BobKilner wrote:When I coached at Garfield Heights, I never had a motivation issue as I always seemed to get overcompetitive kids who hated to lose and put in the work to be good.
I think this is why we are successful
A few thoughts
-Our biggest advantage comes from the traditional Sue established. The kids know about the tradition and I keep crazy spreadsheets of career stats and records. Breaking team/individual records is cool thing to many of them. It helps make quiz bowl seem comparable to sports and gives it more credibility to their peers. I also try to get us as much publicity as possible at our school. This helps boost the brand among the students and the faculty.
-The kids know how much Sue and I are invested in this. We give up 20+ Saturdays a year for tournaments. We practice twice a week during the school year and once a week over the summer. I would like to think this makes them work a little harder knowing how much family time we sacrifice to give them opportunities to play. Plus the free trips to nationals for the kids on the A team tends to be motivation.
-Ultimately, it comes down to the kids. If they are going to work, they will work. Some kids cannot even be motivated by the best coaches. I wish I had a real answer for you. For example, we had a player a few years ago who basically went through the motions for his first 2.5 years of his career. For some reason he studied like crazy the second half of his junior year and became our teams best player and won a state championship. It was never expected. I think you are off to a good start. Showing them how to study will payoff. You just have to find a way to show your teammates how fun this game is! Hopefully you can catch the interest of some of your younger players and start a tradition of your own.