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Dangerous Assumptions: Stop Putting Your Athletes in a Box

The Cheer Biz Podcast | Hosted by Dan Cotton

I’ve been coaching for 23 years. And one of the things that I have learned is that athletes will always surprise you. You may think you know exactly what an athlete is going to do — and you don’t.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast. I’m your host, Dan Cotton, and today we are talking about not putting your athletes in a box.

Before we get into the episode, head on over to Facebook and join Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners. Both of those groups have great conversations going on — we want to see you in them, engaging.

That’s also where we just announced the launch of The Cheer Coaches Handbook, co-authored by Danielle Johnston and myself, Dan Cotton, with a special guest chapter by Jeff Benson. It’s an awesome book designed to help you train your staff. It’s going to be the first installment — we expect two, maybe three books — and they’re meant to be read as a collective. Imagine all of your staff getting a copy, reading it together, and working through the worksheets. It’s going to be really, really awesome. It’s available June 1st on Amazon, and we’ll have copies available for purchase in Nashville.

Also, head on over to nextgenowners.com to learn more about joining the academy and getting to one of our Cheer Biz Accelerator events. These are absolutely amazing events where we do a deep dive on your business in a small group — 12 gym owners only. We dive fully into your business and give you a whole bunch of feedback on how to grow. The gyms that have come to the CBA and implemented what we’ve talked about are seeing massive growth. We’re talking about gyms that are just absolutely crushing it. I’m so excited to see them taking what we strategized together and putting it into action when they get home.

Alright, let’s get into the episode.

What Does It Mean to Put an Athlete in a Box?

We are talking about not putting your athletes in a box. Now, I certainly don’t mean a physical cardboard box — and I certainly don’t mean a tape outline on the floor, because that’s actually something we do in our gym all the time. Every year we have stunt groups stunt inside a little box to work on not moving their feet, staying within the space, and being clean. We call it the box game. So that’s not what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about is when you put an athlete in a box in your mind — with your expectations. When you give them a label. And it can go both ways. I want you to be really, really cautious about this, because every time you do it, you’re potentially negatively impacting that athlete, and you’re building a bias in your own mind. One thing I’ve learned about kids over the years is that they will surprise you. You just don’t really know.

So I want to talk about some of the most consistent boxes I see athletes get put into — and why it’s so important that you don’t put your athletes there.

Box #1: The “Sucky Kid” Label

The first box is the “they suck” box. I hear this all the time from coaches. “Those are the sucky kids. That kid’s not good. They’re a bad base. They’re not a good tumbler.” I get it — I understand the temptation to label an athlete like that. I’ve had athletes where I thought, man, they just aren’t getting this.

But there’s a huge difference between saying an athlete sucks at basing right now and saying that athlete sucks as a person. When you say “they just suck,” you’re saying they’re never going to be good. You’re putting them in the box as the sucky kid. And now you’re just trying to move the sucky kid around the mat to hide them — “they’ll only ever be a front spot” — instead of investing in their development.

Kids need to learn. It’s so easy to get that label when you could actually get better — you just haven’t had the right coach, the right moment, or that light bulb click yet.

This is actually why we build our stunt groups the way we do at our gym. If you’re an amazing flyer, you’re likely going to be on a group with one strong base or back spot and two less experienced ones. That isn’t because we’re trying to punish anyone — it’s because everyone needs to learn. If you’re a really, really good base, you’re probably not getting the best flyer on the team. Why? Because they need to learn too, and they need someone who can help compensate for some of their mistakes.

That doesn’t mean they suck. It just means they’re not there yet. If you look back at any athlete’s progression, every athlete starts out struggling. Yes, there are kids who pick things up really fast — maybe because they’ve done something else athletic. But before you could walk, you crawled, and you were terrible at walking. That didn’t mean you just sucked. You hadn’t learned yet.

The number of kids who have come through my program, started out technically struggling, and are now on my World’s team or my Medium Four team — some of the best kids in the gym — the list is endless.

Kids will surprise you. But if you label them as the kids who suck and treat them that way, they’re never going to get the same level of coaching as the kids you believe in. You’re naturally going to want to give the good kids your attention. No one necessarily wants to work with the group that’s really, really difficult. So by setting them aside — “we’ll put the sucky kids over here” — you’re cutting off their growth.

What if you intermixed them all? Maybe that kid doesn’t suck. Maybe it’s the way they interact with that group, or the connection with that flyer — or maybe it’s actually the back spot who’s the problem, not the base. You just don’t know.

I’ve had full-on arguments with staff members over the years who’ve voiced this opinion, and my response is always: they don’t suck. They just need to get coached. This is where I really love the extreme ownership mindset: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. If they suck, that’s a reflection of you as a coach, not of them as an athlete.

And even if you don’t say it out loud, kids aren’t dumb. When you put all the kids who aren’t hitting stunts in one group and all the kids who are landing everything in another, they’re going to see it. “We’re the sucky kids.” And once they start labeling themselves that way, it’s hard to get out of. Some will rise to the occasion — “I’ll show you” — but those kids are few and far between. So avoid that label entirely.

