Effective coaches strive to build accountability in their athletes, and one way to support that growth is by showing them that they matter.   By listening to, taking seriously, showing athletes that they are genuinely needed, and helping them develop a meaningful purpose, coaches develop mutual trust and see greater buy-in and accountability for individual and team behavior.

Athletes want to feel like they matter to the group and to each other. “They matter to the end result we’re trying to create,” says Katharine DeLorenzo, Middlebury College field hockey coach. “They matter in the decisions I make as a coach. They feel relevant. They don’t come just to be along for the ride. They come to be understood. They come to contribute, and they come to support and be supported.”

Mattering via Micro Connections 

A micro connection is a momentary opportunity to create a connection with another person. Erin Quinn, Middlebury’s Athletic Director, says, “Whether it is a simple touch on the shoulder asking how the day has gone in school or checking in on the family.” We might mention how a drill went at yesterday’s practice or a few minutes ago. Accumulated micro connections contribute to relationships and trust with athletes, creating the trust to make the bigger conversations work a lot better. Micro connections reinforce the impression that we care about a particular athlete as a person, not just when they do something well or make a mistake.

Jenny Moe is a regional director of Harlem Lacrosse, whose mission is to empower children who are most at risk for academic decline and dropout to rise above their challenges. She says that consistency is the absolute most important thing. “You’re not going to spend a week with an athlete and magically earn their trust overnight. It’s the simple consistency of showing up every day and being there. It’s also making the most out of little moments. That’s when you really build relationships. It’s 15 minutes after practice and everybody else has left, and one athlete stays behind. You spend one-on-one quality time together cleaning up the locker room, and you get to know about them. You have to be really intentional about spending quality time with every athlete. You’re not going to build relationships as well when you have 25 athletes at practice and it’s just you and an assistant coach. That’s not when you move the needle. It is the little in-between times that you are able to make the most of the relationship.”

Reversing Swamping Conditions 

Provide support for athletes needs to be different in different situations.  John McCarthy is the Director of Boston University’s Institute for Athletic Coach Education.  He helps facilitate training and education for coaches in the community, particularly those involved in youth sport.   He also runs the Get Ready program, where he mentors a staff of Boston University Students help Boston English High School students learn fitness and life skills.

Many of the student-athletes that John and his staff works with appear to have it all together, but underneath they have this really deep doubt about their own capabilities.  They come from an array of backgrounds, including poverty. Their access to building certain kinds of human capital (knowledge and skills) and psychological capital (hope, confidence, optimism, and resilience) is very low. They’re used to having things not work out for them.  With socially vulnerable kids in schools such as this, young people have experienced teachers, coaches, administrators coming and going, like a revolving door.  Without a web of support many opportunities being closed to them, not having the stable relationships and resources to be able to solve problems.  John admits, “Many are in swamping conditions. They’re trying to row the proverbial boat, but there’s just too much water coming over the bow. And at some point you just can’t bail anymore creating a kind of learned helplessness. When you’re working with kids with those kinds of backgrounds you need to approach them quite differently. Bringing in high challenge activities early on is not only misguided but can be harmful, if you don’t have a good caring relationship with them.”

Care First with High Support

The Get Ready program is about care first, instead of where a lot of coaches might proclaim, “Hey you’ve got to get on board before we care about you.”  A mantra at Get Ready is “You’re a person first and we care about you no matter how you feel today, whether you want to come and whether you want to practice or participate or do physical activity.”   When they get to know them better, the staff can then help the student-athletes understand what their personal goals are and hopefully the staff can align their coaching to encourage them to go towards those kind of goals.  John says, “If we can help them figure out what their goals are, then we can try to support and align our work with them so that they can reach their goals.” That’s very different than many sporting environments where you have to get on board with where the group is going first, or where the coach wants to go.

Coaches are good at building skills. You can teach how to throw a ball or shoot a shot. Coaches like to live in that realm. You will find an endless amount of information about how to do that, how to set up a practice, set up a practice progression on the Internet.  The Get Ready team first sets up the psychological support climate for the group culture to learn.

When Support Builds Accountability

John believes resilience comes when you feel like you have enough support. That can be both internal resources – those psychological resources are something that have to be built. Oftentimes he works with the kids at English High, he sees them as actually being incredibly resilient.  John says, “People may say ‘hey they are not very tough’ and I say ‘Whoa! really? Did you know that this kid just crossed the border from Mexico, and he was fleeing from the violence in El Salvador.  He’s working a job until 11:00 o’clock at night, and he came on the bus this morning from East Boston.  And he’s here now!’ And people criticize these kids and I say, ‘Hold on a second.’ Part of the work that we can do as coaches or youth workers or whatever role we’re in is to help them recognize how incredible these young people are and learn to celebrate who they are as people and all that they have overcome. And to know that they still have a lot to overcome. That’s the work that needs to be done.”

John says, “Very often the kids that I work with look at me as a father figure. I don’t look like them, but I’m an adult male presence paying attention to them for a long time. You know there’s a possibility for them to view themselves differently and come to learn what their role could be in a group differently, especially if they are valued, and attention and care is paid toward them.  We try to create a caring climate for them and then build a pathway for them to start building on those skills.”

Whether an athlete is playing youth sports, in high school or in college, regardless of age or experience, coaches show that mattering really matters!  It is an intentional act that provides athletes with a foundation for enjoyment, satisfaction, and enhanced performance.