By: Greta Jarvis, MS, MPH

Founder of: Center for Active Women

It was around sophomore year of high school when my classmates, teammates, and friends started restricting their eating: the Flat Belly Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, MyFitnessPal, and the like. Eventually, this felt normal, expected, and just part of being a disciplined, competitive athlete.

When I returned to my high school over ten years later – this time, as a coach – it's easy to see that, unfortunately, not much has changed. Coaches are still not trained on how to discuss sports nutrition with their teams, and athletes still experience stress around what, when, and how much to eat. With most of my high schoolers on social media, nutrition misinformation and confusion abound.

The conversation around how we can better support our athletes nutritionally is vast (I spent years studying this as a graduate student and have dedicated my career to serving this population!), but understanding one core concept is a valuable first step.

Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) occurs when someone is not eating enough to meet their body's needs. This impacts a shockingly high number of athletes:

• The International Olympic Committee estimates that 23% to 80% of female athletes and 15% to 70% of male athletes experience REDs, crediting the wide range of statistics to the different ways researchers measure and categorize under-eating (Mountjoy et al., 2023)
• Another team of researchers reviewed the literature to identify 63% of athletes as at risk for REDs (Gallant et al., 2024).

This condition touches every sport, every team, and every school, but most coaches, athletic directors, athletes, and even healthcare practitioners remain unaware of this condition and its devastating impacts on body, mind, and performance (Gallant et al., 2024; Mountjoy et al., 2023). Prevention and education are two of our most powerful tools – and we need all hands on deck.

You don't need advanced nutrition training here. Start by recognizing your role as a leader who helps define the culture and norms in your community. Encourage your athletes to speak kindly about their bodies and to think about food as a valuable teammate rather than an opponent to fear. Remind them that our bodies require a lot of food, every day, to function – especially as an athlete. Our beating hearts and expanding lungs require calories. Adolescent athletes require calories for appropriate development and growth. Even digesting food and regulating body temperature require calories!

Many athletes fear "eating too much," but make sure your athletes are aware of the very real (and very common) risks of not eating enough. The International Olympic Committee outlines the effects of REDs into two categories: health and performance. You can read their full consensus statement for a deeper dive, but here are some signs and symptoms that we commonly see:

Health:

• Compromised bone density (recurring stress fractures are common here!)
• Irregular or absent menstrual cycles
• Gastrointestinal distress
• Urinary incontinence
• Mental health challenges
• Sleep disturbances

Performance:

• Reduced power and endurance
• Reduced motivation and focus
• Reduced coordination and concentration
• Reduced muscle strength

The truth is that no number of "superfoods" can override the negative impacts of under-eating. Not eating enough, whether from intentional restriction or just not understanding how much food our body really needs, holds far too many athletes back from reaching their full potential. When we – as coaches and athletic directors – better understand the signs and symptoms of REDs, we are better positioned to protect our athletes from under-eating and identify when someone may need further support. Our athletes deserve nothing less.

About the Author:

Greta Jarvis, MS, MPH holds her Master of Public Health in Health Promotion and Master of Science in Nutrition, as well as certifications as an Intuitive Eating Counselor and Integrative Health Coach.

As the founder of the Center for Active Women, the heart of Greta's work is supporting women and girls in building peaceful and confident relationships with food, body, and movement. From customized workshops, classes, and lectures to one-on-one coaching and consultation, she equips students, parents, coaches, teachers, athletes, schools, teams, and organizations to navigate and prevent the all-too-common realities of under-eating, disordered eating, body image disturbances, and hormonal imbalances. This work fills a gaping hole causing women and girls lifelong, preventable harm.

Connect with Greta and learn more at Center for Active Women

Citations:

Gallant, T.L., Ong, L.F., Wong, L. et al. Low Energy Availability and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Med 55, 325–339 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-02130-0

Mountjoy, M., Ackerman, K. E., Bailey, D. M., Burke, L. M., Constantini, N., Hackney, A. C., Heikura, I. A., Melin, A., Pensgaard, A. M., Stellingwerff, T., Sundgot-Borgen, J. K., Torstveit, M. K., Jacobsen, A. U., Verhagen, E., Budgett, R., Engebretsen, L., & Erdener, U. (2023). 2023 International Olympic Committee's (IOC) consensus statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in sport (REDs). British Journal of Sports Medicine, 57(17), 1073–1098. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-106994

 
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By: David Emeott

Author of: Beyond the Finish Line: The Art of Transformational Coaching - Click Here

The parents' role is simple: encouraging their athlete and the team, being positive, and remaining present. The child needs their parents the most when things don't go as planned. When athletes fail, they experience a lonely moment, one where they need their parents' support more than ever. Their job is to be there for them-not to fix everything, but to let them process the emotions of falling short.

