2023 TrueSport Talks: Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach

Mental Wellness & The Student Athlete

Today’s coaches often feel they face mounting pressures to be all things to all people, produce sustained competitive results, and meet the needs of families, administrators, and most importantly, athletes. These unrealistic expectations placed on a single individual continue to escalate mental wellness challenges for those on the front lines who are leading and inspiring our next generation of great athletes. As national statistics and stories continue to unveil the scope of the national mental health crisis, sport must own its part in the problem, evolve to champion meaningful change, and implement proactive solutions that allow coaches to prioritize themselves to better serve others.

Join TrueSport and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for a virtual event as we explore mental wellness and the modern coach. Together, with coaches and experts, we will address the unique mental health stressors facing coaches and chart an evidence-informed path forward with actionable takeaways for youth sport influencers.

Recorded Sessions

Session 1 and 2 | Why Coach Mental Health Matters: Prioritizing Self to Best Serve Others

Session 3 | Effective Communication that Keeps Mental Wellness in Mind

Session 4 | The Oxygen Mask Effect: Taking Care of Self to More Effectively Advance Others

Session 5 | Closing Remarks

SESSION 3
Click to view the Presentation Slide Deck

SESSION 4

Event Schedule

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2023

9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Session 1 – Why Coach Mental Health Matters: Prioritizing Self to Best Serve Others

Today’s modern coach often feels they face mounting pressures to be all things to all people. Not only are they expected to produce sustained competitive results but also to meet the needs of many stakeholders including families, sport system administrators, and most importantly, athletes. These unrealistic expectations placed on a single individual continue to escalate mental wellness challenges for those on the front lines, leading and inspiring our next generation of great athletes. As national statistics and stories continue to unveil the scope of the national mental health crisis, sport must own its part in the problem, evolve to champion meaningful change, and implement proactive solutions that allow coaches to prioritize themselves to better serve others.

Session 2 – Coaching Well: How Do I “Coach Hard” and Take Care of Self and Athlete Well-being

What does it look like to “coach hard” for sustained performance success and to also be aware and take care of self and athlete wellbeing? Is this possible? Coaches are increasingly facing mounting pressures to be all things to all people. Join us for a candid conversation that will highlight coach voice and experience front and center. Their challenges, their voices, their words.

Session 3 – Round Table Discussions

During this hour-long facilitator led roundtable discussion, coaches in attendance will have the opportunity to share and reflect on the successes and challenges they’re facing alongside their peers. The goal of this discussion is to bring to the forefront the perspective and experiences of those actively in the field, as well as to highlight the commonalities in stressors facing coaches universally and across competitive levels.

Session 4 -The Oxygen Mask Effect: Taking Care of Self to More Effectively Advance Others

Coaches, regardless of the level they coach, are experiencing similar shared stressors across all levels of coaching from playground to podium. This session will address the unique mental health stressors facing coaches of all levels and offer some insightful education and resources from experts in the field diving into practical steps to support coach wellbeing. Following the session introduction, coaches will dive into interactive “practice makes progress” sessions designed to respond to the roundtable discussions through an interactive rotation of focused immersion with qualified experts. From learning how to identify and set healthy boundaries to practical strategies for prioritizing their own personal mental wellness, the outcomes of this session are strategically developed so coaches at any level can experience and activate practical mental wellness tools and walk away feeling confident in their ability to prioritize self so they can better serve others.

Mental Health & Emotional Regulation – Emotions serve an adaptive purpose when understood in a healthy context. Explore the importance of managing and regulating emotions as coaches navigate the stresses of preparation and competition.
Boundaries and Balanced Identity – The evolution of a coach’s job description has created an “all things to all people” mentality for many coaches. Identifying ways to set healthy boundaries that maintain a coach’s identity as a healthy individual and that recalibrate the discussion to recognize that coach mental well-being is not a luxury, but rather a necessary part of a successful career.
Effective Communication that Keeps Mental Wellness in Mind – Coaches are regularly required to lead in challenging situations. The cumulative effect of the communication of difficult information serves to undermine many coaches’ sense of mental well-being. From navigating individual and community crises to facilitating difficult conversations about a host of topics, coaches need training to support their role as a master communicator to help relieve this source of stress.
Making Self-Care Practical is Possible– Nutrition, physical health, movement, and mindfulness all play a part in a coach’s mental wellness toolkit. Coaches often find juggling these aspects of self-care difficult while fulfilling their many coaching responsibilities and devoting themselves to these very same issues for their athletes. This rotation provides pragmatic insights for coaches to employ to care for both self and others, creating balance and a better baseline for both physical and mental health.

Guest Speakers

Academic Advisory Panel

As the conversation around mental health and wellness continues to garner national attention, TrueSport, the outreach education arm of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, seeks to take a deeper look into the challenges coaches, sport administrators, and families are facing with their student-athletes. In connection with the second TrueSport Talks Symposium, TrueSport has enlisted an academic panel to build out a practical, concise, and evidence-based recommendations report. This report will focus wholistically on athlete well-being and suggest a systems approach to help identify opportunities to decrease stigma and increase the overall health of developmental sport culture.

2022 Testimonials

Testimonials from the 2022 TrueSport Talks.

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By providing TrueSport tools and resources to a community of TrueSport advocates, like you, the TrueSport mission of changing the culture of youth sport comes to life in communities across the country. Together, we can change the culture of youth sport and better equip tomorrow’s leaders for lasting success.

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Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 1 & 2 Transcript

Ryan Day: Hello, I’m Ryan Day head coach of the Ohio State football team. As you may know, mental health and wellness is very important to me personally and professionally. It’s a topic that I’m passionate about and model for our program. I believe that investing in our athletes’ and coaches’ mental wellness helps them build resilience and success both on and off the field. We have made it a key initiative to our program to prioritize mental health and well-being. We applaud TrueSport and USADA for boldly taking the initiative in this space and creating discussion for healthier sport climate for the next generation, one that prioritizes mental health for student-athletes and coaches. I hope that next few hours are meaningful for your growth as coaches and that the awareness and the effort does not end at the conclusion of this important conference. Instead, let’s agree to take it to the playing field and tackle this challenge together.

Jennifer Royer: Thanks Coach Day. Hi, I’m Jennifer Royer and I know lots of familiar faces in here, but there’s lots of new faces and I’m thrilled to welcome you to today’s event. I serve as the Senior Director of TrueSport and Awareness at the US Anti-Doping Agency and one of the efforts that USADA puts in place every day is a program called TrueSport. You all have been invited here today to join us in a really important mission. TrueSport is all about investing in the next generation of great athletes, investing in the next generation of sports, changing culture to ensure that sport delivers on its promise to young people that what we create is a healthy, positive, impactful environment that makes a difference in people’s lives. Thank you so much for being a part of this discussion today. It’s vital. It’s not just valuable. It’s something that if we don’t take control of sport, we can stand to lose sport.

So I want to welcome you today’s event. This is the TrueSport Talks Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach event. This is our third iteration of this event. Our first year was all about awareness and stigma to reduction. Last year we focused on student athletes ensuring that those dual pressures that our student athletes face to perform well on the field of play as well as in the classroom were juggled and juggled well. And after last year’s event, we’ve had a lot of great feedback from participants and our stakeholders that what we really need to do is look more systemically at sport as a whole, who plays into support for these athletes. And we know that many of you live this every day. It’s coaches. Certainly family has a huge impact. Certainly peers have a huge impact. Coaches are one of the single most important influencers in an athlete’s life.

And if we aren’t taking care of coaches and helping them model great behavior, how in the world can we possibly create a sports system that delivers on its promise to our communities? That’s the focus of the next few hours to make sure that we are investing in you so that you can invest in others and to do it in a way that’s balanced and healthy and whole. So first of all, thank you for believing in this enough to be here with us. Secondly, I have a couple of other thank yous I have to run through. I would like to thank the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum for this incredible venue. They are gracious and wonderful hosts every single time. I’d like to thank our USADA leadership, our board of directors, one of whom is in the room today, Cathy Sellers. Thank you for joining us. Our CEO Travis Tygart, our senior leadership team, our TrueSport team, and all the other teams at USADA who absolutely believe in this mission, in investing unselfishly in an audacious goal, change the culture of sport.

It’s enormous, it’s daunting. It’s the kind of thing that can’t really be done except that’s what sport draws out in all of us and I think we all know it, right? Great sport calls us to throw ourselves wholeheartedly at a challenge that’s so big that it shouldn’t be doable, but that’s what sport’s about. There is no audience that loves a great come-from-behind underdog story more than a sports audience. This is the moment where the crowd starts chanting Rudy. This is the moment where some broadcaster says, “Do you believe in miracles?” We do because it’s going to take that kind of effort, that will to believe in something bigger than us enough to take on a goal so audacious that it shouldn’t be doable, but it must be done. It must be done. So thank you to our leadership for believing in this enough to throw their finances and their support and their energy behind it.

And thank you for walking alongside of us for this moment. I’d also like to thank our athlete ambassadors. You will see the TrueSport athletes ambassadors around the room today. They routinely go out and talk to athletes about the value systems that we believe make sport great and we are truly grateful for them. We have wonderful partners joining us for this event. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum as I mentioned, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is joining us not only to lead sessions today, but also to provide support in other ways. One of the key things that I want to mention to you, knowing that today’s conversations could hit home pretty hard for a lot of us, they may hit some pretty personal really deep feelings about what we believe in and where we struggle. And if that is something that becomes a challenge for you or you feel that you need to talk to someone about, the USOPC has been gracious enough to support our day here by offering resources.

You will be able to reach out if you have any questions or any concerns or anything you want to follow up on to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Psych Services Group, their providers will be available. If you want to access them, the phone number you can call is (719) 431-9658. So if you are local and we’ll talk about that in a minute, it’s (719) 431-9658. You can also access those resources through go.teamusa.org/referrals, go.teamusa.org/referrals backslash referrals. So thank you to the USOPC for their gracious offer of support. We’re also thrilled and so grateful to appreciate and express our appreciation for our media partner SportsEngine, SportsEngine Next. They’re live-streaming. They’re virtually supporting this event and they have also been graciously offering some media support as well. We’re super grateful for the Colorado Springs Sports Corps, Children’s Hospital Colorado, National Strength and Conditioning Association.

And for those of you who attended the reception last night, you heard the Sierra High School Drumline welcome You. And so it was really fun to have our community involved and have some really fun life brought into the party because at the end of the day, those athletes are why you’re all sitting in here. And so recognizing that the joy and the energy that they bring is reflective of your leadership is a really important thing for us. Okay, today I’ve mentioned we’ve got a big problem ahead of us. Coach Day mentioned it, it’s all over the news. We know that we have a mental health crisis in this country and other countries, and to that end, we are welcoming a number of virtual guests from around the globe. We as of this morning, had over 1400 people signed up virtually who are watching now live-streamed and will watch recordings later.

So welcome. For those of you who are joining us virtually, we appreciate your insight. We welcome your thoughts and feedback, so please email us if you have any questions. This is a huge daunting issue. We know that every time an athlete steps onto a field of competition or dives in the pool or whatever their chosen competition is, it’s often focused solely on that athlete’s performance. We understand that there’s never really a single athlete represented in that competition. It is a system that has brought them to that moment. It’s the mom or grandmom or brother or neighbor who’s driven them to practice all those years. It’s the kind person who donated food to the school pantry so that they got a snack when they were hungry. If they had food deserts in their life, it is the coach that stayed up late worrying if that kid was okay after a tough competition or if they have their travel arrangements made or if they’re sick on the day of trials for the Olympic or Paralympic games.

There are coaches and people surrounding them and we’ve got to look at this systemically and if we don’t, we will fail those athletes. We have often considered physical well-being as the hallmark of what makes a great athlete. We’ve gotten that pretty messed up and I think we’re all aware of that at this point. Competitive advantage isn’t just having a physically healthy athlete on a field. We have got to begin to shift the conversation to a holistic approach around sport, one where physical and mental well-being matters because a physically and mentally capable athlete supported by a healthy coach and healthy sports system is the greatest competitive advantage that we could ever hope for. I think you’ll hear evidence of that today. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to win. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to work hard to win, but if we do it the right way, not winning at all costs, but investing in what’s right even though it’s what’s hard. Long-term is the solution TrueSport and USADA believes in, win by all means.

Strive to win every day, but do it with regard for the human on the other side of that equation because only when our athletes arrive their whole self can we hope to have sustainable, healthy sports systems. I am thrilled, thrilled today to invite you to this conversation. We have an amazing emcee today who is far more entertaining than I am and she’s going to join us here in just a second. Don’t roll your eyes at me Kara. You’re that amazing. So Kara Winger is going to join us here in just a second. Kara Winger is one, just a tremendous athlete. She’s had an amazing career, but way more importantly to me is Kara is the kind of human that you want to surround yourself with. She brings amazing energy. She’s optimistic. She’s not Pollyanna in any way.

She’s a realist, but she’s the kind of realist who has faced difficulty and come out the other side stronger and more impactful, and I think you will read that in her energy today. Kara is a four-time Olympic javelin thrower. She’s really good. She knows what she’s talking about. She knows how to succeed. She’s also struggled and she’s really transparent about that. Her struggles have fed her success and she’ll tell you about that. She has thrown the javelin for twenty-one years in her career. She just told me this morning her very first athletic competition where she threw the javelin was on her 15th birthday.

Happy birthday. I think I did something really lame on my 15th birthday. I didn’t start an Olympic throwing career, but these are the moments that she’s linked. She’s linked these really deeply personal moments to her athletic experience and that is a healthy emotional connection through sport. One of the things she’s probably most proud of though she’s too humble to say it, is that she was elected in her last Olympic Games by her peers to be the flag bearer in the closing ceremonies. What an amazing testament to the character of this woman. We are so proud to have had her as a part of our Athlete Ambassador program for the last six years, and as she faces retirement, we know we’re probably wishing her off into the next phase of her life. But as she transitions, this is an important moment for us to allow her to shine brightly and to share the light that she brings to this conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, friends, colleagues, Kara Winger.

Kara Winger: Thank you so much, Jen. As Jen said, it has been my honor to be a TrueSport ambassador for the last six years I left sport behind. I put my javelin down in 2022 and I miss it very much, but I’m very excited about the next chapter of my life. I actually also just quit my job, so I have all of this time to devote to you, the coaches here at our TrueSport Talks Symposium 2023. So not only are we here for you and your very important essential role in sport as the incredible coaches that you are, but we’re here for you as humans. Coaches are the backbone of sport. You impact generation after generation, after generation of athletes, essential heartbeats of sport as we know it. So we’re going to take care of you as the human today. Like Jen mentioned, my last Olympics was Tokyo in 2021, that postponed COVID Olympics.

I had torn my ACL a second time in August of 2020. So in all four of my Olympics, my first one Beijing 2008, I had my original born ACL, my original one in my left knee, 2012 in London, I threw the javelin at the Olympic Games with no ACL. I had torn it at Olympic trials for the first time. Rio 2016, my patella tendon was in place of my original ACL and then in Tokyo in 2021, my ACL was someone else’s hamstring tendon, four Olympic Games, four different left knee scenarios, not the Olympic dream that I had in mind when I started out as a javelin thrower. One of the absolute saving graces of that. And I want to share this really quick story about a coach that had a massive impact on my life. I know how lucky I am to have had incredible coaches.

The entirety of my athletics career. I played soccer, basketball, I swam, I refused to dive on the floor as a volleyball player, and then I finally picked up a javelin my freshman year of high school. So many great coaches throughout, but Jamie Myers of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee was my strength coach for 14 years. He hadn’t been to an Olympic Games until my final Olympic Games in Tokyo and being 11 months post-op, my second ACL, it wasn’t the dream scenario that we both had in mind from my final trip to the games. When I didn’t make the final for the fourth time in a row when I didn’t give myself a chance at a medal, I said to him, “Jamie, I realize this is the equivalent of waking up from anesthesia and buying a house, but if I’m just going to disappoint myself, I don’t want do this again”.

To have my friend of 14 years who grew up in the sport with me at the Olympic Games, his first experience just right next to me in the hardest moments of my career was so important. But in Tokyo, I looked at him and I realized that maybe he also needed that relationship too. He referred to the Olympic Games as emotional carnage because the disappointment of not making the final was then met by this incredible election by my peers as closing ceremonies flag bearer for team USA. Jamie got to come with me to the Today Show to make that announcement. Seeing him hold my jacket on his arm, his wife as my matron of honor, they’re my family, was so special. And I realized in those moments that the only triage for that emotional carnage was the relationship that we’d built together. What I want you to hear from that is talk to each other.

We had open and honest conversations walking through the village in all of our different emotional states throughout that very tumultuous time, and we had done so for 14 years. Everyone is from different facets of sport in this room, but we can all learn from each other and the only way we do that is by having conversations. So we’ll touch on that throughout the day, but I’m so grateful to be here. I love this museum. I got to see it grow and be built, and it’s just such a beautiful place to have these incredibly important conversations to keep moving forward. Without further ado, I’m going to welcome our keynote speaker. He’s Dr. Jay Harrison, a fellow athlete. He played hockey for Team Canada and many NHL teams for a long time and used his continued education while continuing to skate and play the game that he loved as a source of resilience and investment in his own future.

Once he hung up his skates, he then ho-hum, went and got his PhD in clinical psychology. He’s founded his own company, works with many military and paramilitary groups, businesses that operate at a high level and tries to impact absolutely as many humans as he can with incredible tools to reach their full potential. He meets people where they are mentally and helps them understand where that they could get to. We are going to hear from him about why coach mental health matters, prioritizing self to best serve others. Help me welcome Dr. Jay Harrison to the stage.

Dr. Jay Harrison: Okay. Thank you so much Kara for that awesome introduction and thank you to everyone at USADA and TrueSport for this amazing opportunity. I’m so excited, so grateful to connect with all of you who are with us virtually as well to talk about this topic which is so important to the future of sport. It’s funny, when I was an athlete, we used to have a joke about the coach’s office being the most lonely place in the world. And from my sport in hockey, it generally looked like a four-by-four concrete room where four men drank coffee all day, hoping that these overpaid prima donnas will show up and play for me tonight. And if they don’t, I’m in big trouble. But we know that coaches occupy a very special role in the lives of athletes, and you saw the CEO, Travis Tygart…we just touched in passing last night in a conversation about how coaches can be even more powerful and influential than parents. And that really resonated with my experience, and I wanted to touch on that on how influential coaches can be at any age of our development and our experience.

I have a coach that I remember very specifically from being an 11-year-old lacrosse player who taught me about accountability and what really matters is what you do when no one’s looking, which included handing in your two-mile times for every day we didn’t practice. I also remember a strength and conditioning coach who literally changed the way I think about nutrition, sleep, and had such an impact it affects the way I raise my children and live my life with my family as we grow.

But I also had a very special relationship with a coach named Paul Maurice. I had the opportunity to play for Paul on four different professional hockey teams, and that’s incredibly rare to be able to follow a coach around. And needless to say, we got to know each other very well. But he had some profound insight that really changed how I felt about coaching and really inspired me further to help people in a coach-like role. He said to me, “Jay, people think this coaching thing is about the X’s and O’s, preparing, motivating, getting guys ready to play.” He said, “It’s not about that at all.” He said, “It’s my job to see something in you you don’t see in yourself and then get it out of you.” He said, “At some point, I need to know that every person in this room is going to let me down and I’m still going to love them.”

And that just profoundly hit me with such a powerful essence that coaching isn’t a job, just like being an athlete isn’t a job, it’s a calling. It’s something we’re called to do. It’s our job to see something in someone and bring it out and manifest it. They may not see it in themselves yet, but we see it and we work to bring that out.

Now I’ve been told that you can’t serve from an empty cup, yet ironically, many of us in the service industry sure as hell try, coaches included. But how are athletes expected to fulfill the needs of their athletes if their own needs are neglected? Coaches are role models. I’ll always remember the line from Remember the Titans When we learn that attitude reflects leadership, how coaches respond, athletes will follow. So today we’re going to learn about identity, we’re going to learn about balance and boundaries, we’re going to learn about coaches’ self-care, and some of the many workshops and presentations today that are going to help facilitate the tools and perspective necessary to lead well sustainably and holistically.

We know that coach mental health matters. We see quotes on the wall here about the prioritization of mental health. No one disagrees with any of those statements. We all agreed the need is high, but for some reason in sports, the demand is low. And there are a number of behaviors that continue this trend of behaving in the same way of knowing mental health is important, but somehow having it move down the list of priorities. So today I want to share with you a little bit of my perspective from being a player to being a counselor in research on mental health and elite support. I want to shape it in a way that gives us perspective and understanding of the coach and athlete experience so that we can use this insight to bring change in the lives of our athletes and in ourselves. So I want present this talk and use a term of a dialectic.

Now, there’s a lot of psychologists in the room who are familiar with dialectics, but for those who don’t, it’s a fancy way of describing the experience of holding two seemingly opposite truths together. It’s the tension between two contradictory viewpoints that reveals a greater truth through their interplay. So today I’d like to explore mental health in sport as a dialectic, and that sport enhances mental health and exposes significant vulnerabilities to our wellbeing. So as we come around to accept these truths about mental health in sport, we will be motivated, energized, and prepared to make a meaningful difference in our lives and the athletes we serve. So let’s dig in a little bit.

Sport as a mental health enhancer, sport represents an environment that cultivates the human experience and capacity to overcome, compete, and make meaning of the struggle we all go through to fully connect with oneself, with teammates, broader communities, and even countries. At its most general level, sports represents the first opportunity for our children to compete and have fun. A dialect for most people who aren’t in sport, sometimes difficult to compete and have fun. We connect their mind to their body. They learn to delay gratification, learn new physical, cognitive social skills. They gain firsthand experience with confidence and self-doubt, joy and despair, elation and frustration. And the skills they learn through sport are transferable, sport is the microcosm of life and the skills and experience we gain through the safety of sport prepare us to navigate the realities of the world. Clearly sport is not just about being a good coach or a good athlete.

Sport enhances our mental health. At its highest level, sport showcases the peak of human resilience, fortitude and mental skill. We see athletes who are led by transformative coaches perform superhuman feats, pushing the limits of their bodies and minds, rebounding from setbacks that would break most of us, and we’re inspired.

