RESPECT yourself, RESPECT the team, RESPECT the game, and RESPECT the opponent enough to play your best
The final part of the Respect Motto is to respect your opponent to play your best. I took this from something Anson Dorrance (UNC women’s soccer head coach) said to a reporter after his team beat another team by a large score. The other team’s coach said that UNC did not respect them and Coach Dorrance responded – no we respected them enough to play our very best. In my opinion you always play your best and if that means crushing your opponent that is fine.
Please note crushing your opponent does not mean running up the score or humiliating them. You have to respect your opponent to not embarrass them, but you have to play your best and not lower your expectations of yourself. The opponent knows when they have been crushed even if the scoreboard does not look too bad. That is what I am saying – play your best and as a coach you can do things to enhance your own players experience but resulting in few scores – for example you can play defensive players in offensive roles, you can play your 3rd or 4th string players early in the game, or you can agree to a running clock to minimize the chance for more scoring.
The other side of the coin is when you lose or are crushed. It will happen to everyone at one time or another. You can look back in history for every championship team there was a time when they got crushed. Your character is shown when you lose. As players and coaches, we must learn to handle defeat with the same pride as winning. I know that is a tough ask – as a young coach (and even still today) I have a very hard time losing to teams I know we should have won. That is when my mental strength is tested and sometimes – I fail. That is what makes sport so wonderful – you never know the outcome – it is ultimate reality show.