If you’re dealing with a difficult athlete on one of your teams this year, you’re not alone. Every season, we’ve got one or two who coaches need some help redirecting and correcting. Difficult athletes can look very different, but we’ve all had them: 

  • Athletes who seem like they don’t care, but come back to the sport each year. 
  • Athletes who show physical signs of disrespect (eye rolling, talking back, rude tone or even walking off the floor).
  • Athletes who are constantly talking and distracting others.
  • Athletes who aren’t putting in the effort to match the rest of the team and their goals.
  • Athletes with zero self-awareness that often results in lack of respect and consideration for others and sometimes, unexplainable emotions.

Of course there are many more things we deal with regularly as coaches that make practices difficult. I could probably fill a page with the different types of athletes I’ve dealt with in over 20 years of coaching; however, each and every one of those athletes has a story. Each has a life outside the gym that you don’t see. 

Life Circumstances of Difficult Athletes

I’ve found that life circumstances really shine through in kids, and no coach will ever truly know what life is like for an athlete behind the four walls of their home. Difficult kids are often the result of difficult circumstances, like: 

  • Divorce and death in a family (yes, I put those together, because I think they’re equally as tragic for kids sometimes)
  • Watching siblings or close family members make decisions that ruin their own lives
  • Being the youngest in a large family or widespread ages of siblings (I have, more than once, had parents tell me privately that they’re “done parenting” while they still have a child at home and in my gym.)
  • Being raised by very young or very old parents (yes, “old” and “young” are relative, but both can present unique challenges for families)
  • Substance abuse, domestic violence or illegal activity in the home that the child knows is happening
  • Situations even the parents don’t know about that happen at sleepovers, parties or even relatives’ homes

These days, I don’t put anything past anyone. Difficult kids absolutely always have some sort of circumstance that makes them who they are. 

I’d even venture to say my own daughter can be difficult to coach at times. Shelley and I have had this conversation many times over the years as my kids have grown up in the gym. Being an owner’s kid is a unique challenge in itself. Everyone watches you. So many of your life events happen at the gym. My daughter’s first tooth was pulled out by a coach at a travel event, and most recently, her first homecoming “proposal” was in the gym in front of all the parents, her teammates and kids she coaches. Owners’ kids spend so much time in the gym that coaches are often more like family. We spend holidays and weekends with them, and they often feel like aunts and uncles. Getting critiqued by those you feel are “family” can add pressure at times. 

When my daughter and my business partner’s daughter made the high school cheer team, another mom told us we should donate to the team because they were the “poster children for cheerleading in our town.” That’s some pressure. Pressure to never mess up. Pressure to never bail in a tumbling pass at a competition. Pressure to not forget your dance. Pressure to fill in any time there is a cheer-mergency. 

Every kid has a circumstance. Some don’t feel as “serious” as others, and it might not make sense why some kids respond the way they do, but ultimately, the hardest thing you’ve ever dealt with in life is still, for you, the hardest thing. 

Giving Athletes Grace

As coaches, the best thing we can do is give athletes some grace. I’m not saying they should be talking back to us or being disrespectful to others without correction. I am saying it’s our job to partner with their parents and mentor them through the things happening in their lives … even if you don’t know what those things are. 

As I said in another blog recently, teachers and school coaches are often faced with unfair ratios. They don’t get as much time as our team coaches do to get to know these kids. They don’t have eight hours on a Saturday with them or two hours at a team pool party. They get the same amount of time with each student in the classroom and very little downtime. So, parents may not realize it, but we are potentially the best mentors these kids will ever have.

That’s a responsibility I take seriously. 

One coach I’ve always respected is Melanie, my gym manager. Melanie has coached what many would consider the most difficult kids in the gym. Just a few months into each season, she usually has solid strategies for dealing with behaviors that others would be frustrated about. She’s patient, kind and a great communicator. I have an athlete on one of my teams this year who fits the “lack of awareness” category. I already joked that Melanie should probably spend some time with this athlete and fill me in on how I can best mentor them.

Whatever it takes—training from a particular coach in your gym or outside your gym, conversations with the parents to get to know the athlete and their situation more, or a deep breath and a calming song in your head—don’t dismiss athletes because they’re difficult. This season, I challenge you to embrace them (metaphorically) instead.