As individuals, communities, and countries we rally behind our athletes and coaches and take strength from their strength. Sport is so powerful that it’s a catalyst for social change, literally having the power to alter the fabric that it exists within. There’s no doubt that sport makes a big impact. So it’s not surprising that at the individual level, our elite athletes and coaches careers are not just valuable, they’re invaluable. Tied to them are deep investments of identity and sense of purpose, stability, in some cases, financial outcomes, as well as the number of social connections. And here lies the dialect, the very thing that gives our athletes and coaches a sense of purpose, achievement and stability also becomes a source of profound vulnerability. This deep investment our athletes and coaches attached to their sporting careers and identity are central to their self-concept, meaning they’re on high alert for factors that may threaten or risk that identity and the opportunities associated with it.

From an early age, we’re conditioned to focus on the future, the next race, the next match, the next season. This orientation pushes us to prioritize our athletic identity and the rewards it brings. Any factors or disruptions to that trajectory, which might include acknowledging or addressing a mental health issue are often avoided. In the subconscious of many coaches and athletes mental health issues represent a threat to their athletic opportunity. So coaches and athletes may minimize their mental health struggles, convince themselves that they can handle it alone or believe they can keep pushing through all to avoid the disconnect between what they’re experiencing and the image they feel they must uphold. And as we know by trying to hide this particular disconnect, the problem doesn’t disappear, it exacerbates. Just like a physical injury, untreated mental health issues have detrimental effects on athletes and coaches’ performance.

So I’ve been asked, why is the culture of sport so silent on mental health? I think it’s simple and purposeful. In our current culture, mental health issues represent threats to opportunity. We’ve all sacrificed so much and are willing to sacrifice so much more for athletic success, what’s a little anxiety, a little depression, a little addiction, compulsion, phobia? Maybe you’ve seen this firsthand, maybe you’ve had this bargain with yourself, I know I have. Maybe you’ve seen it in an athlete, maybe you haven’t recognized it until just now, but it’s an important thing to recognize.

Sometimes I see mental health as squeaky brakes in a car, and the challenge with our athletes is that they’re really good drivers. They’re able to navigate the roads hiding the squeaky brakes, performing well because they’re excellent drivers and they perform increasingly well. But then someone gets in the car with them and says, “Holy smokes, you need to see a mechanic.” And the athlete looks at you and says, “Really? Nobody told me.” It’s one of those profound insights and the catalyst a coach can play in the mental health of an athlete who may not even realize the condition that they’re in.

So this reality really equates to elite athlete and coaches that sport isn’t what they do, it’s who they are and this is a situation where performance and accomplishments become reflections of who we are. And this is that real vulnerability because it gives rides to a relentless pursuit of achievement where our self-worth is contingent upon continuous success. Sports people feel as if they’re in an incessant race, always striving to earn their own self-regard and prove their worthiness. Now, there are benefits to this mindset, exceptional work ethic, unbelievable tenacity and grit. But the bar of self expectation can be set so high that no achievement, no matter how remarkable seems enough, it becomes a tendency for the athlete to become perpetually unsatisfied, always striving for more, looking to the next peak while ignoring mountains already climbed.

And I believe that this is an environment that creates a significant risk for mental health issues, athletes and coaches in a perpetual state of feeling incomplete, continually striving and never arriving, their past accomplishments, no matter how significant are often overlooked in favor of future goals. The insatiable quest for more, faster times, more wins, higher accolades, becomes a never ending cycle, chasing a horizon that continues to recede no matter how far we go, making us susceptible to low self-esteem, burnout, depression, all of which may be masked by concurrent behavioral issues like substance use or other self-medicating tendencies.

So this is what we must accept. My work with athletes and reflecting deeply on my own experience suggests that this is a big issue. Expecting fulfillment based on outcomes drives a perpetuating cycle of moving the goalposts. But I counteract this cycle of continuous striving and the mental health toll it can take by proposing a shifting in mindset with the athletes and coaches I work with. Instead of viewing sport as a reflection of one’s self-worth, I choose to see it as an expression of one’s unique self.

In other words, let’s transition sport from being the mirror that you see yourself in to being the canvas that you express yourself on. I have found that this is a very powerful psychological shift and one that can significantly alleviate the pressure athletes and coaches place on themselves and opens up a space to prioritize mental health. Seeing sports as an expression acknowledges that performance and achievement are extensions of personal qualities such as dedication, resilience, teamwork, perseverance. They showcase the individual’s ability to set goals, face challenges, and overcome obstacles, but do not define their worth as a person. On the contrary, their expressions of who the athlete and coach truly is, a resilient individual, a dedicated performer, a collaborative teammate, an inspirational mentor. It is a shift from seeking validation through achievements to understanding that achievements are manifestations of one’s inherent qualities and capabilities.

The cost of this mindset is nothing but it generates compound interest. They can strive for excellence in their sport, dedicating themselves to training and improvement while still maintaining self-esteem independent of their performance. Athletes and coaches can face failures and setbacks without equating them to personal inadequacies. They can celebrate their victories not as validations of their worth, but as affirmations of their capabilities.

And I wanted to share a little bit about how I found sport as an expression of myself. I found and was lucky enough to meet mentors in my life who saw more in me than just being an athlete. I was stuck in this double bind of trying to continually establish my self-worth through my performance. It took an enormous toll on my experience. I often tell people I didn’t become a psychologist because I handled all the aspects of sports so well, on the contrary, I was looking for some solutions myself.

But I ended up finding this unique aspect of myself through education and individuals who saw more in me than just the athlete. And it allowed me to reposition sport as an expression of myself. I found connection through education that bred competence, connection, and mastery. And amazingly, this actually spilled over into my athletic performance, my self-worth no longer contingent on the outcome of the games I was free to express myself, who I was. The game truly became fun again. And lo and behold, I went on and did it for 13 more years.

But I was so fascinated by it, I felt like I had to study it further. And lo and behold, I found that a number of other athletes experienced similar outcomes. And I share an experience one time I was told as an athlete, “Why don’t you just shut up and play?” And despite, if you ever see on YouTube, I played a very assertive game. I was a very physical player, but off the ice, I lack assertion in some interpersonal instances, as my wife would tell you. It was one time in my life where I bit back and I bit back hard. And I said, “We’re told every day not to take the game home with us, but nobody asks us what we’re bringing with us to the rink or to the field.” I said, “I do this work because it makes me feel good about myself and that makes me a better player.” And that was the end of the conversation.

So I share this with you as coaches to frame the idea that investing in oneself beyond sport is not an act of detracting the athletic commitment, but rather an act of enhancing it. Diversifying one’s identity and skills can yield profound psychological and performance benefits. And that might seem counterintuitive to the traditional athletic mindset, but consider the roles of confidence, self-efficacy and social support, and what they play in sustained athletic success. Those aren’t factors that are solely developed on the field, the court or the track, they’re nurtured in the multifaceted experiences of our life. And I have found that by fostering different aspects of our identity, athletes and coaches gain a broader perspective. They acquire new skills and build relationships that enhance their network. All resources required to sustain performance in the difficult environment of sport.

When athletes and coaches view sport as an expression of who they are rather than a reflection, they may be more likely to prioritize mental health and seek help when needed. They may feel less threatened by the struggles they’re experiencing and may be more willing to speak openly about their experiences. They may even get to a place where the loss of their athletic identity and the opportunities created by it don’t represent an existential threat and thus be more willing to seek help for mental health issues. This shift can pave a way for a culture of acceptance, openness, and support where mental health is prioritized just as much as physical prowess and achievement.

I found that framing sports as an expression supports mental health. Firstly, it fosters self-acceptance. Athletes who embrace this mindset understand that their value extends beyond their sports performance. They accept themselves for who they are, their strengths, their weaknesses, their successes and failures and this self-acceptance reduces the risk of mental health issues that can be associated with constant self-evaluation and criticism.

Secondly, it improves resilience. By recognizing that our worth is not contingent on our performance, we can be better able to cope with the inevitable ups and downs of a sporting career. We see failures and setbacks as opportunities for growth and learning rather than threats to our self-worth.

Thirdly, this perspective promotes cognitive flexibility. Athletes and coaches with this worldview are better equipped to handle transitions and changes, injuries and retirement. They can adapt more readily to new situations and roles because their identity is not solely tied to their athletic outcomes.

And coaches can play a critical role in developing the expressive nature of sport in their athletes. They can help athletes navigate model and frame their feelings of identity, self-worth, and what a healthy relationship with sport looks like, but they must serve from a full cup.

The world of elite athletics is marked by incredible feats of skill, talent, and also harbors a deeply entrenched silence around mental health. The factors that contribute to this silence are complex, they’re multifaceted, generational, and in many cases understandable. From my journey as a professional hockey player to my current role as a counselor, I’ve witnessed the immense pressure that athletes face. I’ve seen how the investment in athletic identity often outweighs personal wellbeing, leading to a willingness to sacrifice mental health for the pursuit of excellence. The athletic mindset and the perceived value of an athletic and coaching career and the subsequent threats to opportunity that could be created by help seeking behavior creates a double bind for many people in sport.

But bridging the worlds of high performance and wellbeing do not lie in forsaking the pursuit of excellence, but rather integrating it in the recognition and embrace of our shared humanity. Athletes and coaches are better served when they see sport as an expression of who they are rather than a reflection of their worth. The culture of silence around mental health in sports won’t be fixed overnight, but through our persistent efforts and education, awareness and shifting, the mindset change can be initiated. By helping athletes and coaches see themselves as more than their athletic selves, we naturally increase their value to themselves and to the world. This process motivates initiative and self-sufficiency, which can act as catalysts for the prioritization of mental health. And with that as the evolution of sports culture that encourages openness, acceptance and support is fostered. We recognize that the pursuit of excellence does not need to come at the cost of wellbeing, but rather is a journey that enhances it. Thank you.

Kara Winger: Hello, I’m Kara Winger, four-time Olympic javelin thrower, and your MC for today’s “TrueSport Talks Symposium” on “Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach.” I am here with Charron Sumler, who is the Assistant Director of Sports Psychology and Wellness in the Athletic Department at the Ohio State University where you’re also getting your PhD.

Charron Sumler: Yes, it is, and I’m very excited to be here today. In my day-to-day role, I get to work with coaches to emphasize student athlete wellbeing, so working with them in terms of their communication, their own wellness, and also how to create a culture that really emphasizes mental health and wellness. So today we have an all-star panel of coaches and administrators who will get to give us a snapshot of what it’s like to be a modern coach in today’s world and balance mental health and wellness. We have early career coaches, veteran coaches, and even a sport administrator. So we’re excited today for today’s panel.

Kara Winger: Very cool. You also have experience in crisis solutions and resources for student athletes and as a student athlete yourself, just lots of experience in this area. So, talk to me about how you’ll bring kind of the rest of the world into this coaches panel. It’s not just about student athletes, it’s about the coaches that lead them. So, your perspective is going to be really cool today.

Charron Sumler: Yeah, thank you for that. And what we’re really learning is that it takes a system or takes a village to emphasize student athlete and athlete mental health and wellness. So today we’re kind of zooming out from just the athlete to the coaches because without the coaches being well, it’s really hard to create a culture that emphasizes wellness for athletes.

Kara Winger: Well Charron, thank you for moderating this panel with our amazing coaches today. I can’t wait to hear it. Now, back to the livestream.

Kara Winger: I just wanted to share really quickly an action item. Because you talk about sport as an expression of self, sometimes that takes a little bit longer to sink in than just realizing that you need to do something different. In 2019, I was really struggling in my season. I thought maybe the end was near. I was getting a little bit older. Am I washed up? What’s going on? I was doing all the right things, but they weren’t coming out on the runway and I just couldn’t relax.

So I did one thing differently, I tried float therapy. I turned off my brain for a second, relaxed for the first time in what felt like 10 years and results followed. So instead of getting overwhelmed by the bigger picture of how do I make sport and expression of my athletes, what’s one tiny thing that you can do to be better available to help your athletes understand how they can do that themselves? And for me, relaxing is the thing.

So we’ve learned that we need to better foster an opportunity for athletes to use sport as an expression of themselves. And I’m really excited for our panel moderated by Charron Sumler of incredible coaches with much success to their names from all different aspects of sport. So they’re going to share with us tools on how they take care of themselves and their athletes’ mental wellbeing on this incredible panel. Sharon Sumler is pursuing her PhD at the Ohio State University, while also serving in their sports psychology and wellness department for the athletic department for the Buckeyes. She has experience in crisis resources and management for student athletes, was a student athlete herself, and always makes sure that marginalized student athletes have a voice. She’s going to be an excellent moderator for us today, so please help me welcome Charron Sumler.

Charron Sumler: Thank you, Kara, and thank you all for being here with us, both virtually and in person. We’re really excited for today. Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with some of the greatest coaches in the nation and interviewing and talking to them about the ways in which they balance peak performance and mental health and wellness, kind of a glimpse into the world of modern coaching currently across sport organizations and across sports. So I hope that you hear some similarities in the human experience of being a coach and navigating mental health and wellness in different agencies. So I’m going to go ahead and invite my coaching crew up to the stage.

Charron Sumler: Awesome. Go ahead and give them a hand for joining us for today. Something I’ve learned in working with coaches at Ohio State, similar to Coach Ryan Day, is that coaches really like to be direct and get straight to the point. So you all have their full bios and backgrounds in terms of their achievements and their accolades, but what I’m going to have them do is dive right in. I’d like for them to introduce themselves briefly by answering the following question. How over time has your coaching or leadership philosophy evolved to balance peak pressure and mental wellness?

Leslie Irvine: Starting with me? Great, I’m in. I think for me, when I think about leadership, I lean every day in the fact that I’m a former student athlete, and then I was an assistant coach, then I became a head coach, I became a senior associate athletic director where I was overseeing sports, and now I’m a vice president athletic director. So for me, my journey has evolved in a way that makes a lot of sense and builds upon itself. And so I think there isn’t a day where I don’t lean on those experiences in my role. It’s really important that you don’t forget that. Whenever I’m in front of a room of student athletes, reminding them that I have been a student athlete’s really important. Working with coaches, knowing that I’ve coached is really, really important.

Geoff Kelly: Yeah, it’s nice to see everybody. Good morning. It seems like some of us are still waking up. My name is Geoff Kelly. I’m probably the newest, well maybe one of the newest coaches in the room. I’ve been coaching basketball at the high school level for one year. So my philosophy has changed for sure. I was a player coach in college. The last two, three years I was playing I was a player coach. And growing up, probably like many of you guys…

Geoff Kelly: And growing up, probably like many of you guys, some of the most inspirational people in my life were my coaches. So I had in my mind, hey, coaches are good. Coaches are good. They’re the people we look to for leadership, and you never see them struggle or stress out. And I say never, we all have those coaches where they have, a game is tight, things like that. But something that I’ve adopted into my team and my coaching and leadership style is, again, being okay with being vulnerable with my student athletes. Knowing that, hey, I’m going to mess up at times, and letting them know that, hey, I acknowledge that. So something that I do with my student athletes is talk to them about what are my goals this season? What are my goals that I can control?

Because again, as athletes, we’re always saying, “Hey, how do we win? What’s that score on that scoreboard?” And we all know at times that’s not something we can control, so that’s what I talk about, is, hey, what can I control that are my goals? And then again, talk about them throughout the season. Hey, did I show up to this practice and did I control what I could control that’s going to help me get to my goal, or did I fall short of that today? And again, creating that culture. I know we’ll talk about culture in a little bit, but creating that culture with my team like, hey, we’re not perfect. We’re not perfect. We’re going to mess up and we’re going to have times that we do really well, and we’ve got to celebrate all of it. So that’s something that I’ve shifted in this past year to continue to uplift my culture.

Jim Miller: Nice. I’m so glad I didn’t have to go first. My name is Jim Miller. I’m the high performance director at USA Cycling. I’ve been coaching for probably the better part of 30 years. This is actually a really easy question I think to answer. There’s very few good things that are great about middle age. One of them though is experience and wisdom. When I was young, I pressed hard, I pushed hard. The only governor I had on how much work I could do was getting sick. I would go from being sick to sick, to sick, to sick. As soon as I was done, I would be back on the gas working. So for me, the easiest difference between coaching now and coaching then is patience. I’m infinitely more patient. I probably have a set of coaches and athletes who may not agree with that, but compared to 30 years ago, it is night and day. I think for me, that’s the biggest thing. That’s the big change.

Charron Sumler: Yeah. Thank you.

Joe Delagrave: Hey guys. My name’s Joe Delagrave. I coach wheelchair rhythm dancing. Totally kidding. Wheelchair Rugby. I’m lightening it up a little bit here. No, so I think my philosophy, I was an athlete for a long, long time in the national team, and recently switched over and I’m the head coach of the team for the last two years. And we talk about mantras a lot in our team, and so it all starts with our culture. And so those are remind, respond, and remember. Remind is about reminding your teammates, not complaining, so constantly preparing for the moment. And then respond is everything’s rooted in that we’re going to fail on the court a ton of times every single day but we’re going to respond in a positive way, and so just implementing that. And then remember, remembering that I’m in charge is kind of… No, I’m kidding. Remembering those two things. Remembering to remind our teammates, remembering to respond, and then remembering that our sport’s a conduit for something greater in life.

I think that’s something that wherever you’re coaching, whether you’re watching online right now or you’re coaching at the highest level possible, or you’re coaching a high school or you’re coaching college, is that sport at the foundational level is a vehicle to drive our athletes into something greater than just playing some made up sport, so remembering that it’s a positive thing there.

Charron Sumler: Yeah, thank you all for that, and I invite you to really think about now a bit more practically, more tangible day to day, how do you go about creating a team culture that emphasizes competitive excellence and wellness?

Leslie Irvine: We’ll go down the line, so then we don’t take all the time. I think for me, part of the message I want to share, and just congrats to everyone for taking time out to invest in this type of work and to the, I think, many, many people watching in and tuning in virtually. For me, coaches need support. I’m just so thrilled to be part of something like this that’s actually focusing on that, and as administrators or as someone who worked directly with coaches, it’s key that that’s tangible support. So when I think about my own work and how we’re pulled in so many different directions, one of the most important decisions that I make in terms of my time is having one-on-ones with our coaches and developing relationship, and making sure that you pause and ask how they’re doing.

And it really isn’t rocket science, and in many ways, it’s not very different to what our coaches are doing with our student athletes, and what I would urge coaches to think about too is that’s a relationship that needs to be built both ways. And so as you think about that relationship, it’s also on you and it’s also your responsibility, regardless of whether you love your administrator or not, to open up dialogue and invite people into your program. And there are very simple examples of doing that. When you’re having celebrations with your teams, when you’re thinking about making big decisions on lineups, the more you can share with the people around you supporting your programs, the more you set us up as leaders to support you during those moments.

I consider myself, if you’re talking about championship culture, it’s very hard to coach right now. It’s complicated. Times are complicated. We’re thinking of mental wellness, we’re thinking of all the things that are happening in the world. If I’m doing my job well, I am setting our coaches up to coach courageously and I think about that all the time. And part of that is closing the door, putting our phones down and spending time together.

Geoff Kelly: Yeah, you said a lot of good things right there, and you talk about support and feedback and having that within an organization, within the team, and that’s something that, again, I’ve been fortunate to have in my short coaching career. Other coaches that support me, other coaches that pour back into me, but what we do is take that to the next level again. And you talk about feedback. I’m sure we’ve all heard of it before. “Hey, this is not my team. No, this is not my team. I’m not calling every single shot here.” Again, some coaches think that way, and that’s fair. We are the leaders.

Something that we stress is, “Hey, we’re the coaches. You guys are the players. This is our team. This is us.” We try to stress a culture that is open and where kids and athletes can come and talk and be like, “Hey, coach, this happened in the game the other day and I don’t know how I feel about it.” Or, “This happened in my life and I don’t know how to feel about it.” So being able to create that culture is something that we’ve stressed. And you talk about, how does that create positivity? I say this. I coach high school basketball and these kids are 17, 18 years old. They make me feel old. I’m not that much older than them, but they say, “Hey, coach, can we talk about this?” And for me to be able to put my ego aside and our other coaching staff to put all of our collective egos aside and say, “Hey, yeah, let’s talk about it. Let’s hear what they have to say.”

Because again, we’re better as a whole than just me telling you what to do, and again, I’m a believer that makes us a better team in general. It makes everybody happier. Again, to your point, it may be hard conversations to have, but will get us in a better position if we have those conversations than if we don’t.

Jim Miller: Yeah, that’s good stuff. So I love the culture conversation. Everybody has a winning culture, a champion culture, a high performance culture. Everybody’s trying to create some sort of culture, and if you go into any locker room anywhere in the world, you see the same stuff. But what culture really is is behavior. This is how you behave. How you behave around one another, what’s acceptable, how you’re going to treat each other, the relationships you build. Coaching is relationships. Your behaviors create these standards and what’s going to be acceptable, and for me, before you really ever do create winners or champions or winning teams, you have to behave like it, you have to act like it. You have to treat people accordingly. And if you want to have that in your teams, then you have to model that. You have to be that person, and that is exhausting. Living to high standards is exhausting.

Sometimes, you don’t want to live to high standards. Sometimes, you don’t want to get up and push. Sometimes, you don’t want to get up and try or have that conversation. There’s times where you just want to be. But I think that’s the beauty of this, is if you can create this within your team, you don’t have to be the one who’s solely responsible for doing it all the time. Other people can pick it up and do it and manage it, but I think as leaders, you have to be at the position where you set the standards, you set the behavior and you model that for your coaches, and they consequently model that for their athletes. And when you’re tired, you have to know yourself. You have to know when to stop. You have to know when to say, “Okay, I need a break.” You need to know yourself well enough to know what you need to do to recharge and to get yourself back to that point where you can live that high standard and live that behavior.

So for me, when everybody talks about culture, immediately, I’m like, what’s their behavior? They can say it, but do they live it? Do they walk it? Do they carry it? Do they model it to their teams? Is it visible? It has to be visible. If it’s not visible, then it’s not really there. And yeah, I think as coaches then, yeah, if I take a break, I know that I’m tired, I have to step away. They see that, they can also do the same thing themselves and I think that’s really important. You’re not a good coach if you’re… You can be a good coach tired, but you can’t be a great coach, and for what most of us are trying to do, you have to be great.

