June 29th, 2021 | Josh Adelman
This month we honor Vicki Hudson as the June 2021 Soldiers to Sidelines Coach of the Month. Vicki has spent a lifetime on a journey of coaching mastery influencing thousands of people to become the best version of themselves.
Coach Hudson is a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the US Army who has been coaching for 30 years as a Rugby Coach and a Mental Performance Coach. She has attended multiple Soldiers to Sidelines coaching seminars to improve her craft even though there is not a formalized STS rugby coaching curriculum yet. It is her sheer thirst for knowledge and dedication to everyone around her that makes her the perfect coach for this honor.
Vicki got into coaching in 1990 when she returned home from playing collegiate rugby. She went to play for the local women’s rugby team and when there were only three other players there, they asked her to coach. Vicki’s deep compulsion to help others made it impossible for her to say no. So she became a coach and the rest is history. She eventually grew this women’s rugby team of three to over 30 players that ranked 4th in the Eastern Rugby Union (East Coast of the US).
There was another unexpected serendipitous moment that may have been the initial spark for Coach Hudson’s love for coaching. She recalls a coaching moment she will never forget.
“In the late 80s, I went out to play with the St. Louis women’s team while TDY at Army Reserve HQs. The coach wanted a little vacation and asked me to take over the team for the month I was there. So instead of playing, I was coaching. We had a rookie front row player (#2) who I had the opportunity to teach position-specific fundamentals and assist in developing overall skills as a player. A few months later, she was selected to the state All-Star team, and contacted me, acknowledging that she felt she’d gotten the selection due to the work we’d done together and the strong foundation in position-specific skills that we’d done. That has always been a warm memory for me and a source of joy as a coach. When a player is able to go beyond, that is always terrific.”
Coach Hudson also tells us that coaching is rarely easy. There are so many challenges that persist every day. She thrives on solving these challenges and her mastery coaching style fits the bill. Vicki says:
“The most difficult challenge has been bringing in modern coaching techniques that are evidence-based for success into an environment of players that have always had coaches coaching what I would call a more traditional, “that’s how we’ve always done it coaching style.” These are the players that have experienced the more hierarchical, often verbally abusive style of coaching that is more dictatorial. These players are usually brought up with an outcome-based foundation – win or nothing. They have a difficult time adjusting to a coach that is mastery based, and who is working towards creating players that are critical thinkers under match stress. It’s not about the win but gaining mastery of the individual skills leading to mastery of collective skills as a team which lends towards winning. It becomes a consequence of hard, dedicated, and diligent work rather than winning itself as the goal. Bringing in a mastery approach for an outcome-oriented team is rough in the beginning as it often means initial scoreboard disappointments. Getting buy-in takes a bit, and some players can’t make that leap. Winning becomes the consequence of hard work, and some players won’t have the patience. Usually, the players that have always won matches, and have some skill but not enough to really stand up to high-performance athletes and teams (who always are mastery players) create drama in the team which is always a challenge to the coach’s authority. One of us ends up leaving. What I’ve learned is that I don’t have to coach any team that asks. It’s important for a team to know what they are getting with me and that the roles are clearly defined. I coach from a mastery perspective – the score will take care of itself. In a way, this reflects my philosophy as a military leader. I always felt that by giving soldiers every possible resource, creating challenging training environments where their skills are taxed, and making sure they are cared for, then they’d always come through and make mission. I push players to be their very best with mastery of self as well as within the context of the team – the win will happen as a result of their work, not be the goal of the work. I trust the players, it’s their game once they take the pitch. If I’ve done my work well, they will make accurate decisions on the field and won’t need direction from me along the sideline. It’s the same as trusting your tactical leader on the ground, not directing from the helicopter above the battle.”
Coach Hudson is finishing her master’s degree in sports psychology. She continues to practice her mastery style of coaching every day. The lifetime of dedication to the improvement of her coaching practice earns her the Soldiers to Sidelines Coach of the Month for June 2021.
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