As a parent, I have attended countless competitions, traveling long distances to watch my children and their teammates compete in both high school and college. My mindset has remained the same, with two things particularly emphasized:

• I am there to support when support is needed.
• I know I am needed most when my kids fail.

When my kids win, they are surrounded by friends and teammates celebrating. But when they lose? That's when the car ride home feels the longest. That's when I am needed most.

It is not a parent's role to do the following three things:

• Criticize officials
• Criticize other athletes
• Criticize coaches (especially during an event)

There are a time and place for discussing concerns with a coach, and it is never from the stands in the third quarter. I have never met a player who enjoys hearing their parents yelling from the stands. I have often wondered what drives this behavior when I witness it. Is it a learned response? Maybe one time, they yelled "Shoot!" and their kid took a shot and made a basket, unfortunately reinforcing the belief that their input was necessary.

From a coach's perspective, I have seen how this unfolds. Almost every time, the athlete is embarrassed. Too often, the parents' vocal comments from the stands contradict what the coach is saying. And even when a parent's advice is technically correct, the athlete is left in an impossible situation, with two conflicting options:

• Do they listen to the coach, the expert the school hired to lead
  the team?
• Or do they listen to their parent, the person who has raised,
  fed, and provided for them?

It's a lose-lose situation. Coaching an athlete is a bit like co-parenting, because it takes a village more than just two biological parents to raise a well-adjusted, successful child. When two voices are in direct conflict, the young athlete is caught in the middle, and that rarely ends well.

As competitors themselves, coaches do everything they can to improve their chances of winning. I have never seen a situation where an out-of-control, disruptive parent made an athlete play better. I have never seen a coach put a kid in the game or offer a scholarship because a parent pushed them into it by yelling from the stands. I have never seen a parent criticizing another athlete
lead to more wins.

Most parents are passionate, and that's a good thing. But passion without purpose or control is a problem. Every parent has moments of feeling like their child should play more, that the coach made a bad decision, or that the refs blew a call. I have felt those things too. But I have also realized the following three things:

1. Everyone is doing their best, even if their best doesn't meet my standards.
2. If my child's current situation isn't good enough, there are options beyond acting like a fool in the heat of the moment.
3. If a coach is truly holding my child back from earning a full-ride scholarship, then I need to consider my options - a transfer, training differently, seeking additional coaching - but I need to do so with prudence and perspective.

The reality is that most kids aren't on the verge of a Division I scholarship, and the coach is probably less responsible for their future than you think.

In the same vein, it never helps to yell at an official. Coaches can sometimes work an official to get a call, but this is never helped by a parent's reaction. And criticizing another athlete? It is completely out of line for a parent to publicly berate someone else's child, and it almost always leads to unnecessary conflict in the stands.

A few years ago, college coaches started asking one question before recruiting an athlete: "How are the parents?" Without naming names, I've seen firsthand how much this matters. Early in the transfer portal era of college sports, I would casually mention to a college coach that a kid might benefit from "getting away from home” because their parents were overbearing and never satisfied. I didn't realize at the time how much weight those words carried: Coaches would immediately cool on that athlete, and the recruitment process would stop.

College coaches have had to make huge adjustments in the way they recruit. Club and AAU coaches have known this for years: You are recruiting the parents as much as you are recruiting the kid. If a player's parents are difficult, the chances of them transferring after a year or two are significantly higher. At the college level, coaches invest time and effort into freshmen and sophomores with the expectation of a payoff in their junior and senior years. If they believe an athlete's parents will constantly look for something "better," they are far less likely to offer a scholarship.

With the transfer portal and "name, image, and likeness" deals changing college sports, coaches are more concerned than ever about what parents will do when their kid isn't playing or is benched. One college coach told me that when they scout players, they also watch the stands to identify the parents. If they can't figure out who the parents are by the end of the game, that's a good thing-it means they aren't a distraction.

From time to time, coaches will need to step in and play the role of a parent. But I have yet to meet a parent who needed to take on the role of a coach in the third quarter.

--------------------------------------------------------------

About the Author

David Emeott has served as the head track and field coach at East Kentwood High School since 2004, leading the program to eight state championships and a 2010 national title. Under his leadership, the team maintained a 100% graduation rate while competing at the highest levels. A passionate advocate for transformational coaching, he has mentored hundreds of student-athletes who have gone on to success in college, military service, and careers nationwide.