Joe Delagrave: Yeah, I think there’s two paths to this conversation. One, the performative side. Wheelchair rugby, we’ve meddled in every single or podiumed in every single Paralympics and world championships in our history, so there’s high expectations there. And with that comes a lot of pressure, and our athletes feel that pressure, but I think them understanding what the expectation is, and it’s a known expectation, is really, really important. The way they’re able to know those expectations is through the vision. I think a lot of times, as coaches, it can be a little bit lonely. It can be a little bit fearful to put your vision out there and let it be known so people can start poking holes in it and whatnot, but they know the vision. They know where their vehicle’s going, they know where we’re headed. They know why we’re going there.

Number two, do they have a voice? Athletes need a voice. As a former athlete, I think that’s really, really big. Is your leadership echoing what you’re saying? Are your captains echoing what you’re saying? Are your athlete representatives echoing what you’re saying? Do they have that voice? Do they feel like they have that voice? And then number three is value. Do they feel valued in your program? Do they feel like they have a place? And I think the value comes along with is knowing who they are. Do they get to show up as their holistic, real, authentic self? A lot of times, athletes can feel like they’re just a pawn in this whole scheme, and if they’re valued and you’re talking about what we talked about in that first question, that they’re talking about where they’re going next, what their purpose is in life, hopefully, their passion in this sport can meet their intersection with their purpose and take it on, but are they feeling valued in that? And so I think that’s really, really important in being able to have a championship culture.

Charron Sumler: I love that, is that vision, value and voice is what you’re really trying to role model for your team culture. I heard role modeling a lot from Jim in terms of walking the walk and talking the talk, and showing your coaches and your athletes how to do it. I heard shared power from Coach Geoff in terms of letting your athletes in as a part of the community, empowering them to speak up and empowering them to reach out for what they need. And really, vulnerability is what I heard from Leslie, is a willingness for coaches to be vulnerable, reach out and create those open communication lines.

So I want to target that coach-administrator relationship, that coach-leader relationship. We’ve got some early career coaches and we have some administrators and leaders, so I want to hear from our administrators. How do you see the value and how can coaches really maximize that relationship to build a team culture so they’re not doing it on their own?

Leslie Irvine: I say this all the time. I hope that everybody has somebody within their organization that they can really connect to and talk to, and it’s so key. I think what you don’t want to do is put yourselves on an island. When we’re talking about the mental wellness of coaches, it’s really important that you all have your network, and you will. You’ll call your friends who are coaches, but somebody within the institution, and ideally, if it’s the person you’re reporting to, then that’s really, really important. And making sure, even if your administrator doesn’t actively reach out to you to set up meetings, you being proactive in that, saying, “I’d really like to sit down with you once in a while and talk about the team.”

For me, I meet with our coaches at least every couple of weeks, and they know that we’re going to talk about student athletes of concern and so I’m hearing about the things that are really important. And one of my favorite moments is when coaches say to me, “Leslie, will you take your administrator hat off and put your coach’s hat on?” And I’m like, “You know my coach’s hat is always on.” And those moments where coaches are vulnerable and trust, for me, those are the best coaches who are most likely to be successful because they have a growth mindset themselves. They’re coming to work every day to think about being better.

And like I said, sometimes a coach will just sit with me and share some frustration, and I think when you think about our own leadership styles, as they’ve evolved, I talk less, listen more. It’s so important. And sometimes at the end of a rant, I’ll say, “Thank you for sharing that, coach. Would you like me to do something with that? What do you want me to do with this? Do you want me to…” Because I’m a problem solver by nature. And they’re like, “Oh, nothing. I’m good. I feel much better after just talking about this.”

So I think that those types of interactions are really important, and in those moments where if something does happen, you’re not talking to your administrator just because you’re in a moment of crisis, whatever that happens to look like. You’re building a foundation. You all know this, and the best test for you all is are you modeling what you’re asking of your student athletes? That’s a really good thing to think about as you’re sipping on your coffee first thing in the morning.

Charron Sumler: I love that.

Jim Miller: Yeah, I think that’s good. In my career, I’ve been a coach as well, a long coach. I’ve also been an administrator for a long time. I think as a coach, the one thing that I always needed to know was that it was okay to fail. It was okay to try. It was okay to take a chance, and know that you’re going to be okay if you do, that your administrators or your leaders are okay with that. I think as an administrator, then you have to go out of your way to make sure they know that. And for me, that’s what I try to do, is I don’t mind people taking chances. I don’t mind people failing, and I want them to know that they can and they should. That’s generally, I think, where you get to the good stuff. That’s where you get to the results, everything that you’re chasing, but it’s not easy. You’ve been there. It’s not easy to do that, to share that, to get people to have that trust.

Leslie Irvine: I think it’s key that it becomes that a we. I talk to our coaches, we win together, we lose together, and when we talk about winning or I talk about winning, it shouldn’t be perceived as an administrator saying, “You have to win X number of games or you’re out of a job.” It’s actually, we’re building this together and I’m excited with you. That’s the key here as far as the relationship. Again, exactly what you’re doing with your student athletes. You just talked about this. It’s the we. It’s not me.

Geoff Kelly: Exactly.

Jim Miller: Yeah.

Charron Sumler: I’m hearing that it’s really building culture from the top down and modeling from administrator to coach, coach to student athlete. And I would say on my end, I can probably tell from our student athletes, the way their coaches are modeling certain behaviors is the way that they model certain behaviors. It translates and it trickles down. I’m curious from Geoff and Joe, as early career coaches, what types of supports do you lean on in terms of administrators and leadership when you’re creating a team culture or going into the season?

Geoff Kelly: That’s a great question. Again, I’ve been blessed with all the support that I’ve had around me. So we talk about administration, we talk about other coaches that I’ve learned from, head coaches that I coach with who have had that experience. Even old coaches that I had that I can call up and say, “Hey, what did you do in this situation? How did you do that?” But I think just to echo what everybody is saying here, I’m able to do that because I have those relationships. And again, I know I’ve been lucky to have those and build those throughout my time, and not everybody has that. And again, we talk about what can we control? How can we build those relationships? We talk about today, we look around this room. How many people are here? How many people are online? Because again, we’re all trying to work towards the same thing, be a better version of ourselves, be a better mentor, coach, admin, whatever it may be, for our athletes.

So again, that’s what I constantly challenge myself to do is build those networks. Talk to people in this room, talk to people who are here, whether they’re in person or they’re virtual. Just, “Hey, I saw you were here. You’re here obviously for the same reason I am. Can I get your number and lean on you in certain times?” Because maybe I don’t have that in my life right now. So again, that’s what I do, is again, lean on the people that I know are there for me and vice versa, but again, constantly just continue to attend things like this where I’m like, “Hey, I don’t know everything,” and I know here in Colorado Springs, we have a lot of great sports, but it’s not everything. So that’s where I come from and the way I see it.

Joe Delagrave: As far as the last two years for me, transitioning from being an athlete into being the head coach, I realize it’s a very, very lonely position at times. Just being real, and I see a lot of head nods and smiles there where I think we can relate to that as coaches. But in our inner circle, what does that look like? And so for me, building an intentional new locker room. I came from a locker room. I was a college football player before I broke my neck and became a wheelchair rugby player, and so I’ve been around locker rooms my entire life. And then becoming a coach, it’s like a brand new locker room and I need people around me that are going to be human guardrails, that are going to lift me up when I need it and they’re going to pull me back when I need it.

And that’s been an interesting little journey here in the last two years, is realizing how much I need that and how much I need people that will tell me not what I want to hear, but things that I need to hear and not just have the yes men around me. So that’s been something that’s been really important for me.

Charron Sumler: Awesome. Thank you for that. And thinking about the different ways that we can create cultures and the different key players and personnel that can be involved, it’s very vast. So I’m curious about what mental health resources or professionals you found success in bringing into either your team or your institution or department, and talking about what that looks like. How do you choose and select who you want to support your team culture?

Leslie Irvine: I think that’s probably the most important thing that we’re doing as administrators right now, is building those types of resources. It’s so key that when you see a student, not even necessarily in crisis but just beginning to have some problems, and coaches too, that you have a very quick and seamless referral. So for us, we’re really excited about a partnership, and I think that we can all take the concepts from this but create a culture on your campus. This is really briefly, quickly, if you can create a culture on your campus where you can bring other resources in from the community is key, and it’s not about using those resources on campus, but it doesn’t always work. And so the more diverse your resources, the higher chance that the coach or the student’s going to connect.

So for us, we’re doing some proactive work with Children’s Hospital in town, and this is what they do. They are the experts, and we’re actually trying to do… We’ve surveyed our student athletes. We’re learning a lot about the mental wellness of our student athletes. One of the things we learned is nobody knows how to talk to each other, and our coaches are really excited about this because really, we’re talking to our students about, “Here’s how you communicate, here’s how you lean on one another.” And the coach is like, “This is great. They’re more coachable as well. It’s great.” And so we’ve just finished a first cohort of peer coaches. So the point is, for us, we have to invest in the resources, and sometimes, that doesn’t equate necessarily to the dollar sign. It’s actually relationship building, understanding what you have in your organization, in your local community, and bringing them in.

Geoff Kelly: Yeah. I think to build on that, it’s having those relationships, and I think another big thing that we talk about is the consistency of it. And in my playing career and in my short coaching career, we have tried to implement other resources and people that, again, can talk about this stuff. And to be honest with you, that’s where we’ve had a struggle, is staying consistent with it and working with someone or having a program every week or every month where we constantly check in on things. Because again, obviously, all of us know it’s important, whether it’s talking to a sports psych or nutrition or whatever it may be. Having them just be there and have them have the opportunity to build the relationships with the athletes. Because to your point, it’s a vulnerable conversation to have in the first place. So if some brand new person comes in and is like, “Hey, woo. Hey, y’all ready to talk about it today?”

“Yeah, sure. What are we doing?” Okay, then you go through that and sit there for an hour and do that, and then a month goes by, two months goes by. Oh, half the season’s gone. Oh, this person’s coming back in. “Hey, just checking in. How are you guys doing?” That relationship’s not there, and again, it’s a hard conversation as it is. So that’s something that I’m trying to be better at with our team at implementing, and then again, the student athletes that I work with in college as well, is just, hey, consistent with consistency there, because I think that’s huge, right?

Jim Miller: Yeah. So we did something I think that is actually unique amongst NGBs. We hired a director of athlete wellbeing, so somebody whose sole purpose in our company is being responsible for athlete wellbeing. It is one thing for an athlete to be able to come to a coach. Not every athlete can, right? It’s not easy. You go and you have a problem, you want to share it, you feel vulnerable, maybe you feel weak. So we hired a person that their sole job is this. When coaches have athletes that don’t talk or they see problems or they notice something isn’t right, it’s a really easy referral. This person then is totally out of the loop, not in the coaches’ meetings, not part of the coaching staff, not part of the coaching teams, but is there for the athletes. And they can connect them with any sort of resource that athlete may need, and they can check in on them.

And the coaches aren’t going to our director of athlete wellbeing saying, “How’s this person? How’s this person? Give me an update.” Once they go there, they’re with that system, and I think it does take a little bit of pressure off the coaches as well because now you don’t have to be an expert in clinical psychology. You can just refer them to somebody that’s really good at this.

Along with that, we also started what we call a National Team Athlete Summit. So the very first time you make our national team, you’re invited to a summit in January. It’s a chance for you to meet all of our administrative staff, coaching staff, and do it in a sort of environment that’s not sport. It’s like, okay, here’s the CEO. You actually get to sit and talk to him. Here’s myself. You get to sit and talk to me. Here’s the coaches. You get to meet them in a really non-threatening kind of way. If you’ve been on it a couple of years, you don’t have to come back, but it’s just like the intro, onboarding if you will, to the company. Even though the company is sport, it’s still an onboarding of sorts.

Charron Sumler: I love that emphasis on collaboration and not having to be the expert.

Joe Delagrave: Yeah. So Rugby’s obviously a really aggressive sport on the court. There’s a lot of… I mean, basically, wheelchair rugby is like when people in wheelchairs smash into each other and then they’re just chasing each other around, trying to make each other more disabled is basically what’s happening at this point. That’s the politically correct version I use. But anyway, what happens here off the court is we need to talk about our feelings. Any football coaches or any high contact sports, you’re not going to be on the field talking about your feelings. That’s…

Joe Delagrave: High contact sports, you’re not going to be on the field talking about your feelings. Like that’s not a thing, right? But off the court, we do. We talk a lot about it because we need to be short and direct with each other on the court. And so you grow that relationship off the court. So I guess the word that comes to mind throughout this whole thing is normalized. We have sports psychology, we have resources, we have counselors that you can reach out to through the SOVC. But the biggest thing I think with culture is normalizing the conversation. And I realized that starts with our coaching, that starts with our admin, that… Like it needs to be normalized to talk about this. And so that’s what we do a lot. My guys know that. My background’s in professional counseling. My guys know that I love to talk about this stuff.

I love to kumbaya. Let’s get the circle together, let’s do the whole thing. But what’s been beautiful is that some of the conversations that have came out of that, when I shut up and just let them talk and get to listen, is there’s some beautiful conversations that are a rising, and there’s a direct impact on the court. I think that’s, as coaches, that’s what you want to see. You want to see what does this matter to the performance. And as you normalize that conversation, you’re talking about emotions, feelings. You’re talking about what those do for you. And then all of a sudden, you see the impact on the field, on the court, or whatever that looks like for your sport. And that ends up being a pretty beautiful thing.

Charron Sumler: Love that. So I’m really hearing a mixture of being aware of your internal resources, the people within your organization, as well as your external partners that you could bring in. But really there’s an emphasis on the relationship because sometimes as one of those external partners, it can still be really difficult to get athletes to us if we don’t have a relationship with the coaches. So really emphasizing building that relationship with the coaches so that you know that your athletes are going to a provider that you’re aware of, and there’s an open dialogue there in terms of communication. So hitting on our last question from our panel before we open it up to the audience, you’ve all been vulnerable already, so I’m going to ask you to go a little bit deeper. Can you share some strategies that you use to maintain your own mental health as a coach and with your staff?

Leslie Irvine: Yeah, I think for me, it’s really important to… Like if I let my day flow the way, just organically, often you’re just dealing with issue after issue. And so for me, and it sounds cliche, you’ve got to find your joy. Ultimately, I love what I do. Literally, I have immense amount of gratitude for what I do. So make sure… I try and be intentional about going to a practice or talking to a student athlete, checking in with a coach. That, for me, brings joy. I’m a former coach. Even though I’m wearing a suit, I like to be around practice. And so making sure that I’m intentional about that. Also, just integration. I chose my partner wisely. She’s a former Olympian, and so she understands what I’m doing. And that’s really critical when we think about supporting one another. And we have three under the age of six, and it’s… We call it the circus. And I’m being really open with you all, but I think that it’s important that we role model that you can do that.

But it’s key within our culture and our division that people know that they’re going to see my kids around and that I see our coaches families around, and that I’m intentional about asking how are they, how are the kiddos? And that you stop to say hi. So really it’s about being humanity, right. And it’s also about making sure that you find your joy, right? Don’t be sucked into all the hard things that you’re doing. Be intentional about finding the things that really got you into coaching. It’s so key that we keep everybody in this space here physically, virtually in coaching because we need you all. And it’s such an incredibly, incredibly important thing that you’re doing.

Geoff Kelly: Yes. Yeah, I think you hit it right. I think I talked about this last year as an athlete. One of the biggest things athletes struggle with is identity, right? Yes, I am a basketball player. What else? And I could go on and on, but a lot of athletes and a lot of coaches struggle with that, right? It’s, “Yeah, I’m a coach.” And we all know coaching is hard. I don’t know how many days I’ve stayed up till 1, 2, 3 o’clock in the morning watching film, texting the other coaching staff, “Hey, what’s this team going to do? Hey, I see you back there Travis. What’s Eric Academy going to do? What’s Lewis Palmer going to do?”

It’s a hard job. But to your point, knowing that I’m more than just a coach, I’m a mentor. I’m not a dad yet, so I got time for that. But I’m a brother, I’m a son, I’m a wealth manager. I’m a this or I’m that. What else am I outside of coaching, right? And reminding myself that, “Hey, yes, this is going to be hard at times.” And when those times come, I got my support system that I’m going to call and say, “Hey, this sucks.” But to your point, I do a lot of other things where I check in. It’s okay, we had a bad game, we had a bad practice. Well, I get to go hang out with these other people and do these other things.

I get to go volunteer and do this other stuff. And again, for me, that really grounds me and says, “Hey, yes, that’s important. You’re going to get back to it and you’re going to give it your all.” But again, people need you over here too, and you’re valuable over here too. In spite of what just happened, you’re still valuable. And that’s just a good reminder for me, like hey, to your point, sports are sports. They’re amazing. We all love them and they teach us so much, but there’s a lot more.

Jim Miller: Yeah, I think you’re right. Coaching is hard. We all agree with that. And if you’re passionate about it, you love it. I love it. Like I will do this all day long. If you want to start talking sport, I’ll talk sport all day. If you start talking my sport, then I will talk forever. But if you’re going to have any longevity in this and you’re going to do this for a long time, you actually really do have to figure out when to take a break, when to rest, how to rest, what do you need? Sometimes it’s not even… I think it’s even your personality. How do you actually rest? How do you recover? I’m not going to go talk to somebody. If I’m tired, I’m not going to go share I’m tired, I feel vulnerable, whatever. I’m not going to do that. But if I can exercise, if I can take a day off, if I can go to a beach vacation, 100%, it recharges me.

And I think it comes down to you individually and what you need to recharge that battery. And it’s not, one thing won’t do it. If you think about your athletes and you’re training them, you’re working through some periodization, you’re creating this overload and fatigue, the same thing happens with coaches. As soon as an athlete finishes that block, you’re like, okay, adaptation doesn’t happen until you rest. So we’ve got 10 days rest. If they do anything outside of that rest, you’re like, “Why are you messing up our work? You need to rest.” But as a coach, as soon as that periodization is over, you’re onto the next 50 things.

And I think you have to recognize that you also have to take a break and what that is. On a day-to-day thing, it may just be you get 30 minutes of exercise, you get an hour exercise, whatever that is that recharges your brain, refreshes your brain. But on a bigger macro sort of vision, you actually have to take real breaks. You have to take big breaks. A day doesn’t do it, a weekend doesn’t do it. 10 days sometimes doesn’t do it. I think for you as coaches, that’s the single hardest thing to figure out is, what do you actually need? You’re really good at pushing. Everybody that does this for a long time is really good at pushing.

And generally, you’re… What’s the saying? You give great advice, but you don’t take it. You don’t follow it. And I think figuring that out and actually taking the break is the biggest thing. And if you do that, then you can coach a long time. If you don’t, guaranteed just like an athlete, if you push and push and push, they become overtrained, they’re ineffective. You as a coach, if you push and push and push, guaranteed, you’ll burn out and then it’s over. So you got to figure that part out.

Joe Delagrave: That’s so good. The thought that comes to mind too, realizing how much you can become a martyr in this profession on work, work, work, work, work. And then you get in the habit of like, no, I need to do more and more and more and more. And no one’s in this room because they’re lazy. I would hope not, right? But instead of the dichotomy between laziness and overworking is, and the integration piece is huge with family and whatnot and self-care that way. But I think probably the hardest thing from everyone in the room, everyone that’s watching is that relationship with yourself looking in the mirror. That’s tough, right? Looking in and going, are you giving yourself… The dichotomy isn’t between laziness and work. The dichotomy should be between surrender and work. And so the idea of, at the end of the day, have I done enough?

And a lot of times, you’re going, “Oh, no, no, no. I need to work. I need to work. I need to work. I can do more, I can do more, I can do more.” But really is giving yourself grace at the end of the day to say, “I did a good job. I did enough.” And self-affirming some of that stuff through looking in the mirror, I think it’s a journey that I’m on that is needed. And in our sport, being able to implement that with our athletes. We play in the Paralympic games, five games in five days. And so there’s really not a lot of time for them to sulk at the end. So getting in the habit of going, can we surrender at the end of the day, give ourselves grace on what good happened, what bad happened, and then move on to the next day? I think that’s something that’s really, really powerful, but a huge ask. And it all starts with us and that relationship with the mirror.

Charron Sumler: Yes, that is so important. And really, Joe, what you’re describing to me lays the foundation for all the other tools that our coaches use. So knowing yourself will allow you to know when you need to take rest and how far you can push yourself and when to pull back. Knowing yourself will help you identify what areas of life that you should explore more of so you’re not just so focused on coaching and your job. And also, knowing yourself allows you to be intentional about your day. The same thing that we preach to athletes. Everything that they share, that they do and incorporate, it’s the same things that we use with our athletes and suggest that they do. So I’m really calling us all to do better in terms of taking care of ourselves and practicing what we preach really, because it’s not rocket science, to Leslie’s point. Nothing up here was groundbreaking, but to hear the consistency that these veteran coaches have used. So thank let’s thank them for their time and their vulnerability.

Jim Miller: Are we supposed to clap?

Charron Sumler: We do have some time, I believe, for some questions from the audience. If we have any questions, there’s a microphone coming from the back, I believe.

Audience Member 1: You all got into kind of culture and the importance of having individual or small group meetings. And besides the typical, ‘how are you, how’s your day? What’s going on?’ What are some more pointed questions that you use, if you have any, to kind of dive a little bit deeper into a connection with your athletes?

Joe Delagrave: One of the things that I, we… I always have one-on-ones after every single training camp or competition with our team. We’re all across the United States, and so it’s done on Zoom. But one of the questions I always ask and that they know where I’m going to ask, and so they prepare for it now is, how are you doing on your goals outside of the sport? What are you working towards? What’s that look like? How can I help? How can we help integrate that into what you’re doing within wheelchair rugby? So I think that’s a big one to be able to connect in a deeper way.

Geoff Kelly: Yeah. To your point, just talking about connecting with people, one of my favorite questions to ask our team is, and again, we usually do this first day of tryouts, first day of actual practices. Again, as high schoolers, a lot of these kids know each other already through school, but we try to get deeper than that. So one of the questions we ask is, “Hey, what is something that nobody else knows about you that you wish people did know about you?” And again, you’ll get an array of answers there, right? Oh, I shot thirty-seven percent from the three-point line last year. Nobody knows that about me, but whatever. You guys should know, pass me the ball. But then you’ll get a lot of deeper answers too. Like, “Hey, I actually play piano outside of school. Or I have three siblings that… Two of them live out of state.”

