the years and know the damaging affects their words can have on a player and, more importantly, a person.

While I do not agree with a lot of coaching sprays and believe there are more beneficial ways to motivate a player, I do understand why some coaches chose to verbally vent their frustrations.

Often in the professional sporting world, we hear about the pressure that players are under each week. We are told they are dealing with losses, injuries, non-selection, contracts, internal and external perceptions, including from the media and many more issues.

Until you have lived inside the world of professional sport, it is hard to gain a true understanding of these pressures.

For a coach, I reckon you could times these pressures by 45 for all the other players on a list, add another 15 to that for the other coaches and support staff that are under your watch, and then add another 10 for the powerful and opinionated board members critiquing your every move.

It’s fair to say with all these going on around you, it might be hard for a coach to act calmly at times when things don’t go their way.

SPRAY PSYCHOLOGY

After I finished my relatively short-lived AFL career, I began to study psychology, as I wanted to explore, understand and learn more about the consequences of these pressures and why we sometimes behave the way we do in certain environments.
I was also interested in being able to assist players and coaches to have more awareness, more tools and more techniques to handle their professional environments.

I learnt from my studies that key contributors to our behaviour are those close to us, such as our parents or caregivers. In a sporting environment you need to understand your coach is like your parent or your caregiver.

From the age of 18 when you first get drafted, all you want to do is make that person happy and content with your behaviour, as they are the person that decides your fate. Like your parents as you grow older, you start to notice certain behavioural traits that are similar to theirs.

So it only makes sense that many past players who become coaches have learnt certain behavioural patterns or coaching styles from their previous coaches.

Rocket was raised as a player under legendary coaches David Parkin and Allan Jeans. I have only heard stories about Parkin and Jeans, but I feel I can accurately assume that they both could deliver an animated address or an emotional response to a player’s action.

I am only guessing, but I think it is safe to assume that other coaches around the time of Rocket’s development years as a coach would act in a similar manner and that is the old school way of coaching, which seemed to be ‘play harder, faster and don’t complain’.

This way of coaching could have also been reinforced to a young Rocket as the right approach, as he saw this coaching style have a lot of success under both Parkin and Jeans.

I played only one season under Rocket as a Bulldog after five years at the Swans under Paul Roos. Both coaches had their different ways and I’m fairly sure both had their challenges with me as a player.

I was the footballer who some might consider ‘un-coachable’; there were times when I was out of the game before the ball had bounced. I was that player who would often overthink, catastrophise or misinterpret every message.

So I can understand the frustrations coaches had with me. However, I will take this chance to add that some coaches make it incredibly hard to know what they are thinking, what they are planning, and where the hell you stood each week after a game.

This is what I really liked about Rocket; as a player I felt I knew exactly what he thought of me and where I was in his future plans.

FOLLOW-UP IS CRUCIAL

Now, back to the Gold Coast when I received my first Rocket spray that almost split the internal cords of the visitors’ phone in the coaches’ box …

I’ll never forget being at the airport after the game. Calmness had approached when Rocket came straight up to me to follow up his spray.

This was something that was unfamiliar to me. My previous encounters with coaching sprays was that you both would avoid each other until enough time had passed or you had a better game, which I later learnt was a common reaction to anxiety.

I can only give you my own experience under Rocket, but he would always follow up after every game and tell you exactly what he was thinking. Regardless of what the level of spray was or how many phones he had gone through on game day, he would always explain what he was trying to say at the time.

Some coaches make it hard to know what they’re thinking or planning and where the hell you stood each week. This is what I really liked about Rocket; as a player I felt I knew what he thought of me and where I was in his future plans.

As a player, I felt it was his way of clarifying any misinterpretations, reminding you that it wasn’t personal, even though it often sounded like an attack, and him saying that he let the pressure and his emotions get the better of him.

The follow-up after an almighty spray is a key response and an absolute must from a coach. Often during an emotional time, we can say things that we regret. I think anyone reading this will be thinking of a time when they have once acted on pure emotion.

Often it is when we are frustrated about something or someone, so we lash out. However, more often than not, it is for us and not the person or object that we are frustrated with.

Often when we let emotion and frustration into our voice, messages can get lost and, as a player, that can keep you guessing like you wouldn’t believe. That is where the follow-up tool for a coach is crucial, so the player and the coach can go back to being on the same page, and this is where Rocket excelled.

Unfortunately, in this recent Rocket case there were a few players who didn’t even get a chance to hear their spray until almost a decade later, which is not right. One fear of mine is that these players will be known more from the recent recording, as opposed to them being great characters and players. However, knowing Rocket I would be surprised if he hasn’t already followed up with both players to make sure they are OK and to apologise for his behaviour.

It can be said that Rocket could lose it at times and get emotional and blunt. I have no doubt there would be things he has said that he regrets, but there was a lot more to Rocket than a spray; he was passionate about winning and determined to help his players improve. He coached at the highest level for a long time and many seemed to forget he had a lot of success also.

I feel at times there can be space for an animated motivational conversation with a player or players, but I would always suggest to a coach or parent to stop and think: Is this for the player/child or is this for me to deal with my own emotions? I think you’ll find it is the latter that is often the answer.

THE NEW COACH

Since finishing my AFL life the same season as Rocket ended his stint at the Bulldogs, I have recently finished all of my psychological studies to become a general psychologist. During this time, I have seen the new wave of coaches coming through who seem to have learnt that the days of the old school sprays are gone.

I often hear coaches talk about awareness, narrative, mindfulness and acceptance, which in psychology can be tools to deal with emotional responses and can also assist them in their pressure-cooking environments.

This appears to be the way of the new coach, as they are now getting the education and the science behind the best practice to motivate a player and a team. This needed to happen; whilst coaches are under enormous stress they can, at times, forget how damaging words can be to an individual.

I once researched past players’ experiences in the AFL and I was amazed how most players could remember word for word what a coach had said to them during their career and how much those words had stayed with them in their futures.

Therefore, it’s important that coaches are always educating themselves around the psychology of motivating their team and having strategies in place to be able to deal with the pressures of professional sport.

Any player, especially regular emergency players like myself, would tell you that the coaching box was an uncomfortable room where you would hear some emotional outbursts which would be frowned upon in most workplaces.

But there is a reason why a coach might react the way they do, though luckily I feel the time for this type of reaction has passed. While the recordings may become a remembrance point for Rocket’s coaching, I hope that’s not the case.

Above all, I saw first-hand some great coaching qualities that he brought into the coaches’ box and club rooms.

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Re: Thank You Rocket

Malthouse's first preseason with us. Elsternwick oval for intraclub match. Quarter time and my bro and I go to the huddle. I was looking forward to hearing the then modern approach thinking it would follow current mangement practice of positive reinforcement. No Malthouse was full of negativity, 'why didn't you do that..' etc.

[westdog54]

Re: Thank You Rocket

The follow-up after an almighty spray is a key response and an absolute must from a coach. Often during an emotional time, we can say things that we regret. I think anyone reading this will be thinking of a time when they have once acted on pure emotion.

Its interesting watching some of Gordon Ramsay's shows with this line in mind.

In the moment, he can get very heated with some of the ways he treats chefs/owner on his shows (He very, very rarely raises his voice at service staff on any of his shows).

But once the moment has died down and he has a quiet few minutes, he's able to sit down with the person and go through things very calmly, with a genuine desire to see that person do better than they are.