Coaching your kids can be tough. Competitive Edge offers insights on being a better coach and parent.

The coaches at Competitive Edge in Woodbridge, Virginia are changing the way young athletes train.

Competitive Edge is a youth performance center offering 18,000 square feet of skill-building space, indoor batting cages, pitching tunnels, a full weight room, running lanes and a multi-use sports court, all which enables athletes to practice and train for baseball, track and field, basketball, soccer, football, volleyball, lacrosse, tennis and more.

Monte Evans, Co-owner and Director of Sports Management

Over the years, Monte Evans has learned a thing or two about coaching. As a dad to three athlete daughters, he co-founded the Dale City Track Club in 2010. He saw how much his twin daughters enjoyed running and began looking for clubs. When he saw there weren’t a lot of options, he started his own club.

Now over 300 strong, the club participates in cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field, with members from ages six to 18.

Evans says there are several things he’s learned as a parent, a coach and now a co-owner of Competitive Edge. First, he advises parents who are coaching their kids to let others coach their children, too.

This allows the kids to acknowledge other coaches and know other coaching styles, he says. He also advocates for separating roles.

“Have an understanding with your child that when you correct them as a coach, it’s as a coach and not a parent…When you’re putting on the father hat, do something totally different and develop another relationship with them to balance things out.”

Darnell Washington, Director of Athletic Performance

Washington coaches his oldest child’s football travel team. At 13, his son is in basketball, too, but Washington only coaches him in football right now.
“I try to be involved in coaching, but I try to be hands off….parents have to learn that line,” he said.

He acknowledges that “being there as a father and being supportive while treating your child equal to the others on the team can be difficult.” But, Washington says, “You want the kids to be disciplined and want to treat people equally so other players don’t think you are playing favorites.”

Similar to Evans, Washington advises parents to differentiate between the parent and coach roles. “You kind of realize they need a different voice,” Washington says, so he also steps back and allows other coaches to coach his son.

What else is important? “Keep it fun for them, and keep the activity as an activity,” he says. “If you’re down their back, the kids won’t be successful, the team won’t be successful. Let kids know they are out there to have a good time. Coaching is a teaching tool. But don’t make it so it’s not fun anymore.”

Maurice Briddell, Director of Baseball

Briddell has been coaching his teenage son’s travel baseball team for the past 8 years and has walked the fine line between coach and parent, even recognizing that he needed to take a step back to assistant coach. Briddell says he learned that lesson when his son was 12.

“I was coaching all the time…in the car, going to the game, in the game, coaching on the way home, coaching him at home…that didn’t work for me. That didn’t work for our relationship,” he said.

Briddell says he was coaching more than parenting, and this was confirmed when his son would only go to his mother for things he needed and for advice. Once he took a step back, he says, his parent-child relationship improved.

Bridell advises other parents not to fall into the same pattern he did.

Magnus Ellerts, General Manager

Ellerts has been coaching his two boys ages 15 and 10 since they were in T-ball. He also advises parents not to coach outside of the field. He says if you do, children don’t hear what you’re saying when you’re on the field.

Regarding any conflict of being both dad and coach, Ellerts says, “Whether or not it’s my son out there with them, they are just a team at that point. You can’t be Dad to one of them and Coach to the rest. Some of that is the child’s responsibility. If you want Dad to be Dad in the car, you need to have Dad as Coach on the field.”

Ellerts also suggests parents take a step back and remember that “these players are kids. Winning or losing doesn’t matter. You just want them to get better and learn something.”

For more information on Competitive Edge, visit competitiveedgeva.com.