“I don’t really see them too much.” And you just start to open up like, “Hey, this is us.” This is, again, our team. This is… I call it like we’re trying to work towards a family system where I can go and talk to whoever and be open about it. But that question there has helped us, again, dive deeper. And we’ll revisit some of those throughout the season as well. It’s like, “Hey, you said this.” And as a coach, as a coach and staff, or I’ll see other players ask them, “Hey, how’s that going? Are you still doing that or what’s going on there?” And again, it just opens up conversations that would’ve never happened otherwise.

Leslie Irvine: I think for me too, I will often ask, and so you should all be prepared for this question is, what else can I do to support you? And is there anything else that I could be talking about that I’m not talking about? Because I think in my role, I have a lot of information and often there’s somebody sat there maybe hoping to hear it. And so I’ll often end a conversation with, any other topics, anything else on your mind that I can speak to? And so having that kind of service leadership mentality to give the power of that dialogue to the person sat in front of you, right?

Charron Sumler: Yeah. And it can really have some shared power. So I would even suggest perhaps when you start these meetings, asking the person you’re meeting with, what are some of your goals? And what would you like for me to check in with you throughout this time as we’re meeting so they can feel like it’s a part of something that they have some voice over. I thought we had a question up here as well.

Audience Member 2: So a little bit was already asked, but I wanted to ask a question to you about how do you intentionally check in with your coaches knowing that both of your schedules are really, really busy? And how are you intentional about it, and what’s the most effective way to build trust? I think a lot of times coaches are like, I did this, or they want to have owner… You know what I mean? So how do you say, I’m here for you, I want to help you build a culture, I have a lot of knowledge? How do you build that trust?

Leslie Irvine: I think you’re just really intentional about it. To be honest with you, part of it, I schedule meetings. I am thankful to have a really good assistant who… We only have so many hours in the day, and so where you choose to spend your time is really important. So I literally have one-on-ones with the coaches where they know that we’re going to sit down and talk about everything and anything. And that the expectation is, and I encourage you all to be really organized with that time, like come in with an agenda. And they also know what I want to hear on.

But I think it’s also really important too, like for me, being, appearing, it’s not even about being at every game or… It’s building trust. It’s knowing that… Popping in on practice, going to the banquets, going… Just being present in those moments and being emotionally intelligent enough to know that coaches just had a really tough start to the season, or our hockey team just got whipped by DU this past weekend. I’m still salty about it. But being there for your coach at the end saying, “Are you okay? We’re okay. We are okay.” That’s what I said. So I think it’s, it’s… You are master relationship builders, you all are. And so try and do that with the people who can be of support to you, and it’s just intentionality.

Jim Miller: Yeah, I think that’s right. You got to schedule meetings, you have to talk. At the end of the day, coaching is relationships. If you can’t build relationships, you can’t motivate, you can’t coach. Administrators, we’re just older coaches. We’re overgrown coaches.

Leslie Irvine: Yeah.

Jim Miller: If we’re talking to coaches, we’re working with our directors. You still have to talk. You still have to meet and talk. And if you schedule an hour and it’s 10 minutes and you’re done, you’re done. Even if I look above me and look at a CEO, I have one-on-ones with a CEO as well. You probably do with a dean. That’s like your hour to ask them questions. And that’s how I treat it with my CEOs. Like I get an hour every two weeks to ask you as many questions as I can get out. I think when I have coaches come to our meetings, if they come with a list of things, I’m like, that’s a super great meeting. If not, then I have a few things I want to hit on and we’re done. But they’ve got to always happen. Even if they’re not great, they’ve got to always happen.

Leslie Irvine: I think even with the team culture, some coaches ask me how I’m doing. And that, like do that. You’re sitting in front of another human being who’s trying to lead, and if you have that relationship, and I’m like, thanks for asking. That’s great. Here are the leadership things I’m tackling right now, right. And I think that it’s relationship building.

Jim Miller: I’m like, don’t ask me that. That’s my game.

Leslie Irvine: Yeah.

Charron Sumler: Any last lingering questions? We got another question back here maybe too.

Audience Member 3: Hi. So really great conversations around culture, and I think that it’s a lot easier when everyone’s on the same page. And this is more for coaches. How do you handle situations where there’s maybe personal coaches or other coaches who come into that space and maybe don’t agree with the culture or are doing the opposite, or things that are just maybe causing challenges or barriers?

Geoff Kelly: Good question. That’s a really good question. We talk about it and we’ve all been parts of teams where, hey, you may have one or two or three athletes who, again, aren’t fitting in your culture, are not accepting your culture. And again, as a coach, it’s our job to lead them in the right direction, our job to try to get them on board. But you have to have a conversation. And I think it goes back to the relationship with the athletes. Do I have a good enough relationship with this athlete where I can go and, again, sit down with them or sit down with the team, or have a couple of captains on the team pull them aside and say, “Hey, what is it that you don’t agree with? What’s going on? What are your thoughts?”

And again, open that floor to where we can have open dialogue, right? Again, in basketball, we see it a lot. Hey, I see this all the time. “Coach, I think I should be playing more. I think I should be playing more. This person should not be starting in front of me.” And again, that’s never an easy conversation to have. We were talking about making cuts last night, and again, it’s not fun. But again, being able to put it out there and say, okay, where are you actually coming from?

Why do you think what you’re thinking? Why do you think you should be getting more play in time? Or what do you think it is that should be happening? And again, I think a big thing that I believe is, hey, laying that foundation and that groundwork up front, right? So it’s not something that, hey, 5, 6, 7 games into the season, you’re trying to figure it out. Oh, we never talked about it, but now these kids are mad or these athletes are mad. And now I’m trying to double back on it. Well, at the beginning of the season, in your little code of conduct thing, it said this and this and this, but being able to literally just lay it out there up front and refer back to it as times do get hard because we all know adversity is guaranteed. It’s going to happen to everybody. It’s going to happen to every team. What foundations do we have in place that we can refer back to when that time actually comes?

Charron Sumler: And Joe, some final thoughts.

Joe Delagrave: Yeah, it’s a great question. We just get rid of those people and then…

Jim Miller: As fast as you can.

Joe Delagrave: As fast. [inaudible 01:38:42]. Now, confrontation is healthy, it can be healthy. And then the communication aspect’s great. I love to communicate, but if there’s no action behind that, then it’s nothing. And it ends up becoming like, “Oh, this guy’s fake. He’s not authentic.” So action’s important there. And so luckily, we have a very adamant and debate driven captain, which a lot of people know. Chuck Aoki on our team. The dude is an academic and loves the debate. And I’m just like, “Dude, come on now.” But as well as our coaches. When we have those conversations though, it’s a perfect time for everyone in our program to see we’re bought in through healthy confrontation. We’re bought in through, “Yep, we’re not going to agree all the time.” But what does that look like?

How can we go about talking about that? And so for us, it’s just hitting the head on in a healthy way where we’re not going personal or anything like that. It’s just more of like, let’s talk about what you don’t see. Let’s see. And it goes back to that voice, vision, and value. Like you have a voice to speak up, you add value. When people are able to actually speak up. I don’t know everything. And don’t try to get the guys to think that I believe or know everything. And so if they can speak up and there’s room to actually do that, then we’re just growing this thing even bigger.

Charron Sumler: Awesome. Thank you all for your time. Thank you all for your time and energy. We look forward to seeing you all in the workshops as we get a little bit deeper and get our hands a little dirty in some of the tools that coaches can use to take care of themselves.

We’ll stay until Perry goes down, I think. We’ll stay.

Kara Winger: Thank you, panelists. I very much believe in the power of communication. It is respectful to be open and honest and lead with vulnerability in the coach-athlete relationship and in your relationships with your fellow coaches. Really quick story before we go on our coffee break. My friend Dana Lyon was my coach for four years. We’ve been friends since 2005. We went to Olympic Trials, our first Olympic trials together in 2004, and she coached me from 2018 to 2021. So we’re friends. We were just open and honest and vulnerable in practice during the Covid period. There were a lot of tears, a lot of days at practice, and that was okay. And I had some of my best international seasons with her as my coach. When I realized that I needed something different, that I wanted to work with my husband as my coach for my final season, it was so scary to say, “Thank you so much for your time.”

“You did nothing wrong. I just need something different.” But because we had always been vulnerable with each other, we could remain friends. It was terrifying to rip that band-aid off and potentially hurt my friend who was so important to me. But we were able to support each other through that. So it is so powerful to, on both sides, be able to be vulnerable with each other. Same thing happened. I said I quit my job. I resigned amicably because I had excellent leadership that understood that I needed something different in my life, and spent three solid years at this excellent job, first real job after being an athlete. So be honest, be open, communicate vulnerably, and enjoy your coffee. Please be back in your seats at 10:43.

Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 3 Transcript

Kara Winger: Hey, I’m Kara Winger, here at the TrueSport Talks Symposium in 2023 on Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach, with Dr. Alex Cohen, one of the sport psychological services providers for the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. You’re talking to us today about effective communication that keeps mental wellness in mind. How’s that going to go?

Dr. Alex Cohen: I am, and it’s not something that gets enough attention. We often talk about the effects of difficult or challenging conversations for athletes, but we don’t often pay enough attention to the effect that that has on coaches and their well-being. And so among the many challenging conversations that coaches have with athletes is unfortunately having to tell an athlete that they’re cut or they’re not named to a team, whether it’s a bench versus starter or being named to an Olympic or Paralympic team. And so we’re going to talk about that as an example of a really challenging conversation that coaches get to have and how to have those conversations not be quite so stressful.

Kara Winger: Very cool. Well, I’ll have a lot of questions for you, so get ready.

Dr. Alex Cohen: Sounds good.

Kara Winger: Let’s all tune in.

Kara Winger: So, in preparation for hearing from Dr. Alex Cohen, I wanted to tell you another story about communication. I mentioned that my husband Russ coached me in my final season. That was mostly because we were athletes together for 10 years. He threw the shot put and discus, I threw the javelin. So he didn’t necessarily know about the javelin, but he is my constant throughout my entire athletic career. We met in 2006 as junior athletes on a team in the Dominican Republic. It was very exciting and we’ve been together ever since.

So we decided to work together. His schedule, my schedule, they weren’t quite lining up. It was so exciting to come to the decision that we should spend my final year competing together independently. We were in the kitchen one day and I said, Russ, I’ve decided who I want to coach me. And he whipped around. He was standing by this sink, I’ll never forget it, and he said, me too, can I be your coach? Independently. Really cool marriage moment. But then scheduling got difficult and I looked at him one day and I said, you know, we’re only going to do this for one season. I need to know if you can commit the time or not. Either way is fine, but I need to manage my own expectations and victory of victories if anyone else is married in this room. He looked at me and thought for a second and he said, you’re right.

And it was only a season. It was only this one time. It was a celebration of my entire career that we got to spend together all over the world. And I ended that season as the number one javelin thrower in the world with the best distance. I had not thrown a personal best for 12 seasons prior to the second to the last meet of my career, and with him by my side knowing everything about my entire career as a javelin thrower and as a human being, we were the best in the world together. So my favorite thing to hear him say was rookie coach of the year 2022. But communication led us there, open and honest, both coach, athlete and marriage. So Dr. Alex Cohen, senior director of Sports Psychological Services for the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee is going to share with us today effective communication with mental wellness in mind. Let’s welcome him to the stage.

Dr. Alex Cohen: Nice. I will stand up here so everybody can see me. I’m Dr. Alex Cohen. I’m a senior psychological services provider with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. I get to work with one of the best teams in the world. Dr. Jess Bartley is our senior director. She’s terrific and she leads 14 of us, which is just a great staff. So this presentation, this workshop I’ve been doing for about four years or so, and I co-developed it with my friend and colleague, Chris Clements, who is the director of coaching education now for the USOPC. He’s from New Zealand, so his accent is much, much nicer than mine. I’m from Texas. So we wanted to put together a workshop to address one of the things that keeps coming up for us in our work with coaches and athletes and teams. I’m a licensed psychologist and a sports psychologist, so I work with coaches as performers and Chris works with coaches from a [inaudible 00:05:34] coaching sport pedagogy perspective.

And there’s some really fun areas of overlap there. I played lacrosse in college. And my freshman year, this is where everybody tells there how I was coached story, part of the evening. So my freshman year in college, my coach pulled me aside and said, you’re going to be on the varsity team if you can get out of your own way. And I remember nodding my head and having no idea what he was talking about. And I took a sports psychology class and that was it. I knew I wasn’t going to ever be a professional athlete, but I wanted to be able to help athletes and help coaches create mastery learning environments to help their coaches and teams.

He also told me while I was my first year being captain of the team right before the championship game, remember the most important thing, just be perfect and don’t embarrass me. He didn’t, but we were pretty close by that point and we could joke around with each other. So I’m not going to stand up here for an hour and 15 minutes, whatever, and just talk at you. This is going to be an interactive workshop and we’ve got a thousand plus people online I think tuning in as well. So what I really would like you to be able to do is bring these ideas, bring these skills back to your teams. And whatever context you’re in, high school coaches, professionals coaches, collegiate coaches. I work with national team, Olympic, Paralympic coaches, and when I say this is going to be an interactive workshop, I really mean it.

I’m going to be grabbing some volunteers up into these chairs and we’re going to role play these skills. So all the info that you’re going to see on these slides is useful stuff. It’s collected from some of the best coaches in the world from your expertise, but there’s nothing magic in the slides. The only way this really comes alive is if you practice these skills. So we’re going to practice them here on stage with everybody watching and watching online. And did anybody’s heart rate just go up a little bit? And if you don’t know me, I choose volunteers, so you might as well volunteer. Those of you sitting in the back and the edges, I see you. All right, we’re going to come up here and if you can’t do these conversations just sort of in a fake role play pretend scenario, how are you going to have them in real life?

So communicating challenging stuff and originally we called it communicating athlete cuts because it sounded better, but it’s really selection and de-selection conversations. Who has had the experience of having to cut an athlete from a team completely or tell them you’re not named to a team or sometimes it can just be you’re starter, you’re not a starter, you didn’t get renamed to the team? It’s a brutal experience, right? It’s super stressful for coaches. Sort of by analogy to our work in the mental health space, if you can talk about suicide with athletes, with coaches, with teammates, you can talk about any mental health issues. Similarly, if you can successfully communicate to an athlete that they’re not going to be on the team, at least for this upcoming season or period of time, you can talk about any issue. So as we go through this, take some notes because some of you’re going to come join me on stage and we’re going to role play athlete and coach having this discussion.

So some actual discussion questions that we’re going to go through. The best way to have this conversation with an athlete is to go back in time and set it up well ahead of time. But the reason that these conversations are often really, really challenging… And Chris Clements who I developed this workshop with was a former head coach of the USA men’s field hockey team. Had plenty of these conversations, really came up with some excellent structures. Many of you here and at home have excellent structures for this process, and yet sometimes these things are vague no matter how transparent… How many of you had that experience of being really transparent about selection criteria and you feel like you’re doing a really nice job of letting fellow coaches and your athletes know where your athletes stand? And then as we get closer to the cut-down time, some athlete professes not to have heard the message at all. They have no idea where they stand. And it’s like, I thought I was being really transparent. It happens. Has anybody been cut from a team in here? How’d that feel?

I’ve been a part of teams where cuts were just posted on the locker room door. Come read your name. If you’re not on there, you’re not on the team. I’ve been a part of teams where literally it was out of some movie. Okay, everybody step forward, you’re on the team, not you, Johnson, right? It can be brutal. And the reason I think these conversations are not only hard on athletes but really, really hard on coaches. Maybe one of the most stressful conversations the coaches have is we don’t always have a good model, a good system for having these conversations and we don’t practice it, but most importantly, we avoid these conversations. So if we can set up a structure, where we’re having these conversations just embedded within an ongoing dialogue with athletes, then it becomes much easier. Well at least simpler, maybe not easier, but simpler when it comes time to have these discussions with your athletes.

So I want to practice what I preach. I told you some of you’re going to come up here with me and we’re going to role play some of these things because I don’t want you to be surprised. And if you write down one theme from today, that would be it. No surprises. That’s aspirational a little bit, but wouldn’t it be great to get to that point in the season or in an athlete’s career where you’re having that discussion and it’s not a surprise? That’d be kind of nice. So here’s some of the things that we’re going to go over and as we go through this workshop, write down some notes because one of the things you’ll get from this that your excellent coaches you knew already is to write down what you want to say before you say it.

None of this stuff is magic. It’s all really straight forward. It’s just having the will to do it and it can be really, really uncomfortable. But when done well, it not only improves your athlete’s performance, it can help them understand where they are. It can support that relationship, it can support your own mental health, it can reduce some stress. So be prepared. Shocking message, right? Anybody really, really confident in having these conversations? I work with a lot of coaches and it’s amazing when we do role plays. They’re just like, boom, done. And it’s like, wow, you’ve done this before and some coaches, it’s just super, super challenging. How many of you within your team’s practice or role play having these conversations throughout your cycle, throughout your year, throughout your season? Cool, we’re going to get some work done.

So again, just have the structure. What are your current procedures in the Olympic, Paralympic world I live? I mean it’s interesting. So sometimes we’re recruiting athletes, sometimes not. Sometimes we have programs where you’re drafting athletes on the Olympic, Paralympic movement, whoever comes up through the developmental process and there’s international competitive analysis. And then how many spots there are on the bus so to speak for World Cup competition, Olympic, Paralympic competition. In some sports you can talent ID, athletes can transfer over, maybe we can work with a club to sort of rebuild your skills and come back to the team potentially. I heard tons of stories of Olympic and Paralympic athletes who’ve been off the team multiple times, work their way back on and were Olympic or Paralympic medalists.

And this is a big one, alignment. Can really get in the way. That’s how you’re doing a great job with your coaching staff of having a real clear philosophy, clear message, really clear about what your selection procedures are. Coaches don’t necessarily love discretion, right? Athletes always think it’s like, oh, discretion, they just want to keep me on the team or off the team or whatever. Wouldn’t it be great if just performance took care of everything and there was no injuries and… Would make it for an easier discussion, right? What if all the coaching staff is really aligned and the sport director has a different perspective or if the sporting director and the coaches are all in alignment and the CEO has a different perspective and gives a different message, not only to your team but to the community at large? It happens and it makes these more challenging conversations.

So how have you done this? Yeah, feel free to take pictures. I think we’ll send it out. There’s nothing magic in these slides, but that’s the key is, can we get to a point in this conversation where there are no surprises? That would be kind of nice. How have your athletes typically responded? Has it gone well? Has it gone poorly? I’ve worked with coaches who they’re making those phone calls and you’ll see it later. Ideally you do this in person with at least a couple of coaches for a lot of good reasons so that there’s clarity. I don’t know why when working with American athletes it’s also good to have a couple of coaches in that conversation so that there aren’t as many lawsuits. But coach is walking around after the selection committee has made their decision and you’re walking around the parking lot, dreading these phone calls, tears coming down your face. I’m about to call this athlete and tell them they’re not on the Olympic or Paralympic team because they were the fifth person and we had four spots.

Can you imagine that conversation going well, being productive, there being no surprises? That would be nice. So what do you want to say? How is this embedded within your philosophy as well as your selection procedures, if that’s applicable? And like I’ve said, write it down. And I love this idea. How many of you actually coach a son or a daughter or a spouse? I still wanted to ask Kara, what if her husband’s actually cut from the team even though it’s a team of one? This idea here is, and certainly if you’re actually coaching your son and daughter, child, and wearing different hats, but if you were going to continue to have a relationship with this athlete for years to come, how would that impact the conversation? Because be honest, I mean I want this to be tangible and practical. Frequently that conversation is like geesh, I just want to get through it and then they’re probably going to retire and I’ll never see them again. That’s a bummer. It happens. But a lot of our sports are pretty small communities.

The athlete you cut today may be one of your assistant coaches a year from now. So if you’re going to have an ongoing relationship with this athlete, how would that impact the conversation? It’s easy for me to say own the moment, but what does that mean? I think one of the reasons this is often so difficult is because we avoid having the conversation. So owning the moment means just to avoid avoiding, you can have the conversation, it gets better, it gets easier. So face-to-face, sit down, schedule those meetings, whatever, it’s ideal. But many of our athletes are all over the country, all over the world. You can’t always do it. Zoom would be great or video conferencing, sometimes it’s a phone call, but have a plan for how you’re going to do it. A little bit of compassion helps.

This is maybe the critical piece. Why are they being selected and what about that athlete is leading to them being selected or deselected from a team? I’ve seen a million different selection procedures. Some of them work well, some of them don’t. Somebody had the experience of selection procedures changed this year from the previous season because there was one athlete or one situation that brought up something that we weren’t really planning for and now we’ve changed the system for everybody in the system which created some other unintended downstream consequences. It’s sort of an ever-evolving thing and you can have the best plans and procedures and… Just following your selection procedures is not enough. So what are the reasons that you’re making this decision? And some of our sports… I really want to be clear about this, it’s not about performance or mental health, mental well-being. Like USOPC talk about empowering team USA athletes for sustained competitive excellence and well-being. It’s not either or. In fact they support each other. Same thing for coaches.

So it’s not about not performing and let’s all have a group hug. It’s about both. I’ve never known any athletes who didn’t want to perform as well as have good mental health. And same for coaches. You want to perform, sometimes you have to perform. So sometimes with that matrix… Well we’ve got this sort of path of results that we’ve seen and if you were 17, that’d be good, but now that you’re 27, the bar’s a little bit higher, okay, that’s fair. What do athletes say when that’s one of the criteria? You’re just trying to age me out of the sport. Oh yeah, I mean, got to perform, but if I have a two-minute conversation with that athlete and I say, remember when I said you’re 27 now and remember you’re 27, so clock’s ticking and being 27 is really… Right, you don’t need to twist the knife, just be clear, be direct with the criteria. And if I haven’t already said it enough, write out what you want to say ahead of time, but don’t hide behind this.