  ]]> https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/parents-know-your-role-5/feed/ 0 126903 https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/why-every-great-coach-assesses-their-athletes-beyond-the-scoreboard-stats-6/ https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/why-every-great-coach-assesses-their-athletes-beyond-the-scoreboard-stats-6/#respond Tue, 24 Feb 2026 09:25:20 +0000 https://coachesinsider.com/?p=125702

By: Julie Hatfield-Still

Provided By: Beyond The Game Alliance

As a coach, you're constantly evaluating whether it's watching how athletes perform in a drill, tracking game-day stats, or observing who shows up ready to work. But the best coaches take it a step further: they assess intentionally and systematically.

They understand that assessment is more than numbers; it's insight, and when done consistently, it serves as a powerful indicator for progress or regression. It's about seeing the whole athlete, identifying their current state, and helping them reach their full potential.

When done well, assessments in athleticism, wellness, and behavior give us the data we really need- not just to make better decisions as coaches, but to teach athletes how to take ownership of their development.

Let's break down how and what to assess, depending on the age and stage of your athletes-and why it matters more than ever in the middle school and high school years.

1. Why Assessing Athleticism Matters

If you coach sports, you coach movement. And movement skill- agility, coordination, balance, strength, speed, power- should be assessed regularly. Not to rank or shame athletes, but to track growth, tailor training, and prevent injury.

For middle school athletes, the purpose of assessment is to establish baselines, identify movement imbalances, and begin introducing training awareness in a way that's age-appropriate and non-intimidating. At this stage, assessments are less about performance outcomes and more about observation, growth, and education.

We recommend the Big 5 Assessments, which you can learn more about in our Youth Athletic Assessment Specialist Certification

• Vertical jump
• Broad jump
• 5-10-5 Drill
• Push-up Holds
• Single-leg balance (eyes closed)
• Plank holds
• Basic movement screens (e.g., squat and lunge form)

A cadence of two to three assessments per year is ideal. This frequency allows for noticeable progress without overwhelming young athletes. The key is to keep the process light, engaging, and focused on effort and improvement, not comparison or ranking.

Middle schoolers are in wildly different stages of growth-what you're testing isn't necessarily performance, but readiness, patterns, and potential.

For high school athletes, assessments serve a more refined and targeted purpose. They're used to track performance over time, support the specific physical demands of each sport, optimize training programs, and proactively reduce the risk of injury.

As athletes become more physically developed and sport-focused, assessments should reflect a higher level of precision and intent. Useful tools at this level include:

• 10- or 20-yard sprints
• Broad jump
• Medicine ball throws
• Balance
• Repeated sprint ability tests
• Overhead squats
• Lunges
• Push-up holds/Timed push-ups

These assessments are most effective when conducted at key checkpoints throughout the year– typically in the pre-season, mid-season, and post-season - to align with training blocks and performance goals.

At this stage, assessment isn't just about collecting data. It becomes a strategic training tool that helps reinforce effort, identify gaps in development, and provide athletes with clear, measurable indicators of progress. It turns training into something they can see, feel, and believe in.

2. How to Choose the Right Assessments

Ask yourself:

• What are the movement qualities most important to my sport?
• What age/stage are my athletes physically and emotionally?
• Do I have the time, tools, and training to administer these assessments properly?
• What am I going to do with the results?

Keep it simple and actionable. It's better to do three assessments well and track them over time than to do ten inconsistently. Always ask: "What story does this data tell me about this athlete?"

3. Don't Forget the Invisible Game: Wellness & Habits

Not everything that matters shows up in a sprint time or jump height. In fact, some of the most critical factors influencing performance - like nutrition habits, hydration, sleep quality, and mental agility - are often the most overlooked and under-assessed. Yet these are the very foundations that either support or sabotage an athlete's ability to perform, recover, and stay consistent.

The truth is, if you're not assessing where your athletes stand in these areas, you're at risk of overtraining them and under-developing them. Performance dips, burnout rises, and you're left wondering why your athletes aren't progressing, despite solid programming.

One of the biggest questions I get from coaches is: "How do I assess this stuff?" The good news is, it doesn't have to be complicated. A simple rating system can go a long way. When athletes are asked to reflect and rate themselves on key wellness habits, something powerful happens: they begin to see those areas as important. They become more intentional.

