Originally Published in: Raise Your Game

Another important part of culture is a sense of openness. If no one shares what they think, the culture becomes one of fear, suspicion, and failure. Problems fester in an environment where everyone is afraid to tell the boss what's going on. "If you expect a culture of trust," my friend Jay Bilas wrote, "you have to build and foster a culture of truth." Though cultures will vary from business to business, honesty and trust are bedrock concepts for all organizations.

It's the leader's job to create an environment where everyone feels safe enough to speak up. I once heard this Wall Street story about a lower-tier employee at an investment, let's call him Marc, who had misplaced $30 million. That's right, he misplaced it. He didn't lose the money; in the way of financial companies, it just couldn't be located right away. And it took a few days to find it.

Marc apparently worked for a real yeller, a boss who loved to make examples out of employees in a public and embarrassing way. Since Marc was terrified, he began a series of cover-ups and evasions to buy time until the money was found. After a couple of days, the money was located and everything was fine.

Then, the big boss, an executive, called Marc and Marc's immediate boss into the office. Marc was caught, and he had to fess up. As Marc told his story, the executive listened and recognized that the real issue was not the mistake, but the cover-up Marc felt compelled to engage in. Then the executive made a decision: he fired Marc's boss. The executive determined that the problem was not the isolated mistake Marc made, but the culture the boss had been responsible for creating.

  ]]> https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/open-culture-5/feed/ 0 124185 https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/model-teach-test-reward-with-stephen-mackey-2words-character-development-9/ https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/model-teach-test-reward-with-stephen-mackey-2words-character-development-9/#respond Tue, 28 Jul 2026 07:02:22 +0000 https://coachesinsider.com/?p=105192 Watch as Stephen Mackey discusses how leadership is critical in the teaching progression of athletes. He explains "Model, Teach, Test, Reward" as a method of teaching that produces results. How you work as a coach teaches students how to work. Modeling is not enough so you must explain the 'how' and 'why' and teach them what you want. Testing is key so the athletes have opportunities to demonstrate their progress. If they get it wrong or need to be corrected, you repeat the entire process. Reward your athletes when they get it right because what gets rewarded, gets repeated.

By: Teri McKeever - Former College and Olympic Swim Coach

Originally Published in: Winning Ways of Women Coaches

Provided by: Human Kinetics

If you aren't having conflicts on a team, then the athletes and those coaching them are not being authentic. If there is no butting of heads or questioning in a respectful way among athletes and coaches, then I don't think you're challenging each other enough. That might be uncomfortable for some and create some tension at times, but that's OK when the individuals involved are striving to improve themselves and the team and not motivated by a personal agenda.

We talk a lot about what the differences are between being a good teammate and being a good friend. You can have a poor teammate who can be a good friend, or you can have a really good teammate, but she's not really a friend. Athletes need to be able to distinguish and deal with those different scenarios and, when there are conflicts, learn how to resolve them.

We use role-playing as a way to address such interpersonal issues before they come up. For example, about a week before we go to our first big invitational meet in the fall, I'll talk with the athletes about what their responsibilities are in the team area of the facility. We'll talk about if you have a bad swim, what is appropriate behavior and what is not appropriate behavior. Then, if I see one of my athletes pouting about her performance, I can remind them of that talk and how such behavior is not allowed here. Or I'll have the captain talk to her about getting over it and supporting her teammates, or have her pity party elsewhere, in private.

So we try to anticipate a wide variety of challenging situations and discuss what our expectations are in responding to them. The athletes need to know and agree to what behavior is and is not acceptable. We will also do somewhat the same thing during recruiting, where we might come up with situations similar to the ones we have seen the recruit struggle with while evaluating her. It is telling whether the recruit realized her responses could have been better or believes she acted perfectly fine in those scenarios.

In the last couple of years, I have arranged more role-playing in small groups, and then observed the interaction among the groups afterward, and perhaps talked with them about the important takeaways from the situation. We also have small groups that discuss social issues and try to determine ways to have a positive impact.

Watch the full ABCA Q&A session with Jeremy Sheetinger free here.

Jeremy Sheetinger was formerly the head coach at Georgia Gwinnett College

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

Watch the full ABCA Q&A session with Jason Jackson free here.

By: Adam Sarancik

Author of: Coaching Champions for Life

"When evaluating your team, look first in the mirror with honest intent."