Y’all this is controversial stuff. I mean we’ve sort of refined this workshop over the years based on feedback from world-class coaches about what really comes up, what really gets in the way of these conversations and it’s so easy to avoid when it’s about that athlete. Well, we didn’t have the budget… Technically maybe you met criteria, but we didn’t quite don’t have enough budget this year and it wasn’t up to me. My high performance director or… The best is just… The NGB is totally behind you. The USOPC didn’t give enough money this year to support us and so blame them, whatever. So when I say have this conversation, be embedded within an ongoing dialogue with your athletes. Athletes will persist in sport, especially the elite level sport if they feel like they’re making progress. So if each of your athletes has in whatever way you craft this, an individual progression plan to perform, to keep improving their performance and as well as supporting their mental health and mental well-being, it’s a much easier conversation. No surprises.

So remember back in the beginning of the season, we said we wanted to hit these targets and we’re going to agree together. It’s not just telling them what their plan is. It’s mutually drive, coach and athlete conversation coming up with your goals, there’s buy-in and it’s like we just haven’t seen enough progress. We didn’t hit the marks we wanted. Why do coaches avoid that conversation? What’s the athlete response going to be? If you’re referencing that athlete’s individual performance plan… What’s that? You didn’t help me get there. Yeah, that’s it. Maybe I didn’t. You’re allowed to learn as a coach too, right? But if you’re going to have that conversation anyway right before the team is named for the games, wouldn’t it be better to be having that conversation along the way so I can do a better job of helping you be your best along the way? Start the conversation earlier.

This last point is really, really tough. So whether it’s a completely individual sport or a co-acting team made up of individuals or a true sort of intact sport, when you have the conversation with the athletes and by the way, you’re supposed to bond and team culture but you’re competing against your teammates and friends for a few spots on this team, and who’s going to start, who’s going to be on the bus or not, and you have the conversation, what are your athletes going to say? Well, I won just as many World Cups as this athlete did, what do you do with that? Go back in time, come up with your process, figure out what you want to say. You getting knowledge, you can validate, but as much as possible keep the emphasis on this athlete and their performance. It’s tricky.

What does tactical patience mean? We’ll talk a bit about a potential structure and how you could do this and I’ll be curious to hear how it sort of compares and contrasts to how you have these conversations with your athletes. Conversation can’t be rushed, but it can’t take all day either, right? What’s a good amount of time to have these discussions? So you’ve got 12 athletes on the team, 6 of them are going to the games and you’re going to announce all this on one day. How long would you like to take to have these conversations with each athlete individually? Thanks for volunteering. How long would you like to have? Longer, shorter, five minutes, an hour? 30 minutes. Cool. By the time you’re done with that first 30 minute conversation and you start the second one, that athletes already put it all on social media. My coach hates me. I didn’t get named to the team. They’ve already told all of their teammates. It’s the world we live in.

Be prepared for rebuttal and answer questions. Answer the questions. If they ask, answer. You don’t have to twist the knife, but you can answer the question and that’s much, much easier to do if you’ve already answered that question throughout the season or throughout their career. Psychologists always say validate emotions. It’s a good thing to do. When in doubt, go with emotion. It’s also a nice opportunity to correct maybe any misperceptions that they have. Well, I podiumed in two World Cups or I’ve done this and that on the team or whatever, and it’s like, okay, but remember, if we look at the whole of our selection criteria, that actually means this… And even if you’ve had that conversation five times and as always, try and keep it focused on their performance. Bring it back to that athlete.

This can be done really well or really superficially. And if you haven’t been doing this all season and then you do it when they’re being cut, kind of falls flat, doesn’t it? One of the best teams I work with has a relevance coach along with technical, tactical. It’s that coach’s job to make sure every single athlete on the team feels relevant. How do you do that? This particular coach has a spreadsheet of every athlete on the team and when they’re going to meet with them, it doesn’t have to be long meetings, but it’s going to be check-in. I’m an advocate for athletes, an advocate for coaches. And I coached lacrosse for a couple of years enough to know that it’s really, really hard to be a good coach. I’m glad I don’t have to do it anymore. And if I can support you and your mental health and wellness and performance as coaches, then I’ve done my job. So if you can have this conversation along the way, one of the things you get is fewer complaints from your athletes. Wouldn’t that be great? As well as that connection, that bond with them.

When you celebrate their career and accomplishments, it should be in that conversation, part of what you can script ahead of time. There’s nothing worth in that feeling of my coach just Googled my career to see what they could say about me to give me some praise. It’s got to be genuine. So this is kind of the heart of it. No surprises. And ideally you get to a place where they respect the decision, they respect you, they respect where the team is in. That doesn’t mean they have to agree with the decision. The best example I’ve ever seen of this, 2018 Olympics with one of our sports where you get race starts with an athlete who actually didn’t know you could be an Olympian, not as an alternate, actually be an Olympian but still not race in the Olympics. And there are team events and coaches have to select for relays or whatever.

And the athlete who wasn’t selected and the team that was performed very, very well. The athlete who wasn’t selected was very vocal about saying, I’m super proud of my teammates. They performed great and I should have been on the field to play. And to me that was perfect. It was honorable, it was respectful. It’s an athlete who believed in themselves and supported their teammate, and the only way that conversation happened at the games was because it was part of a series of conversations that this team just has as part of their culture. So the athlete doesn’t need to agree with the decision or like it, but if they can respect it and respect you in the process, it’ll be okay.

Follow-ups. That’s fun. I literally underlined it, right? The line has been drawn. Because it’s so easy to get pulled back into that conversation or they want to go deep and it’s like, well, hang on. Remember I tried to be really clear already about sort of why the rationale, selection criteria, performance factors, etc, etc. Discretionary stuff can be tricky here. So the follow-up conversation is not to re-litigate it or rehash it out. It’s about this. I know there’s a lot of words on this slide, but it’s again to remind them what you value about them, but also to help them take the next step.

Somebody ever had conversation that went anything like this? We love what you’ve given to the sport. I actually think if you work on X, Y, Z, you can really contribute to this team. You can be a starter, you can be an Olympian, Paralympian, you can go to the games. Sometimes the timing of selection announcements is so tough. Maybe some of you have been in the experience where it’s the end of the season, everybody’s tired, but somebody says this is the ideal time to sort of debrief the season and here’s where we’re going to do our selection procedures and we’re going to sort of decide who the team is going to be and we’ve got to get this information to the larger organization so that they can figure out budget stuff and we’re planning on camps and so the newly named team is going to be at this team camp next month. Make sense? Everybody been there? And one of the athletes who you know is about to be cut from the team is talking to you about travel and lodging and logistics for that team camp that they want to go to.

But you haven’t announced the team yet. You haven’t had those deselection conversations yet. What do you do? Yes, there is a team camp. You may or may not be there. That doesn’t go over too well. What do you do? Sometimes you have to have a plan for that. That’s not written into any selection procedures typically, but maybe you have a pathway to say, I know this athlete’s about to be deselected from the team. I’m going to communicate that. And maybe depending on the sport, the context, they could go to the camp, they may have to pay their own way or maybe there’s some other place they could train. Maybe there’s a completely different pathway. We have a lot of athletes in the Olympic and Paralympic movement who’ve talent ID’d into some other sport completely differently. Do you have any questions about these opportunities? We always say opportunities, right? Thanks. I just got cut. Now you’re telling me again why I was cut and you’re asking me about opportunities.

Some of it is just the basics. So you’re going to have health insurance for X number of days. At the end there’s an example, I don’t know if I’ve got it hyperlinked or whatever, but it’s that example from Moneyball. You all seen that movie, right? Where general manager Billy Beane I think is sort of teaching his protege sort of how to cut an athlete. Has anybody ever been in professional baseball? It’s so hard. The AAA minor league manager who has to do the final round of cuts, it’s got to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. Just lots of tears. And so his protege is like, I’ve never cut anybody. I deal with numbers. How do I do this? And he’s like, you just got traded. Here’s your paperwork, Janice down the hall is going to help set you up. That’s one way to do it. Sometimes that’s entirely appropriate. Maybe not. It depends on the sport. It depends on the context. It depends on who you are as a person and a coach.

I will tell you that we have had plenty of athletes play the retired but not really retired game. And that makes a lot of sense. If that’s one of the only ways you’re going to get health insurance in this country, which is a whole other workshop, but if that’s the only way you’re going to get support, our athletes sometimes have to do that and then I guess they still get tested and they have to do their whereabouts and etc, etc. Thanks True Sport. So how can we help with this? What’s the process got to be like for you?

No surprises. If you could publish these things well in advance, and this is basic, everybody knows this stuff and yet we don’t always do it. And even if we publish it, and even if you’re super crystal clear and transparent and you’ve sent [inaudible 00:33:22] emails about selection criteria, there’s always going to be a few athletes who didn’t get the message or didn’t hear, right? But can this be a part of not only a regular conversation but part of your team culture? Again, if you get in the habit of some healthy discussion, healthy confrontation, avoid avoiding, [inaudible 00:33:41] that much of a problem. Now, the feedback we often get from coaches in doing this work is so you’re telling me every single competition, I’m reminding athletes, hey, remember you’ve got to achieve this or you’re not going to make the team later, maybe, I don’t know, probably not.

We’ve got to find the style that works well for you and find the vocabulary that works well for every single one of your athletes. And once you make the decision, announce it as soon as possible… This has always been good practice, but especially now in social media, man, you want to control your narrative as much as possible because somebody’s going to get ahead of it and somebody’s going to incorrectly share a story about how this went or what the procedures were. And for a lot of reasons, if you can have a couple of coaches be a part of this conversation or a coach and a high-performance director or sometimes a coach and a CEO, again, write it down before the meeting. See, I’m hammering home some points here, right? To not rocket surgery. If there are some alternatives that are available, discuss them, bring them up. Actually I have done some research about it.

Like I said, we’ve got a lot of athletes in a lot of sports who have come over from some other area, track cycling, speed skating, a bunch of different sports bobsled, energy systems. So there’s a lot of ways and some sports where we can and some of our sports and communities leagues, go to another team potentially. If there is a way to reselect athletes, let them know what that looks like. I really think most athletes just want to know what do I have to do to get better? What do I have to do to be on this team? You’ve all had some star athletes on your teams and somewhere along the way, I’m pretty sure somebody had the thought, so-and-so never gave me headaches about this. So-and-so never was in my office all the time, knocking on the door, what are the selection procedures? Am I going to be in the team or not? And man, wouldn’t it be great if my whole team was like that? What’s wrong with that scenario?

Jim, you’re shaking your head, nodding. The problem is not every athlete’s in that situation, it would be lovely if you had a whole team of athletes that just perform and results will take care of themselves. Sports psychologists are famous for saying some version of just focus on the process, just master your skills and the outcomes will take care of themselves. Yeah, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting results and performances. It’s just how do we get there? So every athlete’s going to be a little bit unique. Yeah, you’re going to have some athletes who maybe from day one all the way through the arc of their career to retirement, never question, never a problem. They just focus on performance because they’re so elite that selection procedures aren’t an issue, but it’s a pretty small percentage of your athletes. So they’re not all going to be like that.

All right, so what’s a strategy? What’s a timeline? How do you announce these things? This can make your life a lot easier. When is the best time to communicate this timeline to the team? Well in advance. Again, there’s some themes here that keep coming up again and again, right? Know what you want to say, write it down, have the discussion early. I get asked the question a lot at the games. Should we be discussing medals and performance? What do you think? Yes, no, should we be discussing medals and performance? What’s the effect that that has on athletes and teams? Who’s been to a games? What’s the effect could that have on athletes and teams?

How do you know summer, winter games, which lodging in the village is Team USA housing? It’s the one with no flags. Because somebody and security is always concerned that somebody’s going to do something to one of the houses that every other nation has their flags on their houses, so it’s pretty to figure out who we are, right? And many nations put up a giant eagle or a flag or whatever, and they post medals on the side of the building. It’s like, oh, it’s too much pressure or whatever. I don’t know any athletes who don’t want to perform, right? It’s not either or. Same for coaches, who want to perform and do it well. So there’s nothing wrong with talking about results in performance if you also help your athletes know how to handle that pressure. Same thing here. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s going to happen. There’s nothing wrong with the conversation. It’s about having it early and often.

So here’s an example from winter sports. We’re going to announce the team March 27th, whatever it is. Sometimes that’s based on competition. Sometimes it’s based on the budgetary process. Sometimes it’s based on external criteria. So we got a dozen athletes on the team. In mountain time or wherever it is around the world, we’re going to make 10-minute calls. Here’s my call sheet. We’re going to do Zoom meetings or we’re going to call you into the office. If you’re doing them in person, do you stagger those? All right, so somebody’s super excited or crying when they come out of the room while their teammate’s about to go in and just have a think through about some of these things. And then we’re going to immediately, we’re not going to string anybody along, right? We’re going to send an email to the team. Here’s the team for this season. Here’s the team that’s going to be on the bus. And know ahead of time when you’re going to schedule the follow-up conversations.

I work with coaches as performers, right? You’re about to go to world championships, you’re about to go to the Super Bowl or your state championship, about to go to the Olympics or Paralympics. You’ve worked all season, all quad, supposed to be really, really exciting. You get to share this moment with your team and it’s completely undermined by this conversation not going well. And now you’re going into the championships or the games or world championships or whatever it is with just this awful feeling. Man, what about the athletes who didn’t make the team? What about the athletes who are on the team whose best friend didn’t make the team or partner?

I’ve seen so many coaches games be disrupted and really diminished. I’m an athlete advocate and always will be. And whenever it’s a rough process and it’s not as meaningful and enjoyable as it can be at championships or the games is when the athlete who’s not in a position to medal is worried about being the second or third alternate and spends hours and hours and hours and hours talking with their coaches about it at the games. That’s a reality and it’s just tough. It’s tough for both athlete and coach and that happens on some of the best, most transparent teams with the best communication. But I can see it coming sometimes and it’s like, man, this coach has worked so hard to be in this moment and you get to lead this team and to practice the culture that they’ve helped build and they’re going to have some regrets afterwards. It’s a shame. So if you can be really clear about this structure so that there are no surprises, it gets better.

How are you going to announce it? You going to announce the team. Obviously this also covers announcing some retirements. Sometimes you’ll have athletes who choose to retire rather than be cut or deselected. Do your athletes have that option? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. One of the other things we often avoid… How do you ask that question? You’re not going to be on the team this year. Here’s some resources. You going to keep going, you going to retire? What do you think? Give them some autonomy. Give them voice and role in that conversation. So how frequently do you discuss this with your teams? Their individual and team progression, their performance, their trajectory, their profile by performance, by benchmarks, by age, by discretionary things, by their contribution to the team and the culture. Being a good teammate, being a leader.

No surprises. Wouldn’t that be nice? Can you help athletes articulate where they are in the process? What if you just started with that question? So end of the season we’ll be selecting a team, maybe 3/4 of the team’s going to be just performance criteria, maybe that last spot’s going to be discretionary. Where do you think you are on the bus? Is anybody dreading that conversation now just thinking about it? Is anybody like, oh no, I got this? If athletes can hear themselves say it out loud, they have much more ownership of the process, much more control. It’s not just happening to them. We talk a lot about the athlete experience.

So for me it’s not just about performance, it’s not just about mental health and well-being, when athletes leave sport, are they going to join the bitter alumni club and have a lot of blame for an organization or the USOPC or the sport? Or are they going to have an ongoing family for the rest of their life? I know we throw that word around a lot, family, but it’s true. I mean, coaches have such a vital role to play. We have a lot of athletes who drop out of sport at age 10, 11, 12, and a lot of it has to do with that coach experience. Athletes meet sport at the coach.

So if you knew you were going to work with an athlete for a long time, potentially years, potentially guide them onto a national team or an Olympic team or a professional team, what do you want their experience to be like when they’re done with sport? Do you want it to be a platform for the rest of their life or do you want them to have some bitterness about it? You don’t control all of that obviously, but the way we communicate selection and deselection has a lot to do with this.

Everybody does this already. International competitive analysis. You know what spots you have, what kind of performance benchmarks ideally you want for your teams, how many podiums, performance trajectories, whatever. It’s not always super clear. It depends on the sport, but if you had your team… We always do these exercise examples and very rarely do coaches follow up on it because it’s scary. This is the easy version by the way. Wait for the next couple of slides.

If you give the selection criteria to your athletes and say, here we go, you’re going to rank yourselves and rank each other and then we’re going to have a little chat about it as a team in this room. It’s one of my favorite things. Put everybody in a room and talk about it until we figure it out and it goes great or it’s like a supernova eruption. So how’s that conversation going to go? Wait a minute, you want me to rank myself and rank my teammate and who’s going to be on the team this year? You better know how to keep that psychologically safe if you’re going to have that conversation, but no surprises, right? You will surface whatever issues are there and whatever culture you need to create for your team if you’re doing this kind of a conversation. So you can do a selection activity exercise, criteria, non-criteria.

This one’s wild, but it really works. If you can create the safety and the culture to do this and have it be a regular part, the fabric of your team culture. So you can do it anonymously or not. If people sign their name or own it or whatever, it’s easier to follow up. There’s a lot of ways to get at this. Some of our teams use, it’s called a team barometer, where every period you sort of get feedback. How this camp goes, how this sort of stretch of competitions go. How are we doing against this stuff? Are we living our culture? Are we living our values? What went through their mind as they went through this process? Well clearly coach, you’re playing favorites because I’ve done a great job and yet I don’t get any attention. Or yeah, I could have performed more consistently, but it’s your job to help me. How are you going to help me get there?

It would be great if you could sort of align athlete perception with coaching perception. I will say that in addition to, well, you didn’t help me get there. You didn’t help me achieve my goals. Sometimes there’s a sense that if I’m really, really clear about the stuff and I communicate it, then I’m going to be held accountable as a coach for it and somebody’s going to file a complaint or this athlete’s going to destroy me on social media or I’m going to hear about it from the parents. Anybody deal with parents? Well, it’s just job security for me, and I’m a sports parent.

So it would be pretty nice if we got clarity about both the objective and maybe subjective criteria. Maybe you can get some better alignment. And that’s with the criteria. What about without the criteria? If you said, all right, we’re not going to even look at the criteria. You as a team, to your athletes, what do you think is important? What do you think is most valuable? I did this once with a team that I knew pretty well, so I knew it would be kind of safe. And somebody who had just been cut a month before, that athlete’s name kept getting brought up in the meeting. Should he have been on the team? Should he not have been on the team? If we had different criteria, what do we value? What’s important for performance?

Good conversation. And finally, one of the athletes on the team is a leader on the team, been there for a while, just kind of stood up, raised his hand and said, if that athlete thought he was going to be on this team, he’s crazy. There’s no way. There’s no way he should have been on this team. Why are we still talking about it? A) we needed to talk about it. And B) he wasn’t wrong. And it led to one of the best conversations ever and there were no surprises for that team the rest of the season. To create that discussion. This is what I want to do. It’s not just some suggestions on paper or whatever. I want this to be a part of your culture. I want to make your lives easier and better as coaches.

So we get to role play some of these things. So Jim and Craig, where’s Craig? Come on up. Thanks for volunteering. I appreciate that. All right, you’re supposed to have a couple of microphones. True Sport is on it. This is great. So remember, I work with coaches as performers, got to work on our performance. So the performers are the stars. It’s supposed to be about them. It’s not about me. So I’m going to get out of the way here. Try not to fall off. You’re not even on. Okay, so here’s the scenario, and this is how I’d really like you to sort of bring this back to your teams, here for all the folks… Have a seat.

So director of endurance, cycling, coaching, high performance director. Cool. This is actually how… Okay, a couple of ground rules. We’re going to have fun with this. I mean it. Did I mention there’s like 1,200 people watching online? This is great.

Dr. Alex Cohen: You want your athletes to play under pressure. That’s how it goes. So we’ll have some fun with this, but this is sacred, okay? It is so hard to get up here and do this. The first one’s always the hardest, right? This is a sacred process to do this role play, even when it’s pretend. I’ve seen people break down. It’s really emotional. It’s tough. So here’s how we do it and play around it with your teams. Do this multiple times throughout the season. So you’re his boss, so you’re going to cut your boss. So you get to be the coach and you’re going to be an athlete.

Take a few moments and just sort of talk about the scenario if you want. Think of something legitimate. You’ve both been in the situation, maybe as an athlete, but certainly as coaches. It can be an athlete who just sort of didn’t meet performance criteria to be in the Olympic team. Sometimes the conversation is, I’ve got to hold you out of this competition so that you don’t get hurt. It can be all kinds of things. So take a moment. Hopefully you’re using this time to sort of write… Everybody’s writing now. It’s like, is he going to call on me? What am I going to have to say? So hopefully you’ve taken a minute to sort of think about your philosophy. It’s embedded. Ready? So real names. Okay, so what athlete are we cutting here? What sport, which discipline?

Craig: Jim, believe it or not, is a cyclist. He competes in the four-man team pursuit on the track. We have a training group of eight athletes all contending for Olympic spots.

Dr. Alex Cohen: And so how many spots are available? And Jim is just the first spot out or didn’t make it?

Craig: Jim’s first alternate.

Dr. Alex Cohen: First alternate. Ooh, that is a really, really tricky one. Alternates work at the Olympics or in Paralympics. You go depending on where it is. You have to keep training. You’re not on the team, but keep training. Maybe in the States, maybe we’re going to fly you over and you’re going to be a hundred yards from the village, but you’re not going to be a part of any of this and you don’t get any gear. And stay ready, but you’re not on the team. Yeah?

Craig: Exactly.

Dr. Alex Cohen: Fire away. And remember, we’re going to give feedback about this process. What went well. We’ve talked about a bunch of different points, how these were incorporated. Go for it.

Craig: Jim, thanks for meeting today. I know this is going to be a difficult conversation, but we’ve made our selections for the Olympic team based on our criteria, which we’ve reviewed over the last few months periodically, it’s been posted for some time. You are selected to the team, but you’re an alternate. At this point in time we feel that your performances are worthy of selection, but we can’t guarantee that you’re going to go to the line at this point in time. As you know, our sport is very data-driven and going through the selection process and the data we found that you were lacking in a few areas and we’ve talked about that previously. So we just wanted to let you know where things stand right now and really want to hear what you have to say.

Jim: He has practice. Well, of course I disagree with your assessment.

Craig: That’s fine. You don’t have to agree with it. Just respect it, please.