In essence, what we assess and talk about, athletes will start to value more and more, and what we celebrate, we're more likely to duplicate.

When assessing lifestyle habits and mental attitudes, it's important to move beyond vague questions like "How's your sleep?" Instead, give your athletes crystal-clear targets and frameworks.

For example (1-Never, 5-Always):

• "Rate yourself from 1-5 on: I get an average of 8-9 hours of sleep at night"
• "Rate yourself from 1-5 on: I drink eight 8oz cups of water per day"
• "Rate yourself from 1-5 on: I eat a meal including protein, carbs, and fruits & veggies 3x per day"
• "Rate yourself from 1-5 on: I feel strong and athletic"
• "Rate yourself from 1-5 on: I can stay focused and bounce back quickly after mistakes"
• "Rate yourself from 1-5 on: I feel connected to my team and coach, I belong."
• "Rate yourself from 1-5 on: I am confident in my abilities as an athlete."

These are just a few examples of many. You can easily implement by creating a Google Form and sharing the link with your athlete/team.

This self-assessment approach creates awareness without judgment. It opens the door to better conversations, builds accountability, and allows coaches to spot trends that may affect training outcomes. Over time, it shifts the culture. Athletes begin to understand that performance isn't just built in the gym or on the field, it's built in their daily habits, their recovery, their mindset, and their routines.

And that's the real win.

The goal is not perfection, but awareness. When athletes see that these things matter to you, they start to matter more to them. Since this is often the case, you want to be mindful of the things you assess and how you reinforce them. If you choose to assess certain areas, but you don't reinforce the principles, athletes will see and feel the incongruence.

4. Every Good Coach Keeps Stats-Beyond the Scoreboard

Too often, coaches focus solely on game-day stats– points, wins and losses, goals, turnovers. While those numbers matter, they only tell part of the story. The most impactful coaches go deeper. They gather data that reflects the full scope of an athlete's development, tracking things like training consistency, practice attendance and effort, physical progress over time, recovery and wellness patterns, and even leadership moments or behavioral shifts.

Why does this matter?

Because progress doesn't always show up on the scoreboard. Sometimes, it's found in increased resilience, smarter decision-making, fewer injuries, or stronger team culture. When you track what really matters, you create a fuller picture, one that allows you to coach more intentionally, adjust more precisely, and communicate more effectively with both athletes and parents.

This kind of information becomes your coaching compass, helping you guide athletes toward sustainable growth, not just short-term results.

5. Assessments Build Buy-In

When assessments are done with care, not as judgment, but as a tool for information, they become a powerful part of the development process.

• They help validate the effort an athlete puts into training and growth, reinforcing that progress is being made, even when it's not immediately visible.
• They encourage athletes to take ownership of their improvement by showing them where they stand and what they can work toward.
• They open up important conversations around areas like sleep, recovery, and nutrition, topics that often go unspoken but significantly impact performance.
• Most importantly, assessments give both coaches and athletes a shared language for measuring and discussing progress.

All of this is especially valuable in the middle and high school years, when young athletes are forming habits, identities, and beliefs about their potential. With intentional assessment, we teach them that their body, brain, and behaviors are all interconnected, and that every part of who they are plays a role in how they show up in sport and in life.

Final Thought

Assessments aren't just about measuring performance. They're about elevating awareness, prioritizing what matters, and coaching the whole athlete. Whether you're coaching middle schoolers still figuring out their bodies or high schoolers striving for the next level, don't let your coaching stop at the scoreboard.

Keep track. Pay attention. Share the data. And use it to create athletes who are not just good at the game-but built to thrive beyond it.

Written by Coach Julie Hatfield-Still

Julie Hatfield-Still is an entrepreneur, coach, author, and advocate for empowering athletes to unlock their full potential in their game and beyond their game. With a passion for developing mental strength and resilience, Julie has authored books for Female Athletes and Mental Strength in Softball and Soccer.

She is also the Founder and President of Beyond The Game Alliance. This non-profit organization provides holistic and proactive workshops in Nutrition, Mental Strength & Sports Psychology, Injury Resilience, Recovery, Career Development, and more. Beyond The Game Alliance comes alongside Teams, Schools, and Sports Organizations to support their athletes' needs by providing awareness, access, and affordability for services and coaching for athletes. When Julie isn’t writing, running a non-profit, or coaching, she’s most importantly dedicated to educating her two sons and creating a simple life with her family.

Learn more about Beyond The Game Alliance at BeyondTheGameAlliance.org or Follow Us on Social Media (Facebook and Instagram).

