Jerry York, Head Men’s Hockey Coach at Boston College and PCA National Advisory Board Member, has coached for over 40 years, winning over 1,000 games. At BC, he won NCAA Championships in 2001, 2008, 2010 and 2012. He also won the 1984 title at Bowling Green University, making him one of only three coaches in NCAA history to lead two different schools to national titles.
In this video, Coach York explains how when you’re working with athletes at a formative time of their lives, encouragement, positive reinforcement, and positive coaching in general is paid back tenfold as players develop in his program. On the other hand, negative coaches that demean and bully players may get something out of it themselves, but to York, it’s not the best way to develop your team or your individual players. To York, positivity is something you must grasp in order to be a successful coach or have a successful career in general.
Some coaches ask, “How does positive coaching help me more than negative coaching?” York indicates that positive coaching is a better approach to long-term development than is negative coaching, as negative coaching may have immediate results, but no long-term outcome of success and certainly little chance to develop the player to their fullest potential.