Jim: It wasn’t clear to me what I had to do. You didn’t tell me what I had to do. You didn’t tell me the markers I needed to meet. I was on a team that stood on the podium in the World Cup. Your fourth place rider was not on a team that stood on the podium in the World Cup. I don’t know how I was not selected.

Craig: Those are all good points. I think what we need to go back and look at the composition of the teams at those competitions that we use for the selection. Look at your contribution to the team relative to your teammates, and basically evaluate your performances against what we feel are middle-winning performances. And I believe that process was fairly transparent and that data was made available to you in that process.

Jim: But I produce more power than the fourth place. The fourth rider.

Craig: Produce more what?

Jim: I produce more power. I’m a better rider. Everybody knows it.

Craig: Power is one thing, results and times are another.

Jim: And I was on the podium and they weren’t.

Craig: Well, I think we have to go back and look at the riders that weren’t on the team at that point in time and look at the circumstances why those athletes were not competing. It’s a four-man team and everyone plays a critical role within the team. And as we’ve talked about in our team meetings, everyone has value in each position in the team. And right now we don’t see you being an athlete that contributes the most in a particular position within the team.

Jim: I disagree with the position you put me in. I think if I wasn’t riding in position two and I was riding in position four, I would’ve been able to contribute more. And you didn’t put me there.

Craig: Well, every athlete could say the same thing. I think what we need to do is look at your role within the team, look at everyone else’s role within the team. And ultimately our job is to select a team, nominate a team that is the fastest combination of athletes. It’s not in particular one athlete that anchors a team or plays a significant role. It’s what each athlete contributes to that performance. And in your situation, your being in the lineup was not, I would say the best lineup to make the team go faster. It was the best combination of athletes was with athletes, B, C, and D.

Jim: But you should select the best four and I’m one of the best four.

Craig: Data shows that you’re not.

Jim: My data shows I does.

Craig: Well, I think we need to go back and revisit the data. I mean, this is a conversation that we’ve had previously. And yes, you do have the highest absolute power numbers in the group, but you’re technically not as good.

Jim: See, you just said I’m the best.

Craig: I said you have…

Jim: How can I not be in the team?

Craig: Physical attributes play…

Jim: So much more fun on this side.

Craig: Physical attributes play a key role, but there’s more to it than that. The technical side of things, we all know that CDA or aerodynamics and Jim looking at you, you’re not the best rider aerodynamically on the team. And so when you look at power per CDA, and ultimately you look at the stopwatch, your lap splits were not competitive in the positions that we rode you in. And we’ve seen that not just in training but also in racing.

Jim: But I only got to go to the wind tunnel one time. Everybody else got to go three or four times. How can my CDA not be as good?

Craig: We worked on it. I mean, we gave you those exercises to do, the mobility exercises, the strength exercise to hold that aero position. And we’ve tried to work on it all year and we just didn’t see the improvements that you needed to make to get to the aerodynamics that you needed.

Jim: But if I would’ve had the same opportunity, I would’ve been. You provide the opportunity and you didn’t give me the opportunity.

Craig: I don’t have an answer for that one. I’m going to say budget.

Dr. Alex Cohen: All right, here we go. Round of applause. Okay. Stay here.

Craig: This is a real conversation by the way.

Dr. Alex Cohen: I know.

Craig: Professional.

Dr. Alex Cohen: Absolute pros. Absolute pros here. You can see that they’ve been through this conversation on both sides probably multiple times. What was that experience like? I mean it was a real experience, but we’re just sitting up here with friends and yet you feel some kind of way about it.

Craig: Yeah, no, I’ve gone through this as a coach for eight Olympic or Paralympic games and the week leading into selection is hell because you’re trying to ensure that you choose the right athletes. And often they’re not… Every coach has favorites, right? I mean they’re just nice people and some are real… I won’t say it actually. But we don’t choose who we work with as national team coaches. Athletes come to us and so we work with people that we may not enjoy working with and we have to select those athletes that we really do like working with and are actually nice people.

Dr. Alex Cohen: We can have favorites. We just can’t play favorites.

Craig: Exactly. And so someone that you’ve really invested in a lot of time in that you have a really close relationship and you’ve got to tell them they’re not going to the games. Those are really tough conversations to have. And you’re right, you have to be scripted. You have to… I’ve got in situations where I’ve set up a meeting place and I’ve arranged the chairs and I’ve tried to script it to make sure that the conversation goes how it needs to go and it’s just tough.

Dr. Alex Cohen: How was it for you as an athlete, Jim?

Craig: Yeah, you have someone like Jim that’s just…

Dr. Alex Cohen: Not aerodynamic evidently.

Craig: But no, it’s tough. And that week is more stressful than the I think the games.

Dr. Alex Cohen: It really is. How was that for you?

Jim: That was a lot more fun than the side I’m usually on. However, I understand if it’s Olympic Games and you’re an athlete and you on the bubble of going or not and you’ve committed your entire life to this, that you’re going to fight tooth and nail to get on that team. This is your dream. This is what you’ve worked for. This is where it comes to fruition. And then you just got told no and you’re not going to let it go. The conversation earlier about how much time do you allow, I think in those conversations with Olympic selections, you got to plan two hours. As soon as you hang up the phone, it’s over for them. And they’re not going to hang up. They’re not. They’re going to stay there and fight and fight and fight.

Dr. Alex Cohen: Yeah. And how do you hang up the phone? So I’ll just mention a few things that I saw that was excellent. Keeping the conversation on the athlete, about the athlete. We talked about the exercises we wanted you to do, the improvement that we wanted to see. The criteria we wanted you to hit, we wanted you to make, we didn’t see that progress. So whether or not the athlete was in the mood to hear it, referencing that sort of performance trajectory and conversations ideally we’ve had along the way. Started with you didn’t make the team, but you’re an alternate. I never heard that again, but I put out the most wattage, I have the most power. And that’s one of the reasons you’re an alternate. So we still need you and you still got to train. So keep putting out power, right?

You’re not going to get a jacket maybe… So it’s a difficult conversation. Remember, we’ve put aside 10 minutes for this call, so I need to end it here, and we’re going to have a follow-up conversation March 29th or whatever to talk about it further. Not to discuss the decision again, but to make sure you’re okay. I’m going to check in with you. If you don’t answer, I’m going to keep calling to make sure you know what the next steps are, especially if you’re in all those kinds of things. Just knowing how to get out of the conversation well can be helpful.

Jim: Super hard though.

Dr. Alex Cohen: Super hard though. Yeah, for sure. What’d y’all think? Yeah, pretty good. What did they do well? Come on. Yeah, good…. Was a respectful conversation. It’s calm.

Craig: I tell you one thing, it’s really hard not to get combative though.

Dr. Alex Cohen: Thanks guys. I really appreciate that. I think we have time for one more. I usually do multiple of these in the workshop. How much time do we have? 10 minutes. Cool. So they were pros. Who is an early career coach? Thanks for volunteering. Come on up. You don’t even have to cut athletes from your team, but maybe, who do you want to cut? Grab anybody. Yeah, this is… See, volunteers. I love it. Okay, what’s the scenario? Have you ever had to cut anybody? Have you been cut? Have you ever… You need to discuss real quick what the situation is? Or it could be like, hey, you’re not starting or coming off the bench now if you want to do that. What’s relevant? Okay, let’s do that.

Speaker 8: Okay, so if you didn’t hear, he’s coming off the bench now and not starting.

Speaker 9: Basketball.

Speaker 8: Okay, basketball. You want to do basketball? We can do soccer if you want.

Speaker 9: Basketball.

Speaker 8: Basketball. All right. Hey, appreciate you coming in. It’s good to see you. How you doing today?

Speaker 9: Doing good. What’s up, coach?

Speaker 8: Hey, not much. Just wanted to sit down with you and give you an update on where we’re going moving forward. Obviously you’re a huge part of this team, a big-time leader. Again, we’re a better team with you. Just wanted to kind of let you know what I and other coaches have been talking about. Again, I know you started a couple of games. We’re just, moving forward we just see a better fit with you coming off the bench and adding a spark off the bench. The lineups that we have coming in, want to get off to a little bit of a better start. We need some more scoring off the bench. We think you can provide that for us. So just wanted to give you a heads up. Hey, moving forward, going to have you coming off the bench and playing with that lineup a little bit more. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 9: Coach, you said I’m a leader. How can I lead from the bench?

Speaker 8: Hey, I will tell you the best leaders we’ve had have come off the bench before and you’ve done an amazing job bringing the right energy, the right attitude to every practice, to every game. And again, the rest of your teammates, if they see you still doing that, it’s going to make them be a better version of themselves.

Speaker 9: But you said we need more points. I’m averaging 20. That’s not making sense to me, coach.

Speaker 8: Yeah, which is definitely fair. You are one of our best scorers, right? We look at the lineup that we’re starting with. We have three other guys that shoot the ball a lot, right?

Speaker 9: So how come they can’t come off the bench?

Speaker 8: That’s a good question. So biggest… That’s a good one.

Dr. Alex Cohen: That’s a good one. That was a very validating response, by the way. It’s a very good question. Lots of good questions.

Speaker 9: I’ve been cut before so I know all of them.

Speaker 8: You know all of them. No, that’s a very valid question. And biggest thing is, again, we talked about your leadership, what you can bring to that second unit. We don’t…

Speaker 9: So I’m getting punished because I’m a good teammate?

Speaker 8: Also a good question and no, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a punishment. Again, it’s just that starting spot. We still think you’re a valuable asset to our team. You still think that you’re going to get good playing time and be able to contribute a lot to our team.

Speaker 9: How much playing time?

Speaker 8: Hey, game dependent, right? Game dependent. And you know the game of basketball is a game that runs, a lot of ups and downs. It depends on who we’re playing against.

Speaker 9: So is it about my scoring or is it about playing time?

Speaker 8: It’s just about lineups more than anything, who we need to be playing on the court at the same time. And again, like I said, we just believe as a coaching staff, you coming off the bench and providing that with that next group of players is going to make us a better team overall.

Speaker 9: But why the change? We’ve been winning, our record’s good. I’ve been working. I’m a senior now. I’ve been fighting to be a starter.

Speaker 8: Which has been great. And again, I amend you for that because again, you have been in here working every single day, and again, talking about your leadership, you’ve been leading the rest of the team. You’ve been an integral part of our culture. And again, that’s really what helps us be confident in your ability to succeed in this role.

Speaker 9: But how’s this going to help me? I got college coaches looking at my film. If they see me coming off the bench, that hurts me.

Speaker 8: Yeah. Well…

Speaker 9: Are you going to help pay for my scholarship?

Speaker 8: It’s a good question, right? And I appreciate everything you do. And again, when I talk to college coaches about what you provide to the team.

Speaker 9: So what are you going to tell them when you put me on the bench?

Speaker 8: I’m going to tell them exactly what we just had the conversation with today. I’m telling them, hey, we’ve had conversations around this. And again, being able to adapt to a decision and that’s not easy for you to accept. But again, my confidence in you is that hey, you were going to grab this decision by the horns and kill it, right? And again, I know who you are as a person and I believe personally that you’re still going to be able to do it with the right mindset, with the right attitude, and with the right leadership. And that’s exactly what I’m going to tell all these college coaches. Again, still think you’re going to kill it. Still think you’re going to be able to go out there and play your game. And this is something else that I’m just going to lean into with these college coaches to help get you to where you want to be in your career.

Speaker 9: So is this permanent or is it just… What’s going on?

Speaker 8: Yeah, well, not permanent, right? I mean, it’s up in the air like we talked about, a lot of things may change throughout the season. Again, as you know with basketball, things can change, but again, for the foreseen future, this is what we’re moving forward with.

Speaker 9: All right, and you sure it’s not because Johnny’s dad used to play here?

Speaker 8: Hey, I don’t even know Johnny’s dad.

Dr. Alex Cohen: All right, here we go. Excellent, well done. Now bear in mind the challenges in this role play. I put y’all on the spot. I’ve warned you like no surprises, right? But you didn’t have time to formulate a specific rationale for that athlete. And that challenge came through and I thought you navigated it really, really well. Had you had the time to keep bringing it back to this athlete and his performance, it might’ve been… Like we said, athletes just want to know what they have to do to be on the team or to progress or to play. So it’s not about me, it’s not about Johnny’s dad who bought the team uniforms this year or whatever. And okay, is this permanent? What do I have to do? Why is this decision being made?

And I’d set you up for it. It was tough. If it was, well, this is part of the conversation we’ve been having all year. Our philosophy is threes and rebounds and you keep taking mid-range jumpers for some reason. And that hasn’t changed and so we wanted to be a leader off the bench until… Or whatever. You can tell I don’t play basketball. So what was that like as a coach having that conversation?

Speaker 8: Yeah, it was tough for me. Because looking at my perspective in my career, there were times where I did have to go through that and come off the bench and accept a role where that wasn’t me. And again, being on your side of things, I’m like, oh yeah, that would’ve been a lot easier. And those are the exact same things that, again, I thought about it in my own head, but as a coach, to your point being, it’s difficult because I didn’t have those foundational pieces to lean back on. It just makes it more important for me and stuff that I’m going to take back to the team is, hey, laying that groundwork up front. Because again, when those conversations do come up, I don’t know if it’ll make it easier, but it’ll give some context on what’s…

Dr. Alex Cohen: Best way to have that conversation is to go back in time and set it up well. What was it like for you as an athlete?

Speaker 9: I had some PTSD, you know, I’m just kidding. That was good. I respect coaches that are just… Don’t sugarcoat, straight to it. How can I try to start and why am I not, don’t try to come up with all these different excuses to make me feel good. Because once I hear I’m cut, I’m already thinking, all right, how can I get back to that spot? Or how can I…

Dr. Alex Cohen: That’s a really good point. Sometimes once you hear that, even if a coach is saying, here’s what you can do to get back on the team, or here’s your other opportunities, none of that’s going in, right? It’s another good reason to have that follow-up conversation. Round of applause. Thanks y’all. Well done guys. They took the easy way to the stage, by the way. All right, so that’s that firing player scene from Moneyball. Some of this work, I think you can still find it online. Mike Davenport’s work is excellent on communicating athlete cuts, deselection, that type of stuff. So a nice resource for you. Questions about this process. What are you going to take home with you? How can you integrate some of this into your practice? We even have time for Q&A. Maybe one question. One question.

Speaker 10: So for the earlier role play, how much grace do you give if the Olympian… Sorry. So say you’re an Olympian, you get chosen to be an alternate and the Olympian checks out. How much grace as a coach do you give them to come back and say, all right, I accept being an alternate?

Dr. Alex Cohen: What do your selection procedures say? The reason that I always let athletes and coaches… I have absolutely nothing to do with selection procedures, otherwise nobody’s going to talk to me. So what are your selection procedures? And one of the things that I’ve discovered about being with the USOPC for a long time is whenever some controversy comes up and it’s usually the last player on the team or the alternate and there’s some discretion, the first thing we do is check, did they follow their select procedures or not? So you may have written in, there’s a bit of a grace period because you can decline. I mean, you can decline a spot on any team technically, right? But we’ve had athletes who were like, that’s insane. I’m not on the team, but you want me to keep training and I’m actually going to go over there. I could start school.

I’m not going to be an alternate, okay? You have 24 hours to give me your final decision, and then we’re going to move on to the next alternate, if that’s a possibility. Depends on the selection procedures, right? Again, go back in time, have a really clear process for how you want to do this and how to have this conversation. I really appreciate you staying with us, your time, your attention. I hope that some of this was practical and useful, and I hope this supports your mental health and wellness as coaches. Thank you very much.

Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 4 Transcript

Kara Winger: I am once again, Kara Winger four time Olympian in the javelin throw. Welcome back to our afternoon session at the 2023 TrueSport Talks Symposium on Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach.

I’m super excited for the interactive afternoon that we have planned. I know all of you are too. I got to hear from some individuals how excited you are to get up out of your chairs and talk to each other. Continue the theme that we have been discussing, which is leading with vulnerability, having conversations that are open, honest, and effective communication to move all of your teams forward and to protect your own mental health.

I wanted to tell a quick story about the reason that we all matter. Every single person in this room, every single level of sport, your experience matters. We heard from Dr. Alex Cohen before the break about effective communication and also those really difficult conversations, primarily at the Olympic and Paralympic level from his experience. But we all have had those experiences in youth sport, in development, of having to have those really difficult conversations with athletes who maybe have done their best. Everybody’s version of their best is important in sports, and as coaches who are protecting your own mental wellness, it’s really important to keep that in mind.

My story in Tokyo, I was 11 months post-op my second ACL. Again, it wasn’t the dream scenario I had in mind for finishing my Olympic career, and I knew that this would be my last Olympic Games. So sitting in a USA track and field team meeting prior to competition, when the team was asked for nominations for team captain, my name coming from every event group of women in that room was the most humbling thing that I’ve ever experienced.

The women of track and field who are so incredible, diverse, medal winning, so successful, saw me a four-time Olympian, the only four or five-time Olympian in Tokyo from team USA with no medals. I was the only one to have been to more than three Olympics and not be on the podium. They chose me. When that turned into my election by hundreds of team USA teammates as closing ceremony flag bearer, I had the biggest imposter syndrome you can imagine. I knew for a couple days before the announcement was made that I was going to be announced as team USA closing ceremonies flag bearer, and my mind went straight to all the people that would say, “Who the heck is Kara Winger?” And there were a couple of those tweets that happened, but what happened that made me cry even harder than I had been for days, was teammates responding to those messages by saying, “She’s exactly the right person for this role.”

So it wasn’t just my teammates in Tokyo that elected me flag bearer, it was every teammate from every other team that I had been on who said to me in DMs, in public tweets, in person years later, “Your experience, this election made my fellow non-metal winning experience more valid.” That meant everything to me. I was representing everybody who had gone and done their best but not been on the podium. It’s really difficult as an American Olympian, as a kid who gets cut from a team that all of their friends made, as somebody who did their best, but still didn’t win, to know where your place is in sport if you don’t get to talk about it with other people in the room. That experience and knowing exactly who I represented it in 2021, finally understanding that I was already accepted by all of these hundreds of other people who were exactly like me, propelled me into the best season of my life in 2022. I kept them firmly in mind and I know that you as coaches do every day.

So with that in mind, you get to talk to each other in the next three hours here in Colorado Springs, at the Olympic and Paralympic Museum. We have again, those dots on your name tag. There are green, blue, and red dots. So take a look. The green dots mean you’re going to stay here in the atrium, but you do get to move. You will move forward to the first and second rows of this room when I say so.

If your dot is blue, you’re going to the Chapman room and you’ll follow Tammy Hanson who’s waving her hand in the back, out the front doors and around upstairs, up the ramp or up the stairs. If you need an elevator, there is one right over here and we will get people to direct you to the correct room, the Chapman room.

And if you dot is red, you will follow Carissa Gump in the back to the Flame room, and we’re going to walk down the ramp and it’s accessible that direction. If you need an elevator, again, you can be pointed in that direction.

So be open and vulnerable. Our sessions are mental health and emotional regulation, boundaries and balance identity and making self-care practical is possible. So fantastic TrueSport experts who will be the ones rotating. Once you get to your room, you are going to stay there participants in your rooms, and your presenters will be the ones rotating around.

So green stay here, blue follow Tammy, and red going to the Flame room with Carissa. Here we go.

Kevin Chapman: All right. Y’all enjoyed it so far? One person, two people. I’m a little salty because always speaking after lunch is always a struggle, right? So I got my cough drop in just in case, you know what I’m saying? I just ate just like you, right?

Okay, so I’m going to jump right in here first. I’m really excited because number one, I love this. I love you all as coaches. How many coaches do we have? Okay, so what I want to do in this particular breakout is I want to make it really practical. So it’s going to be a combination of things. I want you to talk back at me, I’m going to ask you some questions, but I have selfish intent about what I want to accomplish. I’ve been charged with helping you all think through emotional regulations. So what do you think we’re going to talk about? Emotions, we have to. I’m going to define some emotions, we’re going to talk about that a little bit, but I hope you can have a takeaway that you can apply immediately for yourself.

Typically, when we do these things, we’re often talking to you about your players, but this is for you. But the good news though, is that this will apply to everything you touch as a coach. All right, so let’s jump in with some questions. All right, probably should say Kevin Chapman, licensed psychologist, TrueSport expert, didn’t say that. Director of the Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, former two sport athlete in college, and I also work with Louisville FC soccer team and also Racing Louisville FC. I’m their team psychologist. I just want to point that out. All right, cool. All right, let’s go.

Question number one, is it important as a coach to navigate and manage your own emotions?

Audience: Yes.

Kevin Chapman: Okay, somebody tell me why that’s important since you say yes.

Audience: Kids feed off of you.

Kevin Chapman: What’s that?

Audience: The kids feed off of you.

Kevin Chapman: Facts. The kids feed off of it. What else? What’s another good reason why?

Audience: Role model.

Kevin Chapman: Role model. Okay, so the kids feed off of it. Role model. Both of those are correlated, very good. Anybody else?

Audience: Predictability. Better decisions.

Kevin Chapman: Predictability. Better decisions? All very good. You guys are coaches, this is great. Okay, just checking. Just want to make sure we’re in the same page here. Number two, do you feel equipped to manage and regulate your own emotions as a coach? The key word there is equipped. I’m not saying you’re a hot mess. What I’m saying is, do you feel equipped to regulate your own emotions as a coach?

Audience: Yes.

Kevin Chapman: Yes. Okay, so you have the tools, you know what to do, you have what it takes to thinks. Okay. All right. I appreciate that response. Anybody say no? You don’t want to out yourself? Who said no? Somebody want to tell me why? How come? Thank you.

Audience: So I think I’ve been thrown into a lot of situations that there’s not a policy or maybe something that’s standard.

Kevin Chapman: Very good.

Audience: So I’m like, “Wait, why am the person solving this?” And after I got over that, saying, “Hey, then how do I want to react?”

Kevin Chapman: Okay.

Audience: So, yeah.

Kevin Chapman: So it’s a logistical issue, right? No, I appreciate that and that’s what I was really hoping somebody would say no to, is what you just said, so thank you for that. And then the final question I have for you all is what have been your biggest challenges as a coach as it relates to navigating your own emotions? I’m asking you now, what would be the biggest challenges for you? Anybody?

Audience: I think fairness. If it’s not fair, then I get pretty worked up.

