DOUG’S RULE OF SIXES: How Tim Horton’s Roll Up The Rim Taught Me how To Manage Race Expectations by Doug Sylvester
Doug has been coaching & teaching young adults ever since he gave his first guitar lesson at age fifteen. With degrees in Geological Engineering and Education from the University of Saskatchewan (go Huskies) this gives him 42 years in the coaching game. He has coached provincial level volleyball, elementary level soccer and baseball, competitive swimming, and triathlon but is focused mostly on his true passion - Biathlon. For the past ten seasons he has been the Head Coach of Biathlon Saskatchewan (go Riders), twice earning Biathlon Canada’s Coach of the Year award. He enjoys writing educational teaching guides (with over 80 unit plans published) has written three novels and a musical, and is a songwriter with over 60 songs recorded by various artists. He has completed the annual Frank Dunn Waskesiu Triathlon 38 times and finished 6th in his age group in the 1986 Hawaiian Ironman.
Doug enjoys drinking Chai Tea with his wife Louise on the dock at Candle Lake. His motto is: Respect Only Passion.
Will my athlete’s races be awesome? Will their races be terrible?
It seems like when you are coaching, you never know what could happen to the athletes you are supporting – but not anymore. This is what you should expect.
If you have six athletes competing:
One will have an amazing day!
One will have a little better than average day.
Two will have average days.
One will struggle and be a little worse than average.
One will have a disaster.
It is very similar to your chances of winning in the Roll Up The Rim to Win contest with odds of winning being one in six
So, if you are coaching twelve athletes,:
Two will be awesome, shoot nearly perfect and have a great day.
Two others to bomb their races and will need special attention to deal with their disastrous day.
The others will perform somewhere close to their average or what you would expect.
To look at it another way, for one specific athlete who has an average hit rate of 7/10, if they have six races over a couple of weekends:
One race will be incredible, they will perform way above expectations 9/10 or even 10/10
One race will be a bit better than what you expect 8/10
Two will be average 7/10
One will be a little below 5/10 or 6/10
And one could be a bit of a disaster around 2/10 or 3/10
The weirdest thing is, this rule almost always seems to work out.
Coach Doug
Doug Sylvester (far right, red jacket) coaching a mass start race in Saskatchewan.