Box #2: The “Lazy” Label

The second label I want you to avoid is calling athletes lazy. Now, are there some lazy athletes out there? Yes. I’ve certainly encountered them, and it is really hard to motivate a rock. But most of the time when athletes appear lazy, there are outside factors at play — home issues, or they’ve simply never been taught what hard work looks like. They think they’re working hard, but they’re not there yet. Or they haven’t found the right motivation.

What I see a lot of times is coaches labeling an athlete as lazy when they’re really young — seven or eight years old. And I think: they don’t even know what they are yet. That kid isn’t necessarily lazy. Teach them. You can start training them in the culture of hard work all the way through their teenage years.

I think this is something our program actually excels at. I’ll pat myself on the back here — we are really good at developing work ethic in our athletes. Encouraging them to work extra, work harder, get in the gym more, push themselves, challenge themselves. And I think that’s why we have the success we do with athletes who come in really raw.

People ask me all the time where I get all these strong male athletes and how we get them to stunt the way they do. The answer is: we find raw talent and we train it. We get them in the gym every single day and teach them the work ethic that helped develop me — and my staff who went on to become NCA Grand National champions in college. They didn’t necessarily have that work ethic at the beginning.

Take Jelani, who I talk about often on the podcast. His teachers at school had probably labeled him as lazy and struggling — I’d guarantee it. Why? Because Jelani almost didn’t graduate high school. He skipped around 35 days of school in a row and was failing nearly every class. I benched him from our World’s team and the other team he was on.

But I also made him read Hamlet in a wall sit and do homework in a plank. I said, “You’re going to be at practice and you’re going to do your homework. I’ll approve it all. We’re going to get caught up.” And I showed him: if you just buckle down and work hard, you can achieve hard things. I think that was a pivotal moment for him. Between Tori and I and Cher — the three of us — we told him: “We’re not giving up on you. You’re not dumb and you’re not lazy. You’re just not living up to your potential.”

I’ve had many athletes over the years with similar circumstances where it would have been easy to say, “They’re just lazy, they just don’t care.” But putting athletes in that box limits them, because they’re going to live up to your expectations. If you treat them like they’re lazy, don’t be shocked when they’re lazy. If you tell them they’re dumb or they don’t work hard, don’t be shocked when they don’t work hard.

Instead, challenge them to become what you want them to be. Stop telling them what they are and start telling them what you believe they can be.

That is such a big game changer as a coach. When you’re giving your athletes a critique, stop telling them what they did wrong and tell them what you need them to do right. Don’t make them backward-engineer it. If you’re going to put them in a box, put them in the box of who you want them to become. Walk in and say: “We are the hardest-working kids. This gym is not lazy. And because you’re a part of this culture, you are not that thing. You are a hard worker — because you’re here.” That’s a box worth putting them in. It’s not a limiter; it carries them through.

Box #3: The “Talented” or “Lucky” Label

This next one is counterintuitive, and it comes from some of Jeff Benson’s work: stop putting kids in the box of “talented” or “lucky.”

When you tell an athlete they’re naturally talented, they stop believing their results come from their own hard work, grit, determination, and growth. Their mindset shifts to thinking it all came from natural ability — that they were just born with it, gifted. And that actually deters progress. Instead of labeling them as talented, label them as hardworking. Label them as growth-minded, forward-thinking, persevering. Use your core values. Put them in a box that helps them grow and become a better version of themselves, rather than one that takes away their sense of agency.

If you call someone a savant, you’re not saying they’re smart because of hard work. You’re just saying it comes easy to them. People do this in business all the time. My former colleagues from my police days — I know many of them look at me and think, “Dan’s just an overnight success. Things just worked out for him.”

And yeah, I’m fortunate right now. Things are going well. I also know that hard times will come — they always do, and I’ve had them. Bigger business, bigger money, bigger problems. But those same people aren’t looking back on the years I was a brand new cop on probation, coaching full-time at my gym, barely sleeping, trying to figure out how to be a police officer while also being in the military. They’re not seeing the late nights Tori and I spent staring at spreadsheets wondering how we’d pay the rent. They don’t see the business separation, the attorney fees, all of that stress and chaos. They only see the success right now.

So if you tell an athlete that all they are is naturally successful and it came easy — you actually discredit all of their hard work. Avoid putting athletes in the “naturally talented” or “lucky” box. Those labels are going to deter your athletes from being the best they can be.

Closing Thoughts

Alright, everyone — I know this was another fiery episode. I’m feeling it today. I didn’t even have that much caffeine, but I am fired up. I’m excited to be talking to you all, and I’m going to be recording more episodes, so expect more energy and more fire.

Thank you for listening. I really appreciate all of you. We’ve seen listenership go up dramatically, and it means so much to me that you spend 30 minutes, an hour — or more, depending on the episode — with me each week. Thank you all for the love and the support. And with that, we’ll catch you on the next episode.