Kevin Chapman: Thank you for saying that. Fairness, okay.

Moderator: So when people have questions, if you say the questions so that we can hear it, that’d be great. Thank you. That’s okay.

Kevin Chapman: So she said fairness. Did you all hear that? Okay, so you’re saying you get worked up if something’s not fair, right? Okay, thank you for saying that. You’re a plant in the audience because we’re going to talk about that a little bit. What were you going to say?

Audience: Irrational or just parents in general.

Kevin Chapman: Can somebody give him an amen? So irrational or parents in general. That is an absolute fact. Thank you. So what emotion would you say you experienced when that happened?

Audience: Well, this is year 29. I don’t know what that emotion is.

Kevin Chapman: Okay.

Audience: I’m over it and I don’t know how to put that emotion into words.

Kevin Chapman: Good, I’m glad because part of my role is to give you some skin for that. Good.

Audience: I don’t know if too much empathy is a situation.

Kevin Chapman: Okay.

Audience: But taking on the emotions from them.

Kevin Chapman: So that weighs on you, right? Yep. Okay, thank you for that. Now that’s actually a thing. Rob, yeah.

Audience: I think that I struggle when kids get hurt or when they’re in jeopardy and protective instincts kick in. That’s a challenge.

Kevin Chapman: Okay, how would you say, what emotion would you say you experience when that happens? Do you know?

Audience: A wide range, whether it’s empathy or rage or-

Kevin Chapman: Okay, okay.

Audience: A lot of it.

Kevin Chapman: You guys are answering my question well. All right, one more. What you got?

Audience: Player commitment.

Kevin Chapman: Okay, player commitment.

Audience: Yes, causes frustration.

Kevin Chapman: Player commitment causes frustration. Can anybody relate to that?

Audience: Yeah.

Kevin Chapman: Thank you. At the end of the day, that’s part of our role as a coach, is to make sure that our players are doing what they are supposed to be doing. And yet, if we’re giving them everything we have and they’re not doing it equals what they said, frustration.

All right, so we’re going to talk about that. Thank you for that. Now, here’s my selfish intent. So I kind of primed you a little bit. Here’s were I want to go on the short time that we have, because I’ll be honest with you, I’ve gone back and forth about what I’ve wanted to share with you all because as Jim Royer and others know, I can say a whole lot about a lot of different things, but I’ve been tasked with emotion regulations. So I’m just going to be very simple and basic and give you all some takeaways. Is that okay?

All right. I want you to take away what an emotion is, what emotions we experience as coaches and what you can do to manage. Is that fair? All right, so that’s what this one is, okay? So I want you to avoid burnout and have an emotionally healthy team culture. That’s really my intent, personally, with what I want to share with you all. And let me say this. Here’s a soundbite, if you’re taking any sort of notes. Burnout as a coach is not what you do or how you do it or what you do, it’s how you do what you do. In other words, burnout and emotions are synonymous. You can’t have burnout as a coach without it being emotional to some degree. You with me? So it’s not about what you do, it’s how you do what you do. And if your emotions aren’t regulated as a coach, what you do is going to negatively impact you, your team, your family, and everything you touch.

So my task really is to get you into the mindset of, “Well, what do I do about that? How can we prevent that from happening?” So I really want to talk about just some really key emotional experiences that coaches often have that I see on a regular basis and just kind of give you some skin for that, okay?

So here’s what you need to know. Here’s from my perspective. So when we talk about what we need to know as a coach as it relates to emotion regulation, let’s talk about it like this. First of all, I call this the triad of emotion. You need to know a triad. Here’s what I mean by that. Any emotion you have as a coach, because again, being a former athlete myself, we confuse emotions quite often, and I’m telling you right now, this is very simple, but it’s very powerful. If you can understand as a coach to differentiate what your emotions are, you will, as a couple people said, be able to effectively model this for your team.

So I want to say that to, so say this with me. All emotions have three parts. Say, “Thoughts.”

Audience: Thoughts.

Kevin Chapman: Physical sensations.

Audience: Physical sensations.

Kevin Chapman: And behaviors.

Audience: Behaviors.

Kevin Chapman: Those are all bi-directional. Your thoughts influence your actions, right? Your thoughts influence your physical sensations, don’t they? Your physical sensations influence your thoughts. Your thoughts influence your behaviors. They’re all interrelated. You can’t, as a coach, experience any emotion without these three things. Your frustration, your sadness, your anger, your disgust, your excitement, your contentment, your gratitude, your generosity. It doesn’t make any difference if it’s positive or negative. The bottom line is that any emotion you have as a coach has those same three parts.

That should help somebody right there. Just knowing that, are you with me so far? Know your triad. You’re talking to an athlete, you’re talking to yourself, you’re talking to somebody in your family, someone, a loved one. Know that any emotion you have has these three parts. That’s super simple and you’d be shocked by how few people understand that concept, okay?

So with that being said, see, here’s the key as a coach, emotions aren’t the issue. “Well, what if I struggle with anger?” Well, we’ll talk about that. Emotion’s not the issue. That’s not the issue. The issue is how many of us have learned to respond to the emotions we have. Let me say that again. Anger’s not the problem, frustration’s not the problem. And those are separate emotions. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Anxiety’s not the issue, it’s how I’ve learned to respond to those emotions that are the problem. Anybody with me? Right?

Sport is emotional. Can I get another amen? You’re going to be salty, you’re going to be angry, you’re going to be frustrated, you’re going to be sad. There’s a lot of things that are going to happen in your role as a coach. The key is recognizing it’s not the emotion at the core that’s the issue. It’s how many of us have learned to respond to the emotion that perpetuates the negative cycle of the emotion. You with me? This is for you all, okay?

Now here’s some examples. I want to hear some from you, but these are some examples I know from my own personal experience, but here’s some strategies I often have found that some coaches have used when they have an intense emotional experience. Stonewalling, that won’t help you in your marriage either, by the way, you’re welcome.

So I say that to say, internalizing anger is not effective. Don’t show your anger. Okay, good luck with that. It’s going to increase your blood pressure and you’re going to have more anger, right? Throwing equipment, I don’t have to tell you the problem with that. Going off on a player, I don’t have to tell you the consequences of that.

The consequence that you might not know though is when we engage in strategies like this, here’s one right here. The spending too much time on film. Is that a possibility? Is that something that happens? Absolutely. If it’s being driven by an intense emotion, it’s a problem. Y’all with me?

All right, so I say that to say that, keep in mind these are strategies that I’m using to try to feel better or to manage my emotions as a coach sometimes that backfire and make the emotion worse. Is this making sense? Okay, y’all with me still?

All right. So what are some other examples? These are just some examples, like Family Feud vibes, that I know happen, but what would some of you all say? What are some other examples of things where it’s like, “Thank you.”

Audience: So this is actually my first year that I’m taking off from coaching. I coached for 11 years because of these things.

Kevin Chapman: Okay. Thank you.

Audience: Another one that I really struggled with is not bringing it home. So staying up late, just thinking about, “Okay, what lineup can I change? How can I do this differently? What can I say to this kid to motivate them?” And I would just stay up all night long thinking about that.

Kevin Chapman: Thank you. Did y’all hear that? So basically, essentially worry or overthinking. That’s a strategy. That’s a strategy that she, and I’m sure 15 of y’all would agree with that we often can engage in that actually backfires and makes it worse. But it’s what we do often because that’s what we’ve learned to do. Is this making sense? Thank you for that transparency. Anybody else? Any other strategy? So overthinking, worry.

Audience: Or blame or worried about the past and not focused on the future.

Kevin Chapman: That’s good.

Audience: Control.

Kevin Chapman: Y’all hear that? So blame or worried about the past, not focusing on the future. And I’d even add friendly amendment, the present, right? Because if I’m focused on how I used to do this or how it happened in the past and what it might happen in the future, if I’m not focused on the present, that can impact my ability to make the right call, put the right kid in, all those sort of things. You see what I’m saying? Okay, thank y’all for that.

Audience: I can only be super positive, always.

Kevin Chapman: You have some experience with that, don’t you? Trying to be super positive all the time, only. Is that what you said? So what we oftentimes call toxic positivity, can I say something real quick? So here’s the thing, being overly positive can be as bad as being overly negative because neither one of them are realistic or evidence-based. Somebody needs to tuck that away. Does that make sense? Oh, I got, I’m on a par five. Oh, this is a hole in one.

The kids would say that’s cap or that’s not true. It’s impossible. Super positive, but super untrue, right? That’s the problem. Okay, thank you for that.

So let me give you kind of some basic skeleton here then. So as we think about those are responses to emotions, here’s what I want you to know as a coach, and this is really my intent, is what’s the purpose of an emotion? And I’ll say this, okay, any emotion you have, it doesn’t matter what it is, but as a coach, the purpose of an emotion is to get you to pay attention to two things, both what’s happening internally inside of you and what’s happened externally to then get you to engage in a specific action. Our emotions serve the purpose of helping us navigate successfully. So you saying, Kevin, the sadness and anger and all those are good things? Yes, absolutely, I’m saying that because they’re all important. They all happen in sport and you should not try to push those away as a coach because if you do, it backfires and makes that emotion stronger. Is anybody with me? Okay, so that’s the key.

So what am I saying as a coach? What I’m saying is the translation is coaches. What I’m saying here is this, your emotions, whatever they may be, they’re trying to get you to pay attention to what’s happening inside of you physiologically, what are you thinking and how can you take that emotion and respond to what’s happening in sport in this moment? It might be home stuff, it might be other things, might be interacting with an AD, it might be something else. But the key is that you’re supposed to be paying attention to what that emotion is signaling and then respond to what’s happening in your environment accordingly. You with me? That’s the purpose of any emotion, okay? Any emotion. And as I said, it’s not the emotion, it’s how we respond.

So here’s four emotions we often experience. Would you agree that these are four emotions we’ve experienced as coaches? Yes. Would you add any? Of course you would, but I just want to hear some of them. What’d you say?

Audience: Happy.

Kevin Chapman: Happy. How many people call up a psychologist though and say, “You know what? I’m too happy about winning these games.” Your point’s well taken, though. So happy. What else? Any other negative emotions?

Audience: Stress.

Kevin Chapman: Okay, which is probably one of these, or a combination. So these kind of hit the mark, right? Okay, so let’s talk about these a little bit. I had to do this because I think it’s kind of cool, but boom, anger, right? So let’s talk about anger.

So anger, here’s the definition of anger. You need to know this, okay? Because most people I speak with and I work with coaches on a regular basis and they confuse frustration and anger. They’re not the same emotion. So I want you to know so that you can help yourself but also have a takeaway as it relates to, that anger is the result… Listen to this, it’s important… Of perceived intentional injury, mistreatment or victimization.

Somebody mentioned fairness earlier. If my concept of fairness is violated by someone or an entity, anger typically is the emotional result. Notice it’s directed towards someone or a thing. Y’all see that? That’s important. What are some thoughts? Well, are you freaking kidding me right now? You know that’s not fair. Those are some common thoughts that you might have that would be related to say anger as an emotion. Notice I didn’t say frustration, I said anger, right? We’ll talk about that in a minute. What’s my takeaway? The takeaway is that anger prompts us to defend ourselves or our loved one, and it’s typically directed toward the threat itself. Is this helping anybody? So this is what anger is. Should you be angry? Yes or no?

Audience: I’m just thinking about it.

Kevin Chapman: You processing, which I like. I said something that you thought about, and I’m glad. So what’d you say? It depends?

Audience: Yeah, I think it depends because I’m a person that don’t get angry quick, but I think certain situation calls for anger.

Kevin Chapman: 100%. Like what? You have an example? Put you on the spot.

Speaker 2: I don’t know. It’s like if the team violates one of the cultural norms over and over and over, you got a boiling point.

Kevin Chapman: With that, so if a team violates cultural norms over and over and over, you’re going to reach a boiling point. Anybody can relate to that? Nobody said this, but I’m assuming if there’s a bad call on the field or the court or the, none of y’all ever experienced that in a ball sport? Like blue made a bad call or they threw a flag, and you’re like, “Are you freaking kidding me? That’s not fair, right?” Anybody? Just me?

Okay, anger, meaning anger serves a purpose. Remember, the issue is not the anger. The issue is how I learned to respond to it, which we’ll talk about in a second. So that’s anger. Okay, what about anxiety? And Mahomes isn’t playing. That’s probably the only thing that would make his anxious.

Okay, so anxiety. Anxiety is always a future-oriented emotion that involves thoughts of uncontrollability and unpredictability of future events. So many people that I know confuse fear and anxiety, they’re not the same emotion. Let me say it one more time. Fear and anxiety are not the same thing. I don’t even cover fear in this presentation for a reason because fear is typically not what you’re seeing. You might call it that, but it’s usually anxiety because anxiety is not right now, it’s about what could potentially happen in the future. What if typically is the thought process with anxiety?

The good thing about anxiety though is anxiety is supposed to be helpful, not harmful. I had a coach that always used to say, “If you ain’t hyped something ain’t right.” Think about that. There’s a certain level of arousal I’m supposed to have to prepare for the potential of losing the game, for the potential of going forward on third down and not getting it, the potential of a field position issue, the potential of me running out of time, that’s all normal. Are y’all with me?

So the issue is not whether or not not I should experience anxiety, the issue is how have I learned to respond to it that backfires and makes it worse. So you’re with me. Is that helpful for anybody? Well, what’s fear? Well, you know fight, flight or freeze. That’s when you’re in present danger. A panic attack and fear are actually the exact same thing. By the way, one’s a true alarm, one’s a false alarm. Basically having the fear response when there’s no danger is panic. That’s the difference. Hopefully that helps somebody. So when we say, “Well, don’t be afraid. Are you afraid? Are you fearful?” No. If I’m thinking about the next thing, that’s anxiety. Okay, all right.

Okay, sadness. Now sadness is interesting because this is an emotion oftentimes, especially when we have a hypermasculinity type culture that we oftentimes don’t talk a lot about, and that’s important to kind of break that shell immediately. But sadness is simple. It’s the result of loss or a personal setback. What are some of the thoughts associated with that? Well, “I didn’t want this to end this way. I’ll never get that back.” We all can think of examples of coaches as when sadness is appropriate. Somebody give me one end.

Audience: End of the season.

Kevin Chapman: End of the season is literally number one on Family Feud, right? What else? I was thinking of one, but I won’t say it.

Audience: Athlete injury.

Kevin Chapman: Athlete injury. Thank you, ding. We’re keeping the money for that one, too. What else?

Y’all haven’t said the one I’m thinking. You want me to go ahead and say it? What if you’re graduating? Seniors? It is a personal loss or a setback, meaning this is the end of a chapter in my life. We know sadness is the core emotion as it relates to depression. Chronic sadness, or what I often say, dysregulated sadness is what we talk about when we talk about depression. I’m not meant to really go into detail about depression, I just want to be clear that sadness is a normal emotional reaction.

But here’s the key. Sadness should always be processed carefully so that you can move forward. So often as coaches and people in sports, here’s the thing, we think about sadness. Most people don’t like sadness, so we put our fingers in our ears, right? Oh, “Da dah, da dah. I don’t want to think about it.?We change the channel, we turn down the volume, we change the conversation. But what happens when we do that, coaches, is it backfires and makes the sadness bigger.

So what are you saying? I’m saying we need to take a step back and process the end of the season, process the loss, process the end of the senior’s career, process that while probably cry and be upset. Yes, you will. But if you’re hearing what I’m saying, what happens if you do that effectively? What happens to the sadness? It essentially goes away. Do you see my point? It’s all about understanding the core of what’s happening and responding to those emotions in a way that are going to help me and help these kids or help my family or whatever it may be. See, I care more about you as a person, not just a coach, but I just want to make it clear that if you can understand what I’m saying here, this will help you, period. Y’all with me? Okay, okay. All right.

Then we have frustration. And I like this because many people confuse anger and frustration. And if you take nothing else away, if someone can say, “Well, now I know the difference between frustration and anger.” I did my part.

Okay, now, frustration and anger get confused. And here’s why. Frustration is the result of unmet expectations. Has any of us ever had an unmet expectation? A simple one, Jeff, I shoot a ball, miss it, and I’m salty and upset. What are you? “Oh, I’m frustrated.” Why? “I should have hit that shot. Well, I didn’t, therefore I’m frustrated.” So if I had an expectation that didn’t take place, then frustration is the result.

Now, here’s the key. Look, I shouldn’t have called that play. Should statements. Why did I do that? See what I’m getting at? Notice it’s not directed toward a person. Do y’all see that? Anger is always directed towards something, someone or an entity? Frustration typically is like on me, or it could be on someone else. But the key is that frustration is this unmet expectation. I expected this to work and it didn’t. Therefore, I’m frustrated. Now here’s the takeaway with that. The interesting thing about frustration and why it’s so confused with anger is that it can become anger if we direct it towards someone. Y’all see that? Remember the triad? Can anybody tell me the three parts of an emotion?

Thoughts, physical sensations and behavior. So if I’m, “Oh, I’m upset. Why did I do that? Why did I?” And then I’m pointed at you. “You know what, it’s your fault now. I can’t believe, you should have told me.” Now all of a sudden, I’m angry. Do you see the difference? Unmet expectations. Frustration is a part of coaching, isn’t it? So it’s not the frustration itself, it’s how I respond to it that can oftentimes be the issue. Are y’all seeing the theme here? Okay. All right.

So one thing I want to do with you all, and then I’ll open it up. I want to do this, try to be 21st century a little bit. I want to always try to be as practical as possible. Somebody, if y’all have y’all’s airdrop on, I can send you this. But if you have your airdrop on, I can drop it.

Kevin Chapman: But what if you have your AirDrop on? I can drop this to someone.

Kevin Chapman: So anyway, let’s talk about this for a second. This is a strategy that I want you guys to kind of tuck away and take with you in some sense about. Okay, so Kevin, I’m hearing what you’re saying. I’m seeing that these emotions are important, but we oftentimes talk about mental wellness, mental health, etc. And oftentimes we really don’t have any sort of ways to get good at repetition of changing how we respond to our own emotional experiences of coaches. So I thought what would be helpful to take away to give someone a cue card or some strategy, that’s a hack that you can use to think before you respond?

So this is what we call anchoring, and the way anchoring works is you basically have two parts to it. The first piece is taking a breath. I was talking to someone earlier about that, like box breathing and whatnot. The key is regulating the arousal in your body before you make a decision. So here’s what I’m saying, we’re so big as coaches on repetition. We want our athletes to do reps and to have mechanics and whatnot. The key is in order for us to learn how to respond to our emotions more effectively, we also have to practice.

So here’s the key, anchoring. Anchoring has two parts. The first piece is before I respond to an emotion, I can inhale through my nose for four seconds and then exhale out my mouth for six seconds. That stimulates heart-lung synchronization. It’s like pressing the reset button. Something happens that triggers an emotion, something you can do is regulate your breathing. But once you do that, because so many people I speak to, they’re like, “Well, I took a deep breath, so-and-so told me, and you know what I’m saying? I was still upset.” Well, it’s because it’s not as simple as just breathing correctly, right? Y’all with me? You need something besides breathing. So breathing is one piece, but here’s the second piece. I want you to shoot the three. We’re coaches. We’re all athlete people, right? Here’s the key shooting, the three, the reason I call it shooting the three is because your emotions have how many parts?

Speaker 3: Three.

Kevin Chapman: Y’all with me? You see how I did that? Okay. Thoughts, physical sensations and behaviors. So here’s what I would encourage you to do. You got to practice this though. You’re going to inhale, exhale out your mouth, and then you’re going to say, “Shoot to three. What am I thinking right now?” Literally straight lace, no chaser. Say it. “I’m thinking I want to throw my clipboard at. So-and-so blah, blah, blah.” Be honest with what you’re thinking. What am I feeling in my body where my heart’s doing this? My stomach’s doing this, my blood pressure’s going up. My behavior. What am I doing or feel like doing? Now, here’s where you got to be honest. Don’t lie to yourself. If what you feel like doing is tapping someone out, you should say that. Well, that’s really aggressive. Why should I say that? Because you don’t need to judge the emotion.

You need to pay attention to what it’s trying to tell you. That’s not what you should do, but you should be paying attention to what it’s trying to tell you. So if it’s like, “Oh, I want to do this.” Okay, don’t do that. That’s not adaptive, right? I’m thinking this, I’m feeling this. I’m doing or feel like doing this. You’re being honest with yourself. Once you’ve done that though, then the last part is this. How should I respond to what’s happening right now? What’s a way that I can respond in this moment to that emotion, the frustration, the anger, the sadness, whatever it may be, right now, that’s adaptive in this present moment. Is this making sense? Okay, so it’s not saying push it away. It’s saying what’s the most adaptive way to respond to it in this moment? It could be me taking a 30, right?

It could be me saying, “All right, I’m going to take a fool.” It could be me saying, “All right, I’m going to walk away. Assistant coach So-and-So, you talk to him.” Do you see what I’m getting at? That way I’m not only engaging in some strategy that’s going to ruin things for people around me. Most importantly, you’re not going to let that emotion backfire and contribute to the maintenance of the thing you’re struggling with to begin with. See, that’s the bigger picture, is that when I respond to emotions a certain way, it backfires and it’s a cycle. So the next time I feel that way, I feel like I got to go back to doing what worked, like going off on somebody or screaming or stonewalling or whatever it might be, and what it’s doing, it’s causing negative social consequences. But more importantly, it’s reinforcing the emotion itself.

Does this make sense? So here’s what I would recommend. Practice this twice a day. Why? Because if you don’t practice a strategy like this when you don’t need it, you’re not going to practice it when you do. Many mental health professionals here, we often have people that come to us who want an intervention. We’d prefer prevention. So at the end of the day, we want you to be practicing these things. It’s like, “Well, I’m just sitting on the couch. That’s my behavior.” Okay, that’s fine. But guess what you did? You taught your brain that when I do this, when something is triggering of an intense emotion, now I’m able to take a step back and respond adaptively to it. The emotion regulates itself and I learn something new. Does this make sense? So I would recommend twice a day practicing this so that it’s important when you actually need it. This making sense? Okay.

