Coaching the Kid, Not Just the Sport
Every coach says, “It’s about more than the game.”
The real question is: does your calendar agree?
It’s easy to say you care about the person, not just the performance. It’s trickier when you’re staring at practice plans, game film, scouting reports, parent emails, and the never-ending chaos of a season.
But here’s the truth: your athletes will forget most of the drills you ran.
What sticks are the moments where they felt seen.
Being an empowered coach isn’t about having the perfect speech or the perfect system. It’s about intentionally coaching the human wearing the jersey.
A few practical ways to do that—without adding ten hours to your week:
1. Learn one thing about their life outside of sport.
Not twenty. One.
Ask, “What’s something you like doing that has nothing to do with this sport?” Then remember it.
You don’t have to be their therapist or best friend. But when you say, “How’d your band concert go?” or “Did you finish that art project?” you send a clear message:
“You matter to me beyond what you can do for this team.”
That builds equity for the hard conversations later.
2. Separate the person from the performance—out loud.
When a kid blows an assignment for the third time, it’s easy to let your frustration leak into who you sound like you think they are:
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Do you ever listen?”
Even if you don’t mean it that way, they hear, “You are the problem.”
Try framing it differently:
“I’m frustrated with that decision, not with you as a person. Let’s fix the decision.”
Same correction. Different impact.
3. Catch character as loudly as you catch mistakes.
We’re pretty quick to stop practice for a blown coverage.
Stop it sometimes for character, too:
“Did you see how she picked up that teammate after the turnover? That’s leadership.”
“He just admitted it was his fault before I even said anything. That’s ownership.”
You’re telling them, “This is what I notice. This is what we value here.”
4. Give them a voice in something that matters.
You don’t have to hand over the playbook. But you can ask:
“What’s one thing we could do before practice that would help you mentally?”
“If you were running warmups, how would you do it?”
Let captains lead a stretch. Let players suggest a drill variation. It’s not about running a democracy; it’s about giving them a sense of ownership in the environment.
5. Think long-term—even in short seasons.
Ask yourself: “What do I want this athlete to take with them five years from now?”
Maybe it’s resilience. Maybe it’s confidence. Maybe it’s learning how to handle feedback without melting down.
Once you name that, you can shape your coaching around it.
When they graduate, the scoreboard resets to zero. The banners stay, but the wins fade.
What won’t fade is how you helped them see themselves.
In ten years, they won’t remember your record.
They’ll remember whether you were the coach who only saw their stat line—or the one who knew their story.