What is your mental approach to coaching? By your mental approach, I'm not asking about the approach you take to coaching the mental side of your player's game. I'm talking about your mental approach to your own coaching and the approach of your assistant coaches to their own coaching.

All good coaches know the critical importance of the mental side of training, competing and, in fact, for everything in life. It is both an essential component to elite development and the edge and difference maker in competition. All good coaches pay regular and very specific attention to developing the mind of their players, e.g., mental toughness, tenacity, focus, relaxation and positivity. Those coaches constantly address the "mental approach" that will best handle the moment, e.g., the game situation, an opponent, etc.

I wrote a book, Coaching Champions for Life, which discusses in great detail the general mental approach to coaching. Specifically, what I am asking here is when mistakes happen in a game, for example, what are the very first thoughts that come to your mind and to the minds of your assistant coaches?

We all see and hear coaches immediately bark rebukes at their players when mistakes happen. Why do they do that? Is it as simple as their coaches did it to them when they were players so they have been conditioned to do it to their players? Is it a release of anxiety on their part for some self-imposed pressure such as their need to "win"? Do they actually think it will immediately translate to better mechanics and play of their players? Do they really believe telling is teaching? (It's not.)

Here's my philosophy. There are only two types of games; well played and a failure of coaching. When mistakes happen, they're the fault of the coaches - period. When a player makes a physical error or when the team fails to handle a situation properly; it is the fault of the coaches, not the players. No other "mental approach" to coaching will lead to optimum results in the short or long-term.

Championship coaches, teams and programs are built by coaches who recognize the importance of "looking first in the mirror with honest intent."  When mistakes happen, coaches must immediately and intently reflect upon the ways they failed to properly train the player(s) so that the error would not happen.  What are the weak links in our training of preparation, anticipation, reaction and action of that player and of our team?

The philosophy of "get better every day" applies first and foremost to the coaches.  The mindset of our own accountability for every mistake our players make must be trained into our psyche to be not just a habit; it must be an instinct.

Players are required to have and can be held immediately accountable for having these things: a teachable spirit, their best effort, a growth mindset and an unfailing commitment to the maximum development of themselves and the team.  They can and must be held accountable for all of these things.  But failing to do these things are not mistakes.  They are matters of character. Coaches can exemplify, train and mentor these things too, of course, but players should be called out immediately for failing in any of these areas.

What I am advocating here is a change in the long-standing custom of coaches being reflexively, vocally critical of their players when mistakes happen rather than recognizing and considering that the primary cause of the error was a failure of coaching methodology. It is sadly too easy for a coach to use their position of power to criticize a player for their mistakes. This habit will not change the mechanics of the player in the short-term and will not set an example of how to handle problems in life in the long-term outside of the sport.

During games, we see coaches keeping several notebooks of meticulous data about the play of their team and their opponent. Who is keeping book on the performance of the coaches? I think if coaches put as much effort into evaluating their own methodology and approaches as they do their players, they would win more championships and, more importantly, they would develop more Champions for Life.

Adam Sarancik is the Author of Five Amazon Top 100 Best Selling Baseball Coaching Books:

Find them on Amazon here

• Coaching Champions for Life – The Process of Mentoring the Person, Athlete and Player
• Takeaway Quotes for Coaching Champions for Life – The Process of Mentoring the Person, Athlete and Player
• Teacher, Role Model, Mentor – Lessons Learned From a Lifetime in Coaching
• A Ground Ball to Shortstop – How and Why Coaches See Their Game Differently Than Anyone Else
• The Car Ride Home – Respecting Youth at a Vulnerable Place and Time

  ]]> https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/the-mental-approach-to-coaching-10/feed/ 0 118770 https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/benefits-of-having-multi-sport-athletes-on-the-team-with-travis-earles-magnolia-west-high-school-tx/ https://coachesinsider.com/baseball/benefits-of-having-multi-sport-athletes-on-the-team-with-travis-earles-magnolia-west-high-school-tx/#respond Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:40:14 +0000 https://coachesinsider.com/?p=112455 Watch as Coach Travis Earles highlights the advantages of having multi-sport athletes on his State Championship team. This was his first opportunity to coach a team with multiple starters that played another sport. He explains that, in his opinion, kids are throwing too much too soon and playing another sport helps with this situation. A major benefit is the players that come over from football are excited to play some baseball. They are extremely fresh physically and mentally. The key factor is having the cooperation of the AD and FB Coach that allow players to be multi-sport athletes.