Find Books for Athletes used by Coaches on Amazon.

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By: Greta Jarvis, MS, MPH

Founder of: Center for Active Women

It was around sophomore year of high school when my classmates, teammates, and friends started restricting their eating: the Flat Belly Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, MyFitnessPal, and the like. Eventually, this felt normal, expected, and just part of being a disciplined, competitive athlete.

When I returned to my high school over ten years later – this time, as a coach – it's easy to see that, unfortunately, not much has changed. Coaches are still not trained on how to discuss sports nutrition with their teams, and athletes still experience stress around what, when, and how much to eat. With most of my high schoolers on social media, nutrition misinformation and confusion abound.

The conversation around how we can better support our athletes nutritionally is vast (I spent years studying this as a graduate student and have dedicated my career to serving this population!), but understanding one core concept is a valuable first step.

Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) occurs when someone is not eating enough to meet their body's needs. This impacts a shockingly high number of athletes:

• The International Olympic Committee estimates that 23% to 80% of female athletes and 15% to 70% of male athletes experience REDs, crediting the wide range of statistics to the different ways researchers measure and categorize under-eating (Mountjoy et al., 2023)
• Another team of researchers reviewed the literature to identify 63% of athletes as at risk for REDs (Gallant et al., 2024).

This condition touches every sport, every team, and every school, but most coaches, athletic directors, athletes, and even healthcare practitioners remain unaware of this condition and its devastating impacts on body, mind, and performance (Gallant et al., 2024; Mountjoy et al., 2023). Prevention and education are two of our most powerful tools – and we need all hands on deck.

You don't need advanced nutrition training here. Start by recognizing your role as a leader who helps define the culture and norms in your community. Encourage your athletes to speak kindly about their bodies and to think about food as a valuable teammate rather than an opponent to fear. Remind them that our bodies require a lot of food, every day, to function – especially as an athlete. Our beating hearts and expanding lungs require calories. Adolescent athletes require calories for appropriate development and growth. Even digesting food and regulating body temperature require calories!

Many athletes fear "eating too much," but make sure your athletes are aware of the very real (and very common) risks of not eating enough. The International Olympic Committee outlines the effects of REDs into two categories: health and performance. You can read their full consensus statement for a deeper dive, but here are some signs and symptoms that we commonly see:

Health:

• Compromised bone density (recurring stress fractures are common here!)
• Irregular or absent menstrual cycles
• Gastrointestinal distress
• Urinary incontinence
• Mental health challenges
• Sleep disturbances

Performance:

• Reduced power and endurance
• Reduced motivation and focus
• Reduced coordination and concentration
• Reduced muscle strength

The truth is that no number of "superfoods" can override the negative impacts of under-eating. Not eating enough, whether from intentional restriction or just not understanding how much food our body really needs, holds far too many athletes back from reaching their full potential. When we – as coaches and athletic directors – better understand the signs and symptoms of REDs, we are better positioned to protect our athletes from under-eating and identify when someone may need further support. Our athletes deserve nothing less.

About the Author:

Greta Jarvis, MS, MPH holds her Master of Public Health in Health Promotion and Master of Science in Nutrition, as well as certifications as an Intuitive Eating Counselor and Integrative Health Coach.

As the founder of the Center for Active Women, the heart of Greta's work is supporting women and girls in building peaceful and confident relationships with food, body, and movement. From customized workshops, classes, and lectures to one-on-one coaching and consultation, she equips students, parents, coaches, teachers, athletes, schools, teams, and organizations to navigate and prevent the all-too-common realities of under-eating, disordered eating, body image disturbances, and hormonal imbalances. This work fills a gaping hole causing women and girls lifelong, preventable harm.

Connect with Greta and learn more at Center for Active Women

Citations:

Gallant, T.L., Ong, L.F., Wong, L. et al. Low Energy Availability and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Med 55, 325–339 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-02130-0

Mountjoy, M., Ackerman, K. E., Bailey, D. M., Burke, L. M., Constantini, N., Hackney, A. C., Heikura, I. A., Melin, A., Pensgaard, A. M., Stellingwerff, T., Sundgot-Borgen, J. K., Torstveit, M. K., Jacobsen, A. U., Verhagen, E., Budgett, R., Engebretsen, L., & Erdener, U. (2023). 2023 International Olympic Committee's (IOC) consensus statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in sport (REDs). British Journal of Sports Medicine, 57(17), 1073–1098. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-106994