Here’s another thing I’d say. All right, so here’s something else that’s also important for regulating emotions, and oftentimes when we have intense emotionality, it’s the result of how we’re thinking about a situation. So another hack that I would recommend that you can have as well is this, two types of thoughts lead to me having intense emotions. We have what’s called jumping to conclusions, also known as fortune-telling and mind reading. Here’s some examples. “She’s not going to execute this play.” Oh, you got a crystal ball, right? Or, “His parents don’t think I’m a good coach.” Well, how’s that interaction going to go if I say that to myself, despite whether or not it’s true. The key’s not whether or not that’s true, the key is that what’s that doing to me with my emotional regulation? So there’s that.

There’s also catastrophizing, also known as blowing it out of proportion. This always or never goes as planned. Words like always or never will always backfire. I promise. Somebody got a hold of that. Okay? Does that make sense? So always or never, avoid those, right? This is the worst game I’ve ever coached in my life. That could be true, but there might be other ones that were worse. Is this making sense? Yeah.

Okay, so I just want to make it clear. So how do you get out of this? Because oftentimes we get triggered, but if we as coaches have a thinking pattern where we’re used to thinking this way, this will guarantee us to have an intense emotion. So how do I get out of that? Let me give you some questions. So do I know for certain that this will happen? So that’s an example. You could ask yourself that, that’ll debunk that thought right away. What’s happened in the past? So in other words, if I have one of these sort of thoughts, what can I say to myself to make it not as intense? Do I have a crystal ball? I think you’ll laugh out loud if you say that because you actually don’t. Does blank mean blank? Does him not running this play correctly in the past mean he’s not going to run it correctly again now? See what I’m getting at? Does blank mean blank? What’s another explanation? If this happens, can I cope with that? Am I 100% sure that this negative outcome will occur?

So these are all examples of the types of questions you can actually use to get out of an emotional rut. If you’re saying things to yourself that involve jumping to conclusions or, “Oh, that parent doesn’t like me.” Well, what’s the evidence they don’t like me? Well, it’s because they typically have said negative things in the past. Okay, that’s fair. Does them saying something in the past mean they’re going to say it again? Not necessarily. Okay. Are you 100% sure that they’re going to say something like that? Well, no, I’m not. See, and that will help you debunk the way you’re thinking in that situation.

Okay, so I go back to this original question. What have been your biggest challenges as a coach as it relates to navigating your emotions? My question now real quick is anybody getting anything from what I’ve said? Did you learn anything relevant to your experience as a coach that can help you with some of these challenges? Is that helpful for anybody?

Okay. So let me stop there and just anybody have any questions about anything that I’ve shared? Anything you want to ask me in general as it relates to these sort of takeaways?

Yep.

Speaker 4: So I really related to being [inaudible 00:38:09] a lot of empathy. I’m a crier and I can’t, it just comes.

Kevin Chapman: Okay.

Speaker 4: I can’t stop it. Help.

Kevin Chapman: She says, so I can relate to having a lot of empathy and I’m a crier. Help. In case y’all didn’t hear that.

Speaker 5: Being vulnerable [inaudible 00:38:31] helping you. So I dealt with anxiety my whole life. Two, three years ago, I was standing in front of a group of 16 teenage girls, I was coaching softball time and a panic attack happened on the spot, that I could not control. I couldn’t control it. Maybe the single most embarrassing moment of my life

And we’d won a game. I don’t know where. Well, I had two or three parents that were not happy with me. So I’m assuming that’s where it’s from. But why I’ve told that story is I got home and I just broke down in front of my wife and I was, “I’m not going back, blah, blah, blah.” My wife said something, [inaudible 00:39:13] answer. My wife says, “Isn’t it great that those girls get to see you talk?”

Kevin Chapman: That’s great.

Speaker 5: I said, “I wasn’t ready to process yet. What do you mean?” She said, “Well, now they know you don’t have to hide it anymore. How great for them to see you come back from that?” So what I’ve done from that point on is at the beginning of the year, I just say, “I’m a crier.”

Kevin Chapman: Yeah, that’s good.

Speaker 5: “I’m sorry, but that’s what I’m going to [inaudible 00:39:42].”

Kevin Chapman: No, that’s great. So no, to that point, what that’s really doing. Someone said earlier when I think I asked a pretty good question at the beginning, and that is what’s something that you struggle with and whatnot. But the key is some of you all said modeling and setting the stage of being a role model, I think is what someone said, right? So that’s true. You got to normalize these emotions as coaches, it’s okay for us to be angry. It’s okay for us to be sad. Using those as examples with our kids teaches them that you’re a person and they can trust you now. Does that make sense? Because you’re the emotional barometer of your team culture. Good, bad, ugly, or indifferent.

Okay, I think we’re out of time. If anybody wants me to AirDrop that still or come to me afterwards, I can send it to you. But I appreciate it and hopefully you guys got a takeaway from this. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 7: What are we doing?

Kevin Chapman: I don’t know what’s going on right now. I don’t care.

Kara Winger: Maybe. Okay, there we go. You guys are staying here. Thank you Dr. Chapman. Yay.

He’s so great. I love talking to that guy. You guys are staying here. Our next presenters will come in the room. It will either be boundaries and balance identity or how to make self-care possible. It’s practically possible. I very much, when I was talking about going in the float tank, me not being able to relax was all emotions that I just didn’t give myself enough time to process, and it truly helped to force myself into that relaxation posture. Also, going into water, float tank, hot tub swimming and that means I can’t bring my phone is super helpful for me to create space to feel whatever the emotion is and move through it.

For the next session, we’re going to have microphones floating around and you guys are the stars today in the atrium green.name tag people. This is the room that is live-streamed, so that’s part of why our presenters are rotating. So thank you for your vulnerability with everybody tuning in virtually as well. But we’re going to get the microphone so that everyone tuning in can hear your excellent questions and great stories. I agree completely with being able to see vulnerability. I had a basketball coach in high school, Mr. Steve Hook. He was phenomenal. His daughter, Carrie was a senior when I was a freshman, and he was really tough. He really laid the law down with the coach’s kid that I had grown up with. She used to ask incessant questions and she always got away with that. I was on her dad’s team and so I watched her be the favorite and that was not so fun for everybody that was on the team. We’ve all been there. But to watch Mr. Hook be like, “Okay, Stephanie a week in, you’re allowed three questions per day. That’s what you’re allowed to do.”

And he always seemed so mean, but I would watch him. He was absolutely wonderful and had those boundaries, had really good stuff. Then I watched him as a freshman console Carrie Hook his daughter after games that we lost, be a dad right after being a great coach that I got to know his ways, his communication style over four years. But to see the human example in person was super, super cool. So keep that great stuff up.

We had some questions contributed at our reception last night, so I was going to read them while we wait for our next presenters. You guys can also tell me to go away and have a little break between sessions and if you want to get up between, do not be afraid to do that. But our presenters are coming in right now, so we just have time for one question. How do we create a practice culture that’s challenging and hold kids and players accountable, but also is a place where kids look forward to coming every day? Does anyone have any ideas? I don’t have a microphone for you yet. Yes.

Speaker 6: One of the things that, oh, go ahead. [inaudible 00:44:05] So that’s something very simple. I made that change a couple of years ago. [inaudible 00:44:20]

Kara Winger: Yeah, compete always. I love that. And maybe even at an individual level, have little competitions for yourself every day. As an individual sport athlete, I always had to do that. What are my real takeaways that I have to do today for it to be a success? And then talk about it if it didn’t go that way. Because that’s okay too, you can’t always win. Yeah, I always thought as a kid, we moved a lot when I was little and I played all the sports because I was shy and that’s how I made friends, which when eventually those friendships turned into the biggest gift of my life as flag bearer, that just was such a full circle moment for me. But it was my friends at practice. So not only the competition part, but the fostering of relationships between your players too, I think can be super important for bringing them back. Yeah?

Speaker 8: I was going to say something I do is I [inaudible 00:45:18] players [inaudible 00:45:21] drill practice [inaudible 00:45:24].

Kara Winger: That’s awesome. Yeah, I love that. Having kids… I’ll just repeat because of the microphone. Having kids bring their own drills to practice, bring their own fitness component to practice and teach their teammates, that’s super fun. Great. I’m just going to bring Adam and Stephanie onto the stage. I don’t know how best to go around. And these will be our presenters on the making self-care practical is possible. The oxygen mask effect. So we have Adam Feit… Fight. Adam Feit. I looked at it, I was like, that can’t be just feet. Yeah, Adam Feit, strength and conditioning coach extraordinaire and Stephanie Miezen who is our registered dietician, true sport expert, to talk to you about our next breakout room. Thank you.

Stephanie Miezen: Thank you.

Adam Feit: Give it up for Kara. Thank you very much. All right, we are on the clock. So you may have heard this before. I’m going to move around and make the camera people work a little bit in this session. Can you keep your eyes on me? Here we go. In the event of an emergency, an oxygen mask will fall from the top of your ceiling. Please grab the oxygen mask, fasten it around yourself. Do not worry, the mask is inflating. Do not help who before you help yourself? But why do we do that? Why do we as high performance coaches, as parents, as managers, why do we continue to, as what some of our guest speakers have said so far, this idea of pouring from an empty cup? We could be attached to it personally, emotionally, could be physically, or we’re simply choosing to ignore the one person that needs to be cared for to make all of these things happen.

We understand this is a life long process, it’s not going to happen overnight. Our goal in the next 30ish minutes, is hopefully for you to reflect on, some of the things that we could do a little bit better. Oftentimes we’ve talked a lot about, in high performance sport, this idea of you made it or you didn’t. What if I could challenge that narrative inside your own head and instead of thinking of the outcome, think about what’s the next imperfect action you can take today? So along with mindset and movement, Stephanie’s going to be up here and talk about nutrition and how we can combine this idea of creating our own manual and move a little bit closer towards the self-care that we all seek for ourselves.

A quick bio from a much younger coach, Adam. I have been coaching for close to 20 years. I have coached at the highest of division one levels and power fives. I’ve coached in the NFL. I’ve coached my kids’ kindergarten soccer team. That didn’t last as long as I thought it would. I continue to move on and coach and use my education and experiences in high-performance sport, now I bring it into the classroom. I’m an assistant professor of exercise science and sports psychology. I went back to school in my mid-thirties alongside my partner Mary Kate, because we all thought that was a good idea. You talk about self-care, two kids, two full-time jobs and let’s enroll in full-time students. I can tell you that cup was emptied, crinkled and in the trash.

But I learned from that and most importantly, I learned what I was capable of. And so I’m not going to stand up here and chastise you for not taking care of yourselves. There are elements, and you all know this as high-performance coaches, that sometimes you have to go to the edge and see what you’re capable of. That’s what makes sport beautiful. But I’ve learned from those experiences and hopefully I can provide some ideas and considerations about mindset and how we can influence the way that we look at movement. So I look forward to spending some time with you.

Stephanie Miezen: Yay. Thank you. And my name is Stephanie Miezen. I’m a registered dietitian, sports dietitian. I’m also lucky to be a TrueSport expert for performance nutrition. Thank you, TrueSport. I started off my career actually as a chef before a dietitian, moved into sport nutrition, and I’ve worked in various organizations, D1 Athletics at the Olympic and Paralympic Committee, minor league baseball, and for recently an organization called Canyon Ranch, health, wellness, performance kind of thing. So I’ve been able to see a variety of types of sport environments. The theme though is high performance, high expectations, of course. So I’m excited to speak with you guys about this today. We have a question for you. We don’t have a ton of time, but we want to collect just a couple of your responses here. What obstacles do you face when it comes to achieving self-care relative to our session here around mindset, movement, and nutrition? Anything come to mind for you?

Speaker 9: Time.

Stephanie Miezen: Time. Okay.

Adam Feit:

That was a resounding agreement.

Stephanie Miezen: Time. What else? Okay, yeah. Yep. One more. Anything else? That’s okay if not.

Speaker 11: Family [inaudible 00:50:35] kids.

Adam Feit: Ooh.

Stephanie Miezen: Okay. So we’re going to tie in these ideas of obstacles a couple of times in our presentation, and this is just to get some ideas going for you. So I’m going to pass it over to Adam and then we’ll finish up with nutrition, the second part.

Adam Feit: Okay. All right, so let’s dig in. All right, this idea of mindset. It’s been said before, it’s been talked about before. When you hear the word mindset, what comes to your mind? Go ahead and call it out. Growth or fixed. Thank you to Dr. Carol Dweck and her research. What else? Your approach. How do we go through the situation? How do we avoid the situation? Excellent. One more.

Speaker 12: Carol Dweck.

Adam Feit: Carol Dweck. Yeah. Legend. I like to refer to mindset, and using and my background as being a former offensive lineman, if you haven’t been able to tell, about a mental stance, how do we position ourselves in a two-point and a three-point and a four-point? With my back turned to the obstacles in front of us, how will I view the world around me? And what decisions will I consciously make? Now we know that we’re going to make some decisions subconsciously.

We can thank those areas of the brain and our lifestyle for doing that. But when we’re exploring this, how do we choose to think about the world around us? Let’s lighten it up a little bit. I remember when lunch was called earlier, everybody went over to go take care of themselves. I was like, “I’m going to be a good presenter. I’m going to let the attendees get there filling first. Don’t like to eat too much before I present.” And all the turkey clubs were gone. I hope you enjoyed it, folks. Could have been bitter, could have been sad, could have been upset. I deserve the turkey club. But instead, I reframed the situation as what a great opportunity to get the veggie wrap and if you got the veggie wrap, you know what I’m saying? Okay, that was really good.

I made that decision. I want you to inquire about some of the decisions that you have made to do the thing or not do the thing. If you’ve traveled far and wide, if you’ve been on flights, you had delays, did you still get your workout in? Or did you try to validate or affirm your certain stance on a topic and nothing could move you? We’re going to explore this concept of mindset. And if you get anything with the time that I have left with you today, I want it to come down to this question in itself. This is the keystone question that I reflect back on. This is my north star, this is my true north compass. If you are saying yes to something, have you also considered what you’re saying no to?

I’m saying yes to all of you today. I’m saying no to my 100% exercise science class. Thank you very much. I’m saying yes to making great connections and connecting with world-leading experts in high performance. But I’m saying no to my kids this afternoon. So when we choose to make these decisions about our health, about the movement we choose to engage in or the mindset we take to approach, if we can come back to this question each and every time, hopefully we sleep better. But I am telling you as a gentle reminder, you’re worth it. You can’t pour from that empty cup. You can’t continue to provide if you have nothing left to give. So what do we need to do? I’d like you to think about how we can establish a mindset manual. If you’ve been fortunate enough to have a vehicle, maybe it was relatively new, it came and it smells of beautiful fresh car newness.

We all appreciate that, right? If something goes wrong, you don’t know how it works, you check the owner’s manual. I don’t know what this is. I had a Jeep Wrangler for almost 10 years, got a new truck recently. I have no idea what all these buttons do. Where do I go? Cruise control. My cruise control was I hit sixty-five miles an hour and I knew I was going too fast. But I can go back to my owner’s manual. My goal in the time that we have is to think about how we can approach and use our mindset to influence what we choose to move and how we move. Four key areas we’re going to address. Can we practice continuum thinking? Is everything in or out, black or white, right or wrong? Or can we actually stop being so process focused in the moment to worry about that product at the end?

Number two, managing our goals. I’m all right with goal setting, but I love goal achieving. Do we still rely on frameworks that don’t address the things that need to be addressed? I think so. Number three, how do we establish your BAMs? And number four, this concept of controlling the controllables. We hear it, we say it sticks. Sometimes we’re sick of it. So I’m going to take a different spin on that. And maybe our mindset towards the controllables, our uncontrollables are either this or that.

So whether you’re with us today or you’re online, I appreciate you joining us and staying with us. Think about this idea of a spectrum. On one end, you have your worst case scenario. On the other end, we have our best case scenario. And as we explore this, we have checkpoints along the way. I’m going to use the example of an iPhone. Who would like to volunteer me their iPhone?I cannot guarantee it will not be damaged. You sure about that? This is like an iPhone 97. Look at that camera. I won’t do that to you. I appreciate that though. I’ll use mine.

Okay, all of a sudden I’m talking, I’m chatting, I’m coming out of the bathroom, I bump into somebody and then all of a sudden… Oh shoot, sorry about that. And I pick that up. Or then I’m trying to carry in the groceries and all of a sudden my phone’s kind of in my pocket. But no, it’s not. Don’t worry. I have an upgrade coming, I think. What do we do if I drop my phone? Naturally, I think about, I should probably get some tempered glass on it, right? Maybe I get a case on it. If you woke up and you’re already late, which means you’re stressed and you have a flat tire, are you like, “Oh, shh, shh, shh,” and slash the other three?

I don’t look at my phone and I get one little scuff and I think, nah. iPhone 97, here we come. I judge the circumstances based off what I can do. So I aim for a little bit better. I’m challenging you to think about your own fitness, your own movement, whether it’s exercising, whether it’s working out, or whether it is moving as coaches, because those are on a spectrum of moving your body. Are you caught in the all or nothing approach where you need the latest and greatest and the best scenario and equipment that we have here at the Olympic training centers? Or when you walk into your hotel gym, are you like, “What am I going to do with this?” So do you do nothing at all? What I want you to think about is can you reframe from all or nothing to always something? Can you choose consistency over intensity? Can you choose imperfect action as long as it moves you a little bit closer to your goals? I think you can. And if you’ve forgotten how, just start.

Number two, goals. Whether it’s a gold medal, whether it’s making the team. We have seen some sort of framework called SMART for many, many years. Does anybody know what SMART means? Count it out with me. S.

Adam Feit: Oh, now we’re losing each other. Yeah. Timely. My professional opinion. SMART goals are not smart at all. SMART goals don’t address the two things we need from a mindset perspective for our goals in fitness. And that’s the obstacles that we face and the plan we have to work through them. Think about it. Goal setting’s great. I set the goal, it’s achievable, it’s realistic, I have a time-based component to it. But why haven’t I achieved it yet? And what is my plan to help me do that thing? So I encourage you to think about another framework. This comes out of Gabriele Oettingen’s work called WOOP. I am a coach. I like to think in threes and fours, we’re going to keep it real simple. Okay, what is the thing I want to accomplish? The W. How will I feel adding some imagery and some visualization?

What will that mean to me, my teammates, my spouse, my partners, my family? But the two biggest ones right here. Oh, but what is in my way? And number four, what is my plan to work around it? Because it explores this concept. What’s known as mental contrasting. If I think of this goal and then I actually take a moment to explore my current reality, what has been shown is that it causes us to act. Back to motivation, I think one of us said motivation over here. We can’t wait for motivation. We can’t wait for inspiration. We need to act. And then we become inspired and then we become motivated. Concept number three, establishing your BAMs. You can choose to fill in the A however you’d like, but what are your bare accepted minimums?

Adam Feit: What are your bare accepted minimums? What will you, no matter what hits the fan, be okay with being okay? Is it walking for five minutes? Is it walking the dog? Is it stepping on the treadmill? Is it taking a yoga class? Is it joining your team, in the last couple minutes of practice, in a healthy competition? Because we set our goals for the best perfect training plan, we set our sights for the most amazing workout, pre-workout in one side, protein in another, all true sports certified. Don’t worry, okay? But then, what happens if the machine breaks? What happens if the alarm doesn’t go off? Did you establish a bare minimum, that, “By all counts, I’m okay if at least I hit this?” So look at your worksheet. Think about some of the BAMs that you can set, for this notion of movement, your nutrition, and for some of us, recovery, because it may not require a full body intense workout, it may not require going to the track.

It may require taking a nap. And where is that BAM in context for the rest of your life? And then, lastly, this notion of the controllables. We say it, we hear it, we preach about it. What are the things that we can control? I worked with our in-city softball team, U10, and I started thinking about this concept of APE. I want to keep it really, really sticky. We know, as professionals, we can control our attitude, we can control our preparation, and we can control the effort that we put forth. So the kids loved it. They had apes. The coach bought them a bunch of stuffy gorillas. It’s going all over town. It was awesome, but it became sticky. Because sometimes, we explore just APE, you can’t control that. Don’t even worry about it. That’s like telling our athletes, “Just get stronger. Just get faster. Just don’t do that.”

But rather, I invite you to explore the middle zone. What are the things that you can influence? “I may not control if they say yes to me coming back next year, but can I influence that, in my conversations with others, how I approach the stage? There are some things I need to ignore, and there are some things I’m going to control.” But what if you actually had that middle zone to reflect on? “Are there anything that I can actually influence, to kind of plant the seed for next time?” I go against the grain a little bit in this, and I say, “Yeah, I think there are.” So once we know our BAMs, we can get out of binary thinking. We can explore this concept of obstacles and planning. Well, then, the last part is nutrition, and that’s where Stephanie will come in and explore her methods of making things practical and sustainable, when we’re taking care of us. Because as we know, if we don’t take care of us, who will take care of them? Thank you.

Stephanie Miezin: Awesome. Thank you, Adam. So moving from what Adam’s talking about, when it comes to mindset, we’re going to flow into nutrition and how you can use that to take care of yourself. On the flip side of your handout, your worksheet, you’re going to see the four areas we’re going to walk through when it comes to nutrition. Nutrition is a broad subject here, but what I’ve identified are what I think the four core areas that are going to make perhaps the biggest impact on what you can do as coaches and administrative professionals, whoever you’re are, to make the biggest impact for your nutrition, for how you’re feeling, and those around you. So why nutrition matters. We’re going to talk about the what, but just quickly on the why here. We know food helps us feel energized. It contributes to our wellness. It makes us feel good, so we can be the best version of ourselves and, therefore, help others around us.

The other opportunity here is that what we do, as we’ve been talking about throughout this presentation or the symposium, is what we do can be model behavior for others. We can view that as an opportunity when it comes to nutrition as well. So our behaviors, when it comes to food, eating, nutrition, can influence those of athletes and others around us. That can be a negative perhaps, but I think we can also view it as a positive opportunity. So stress management is a huge one. Many times, when we feel stressed, people respond to that with food or nutrition. How we do that and how we do that around others can influence how they think about the responding to stress themselves. So just try to think about this as we go throughout this exercise here. Okay, core four, when it comes to nutrition, again, there’s a million things we could talk about, but I’m really trying to narrow it down, so you have some key things for yourself.

You’re creating a mini nutrition plan as we go, if you would like, to take home. The first thing is create and stick to a regular eating schedule. Now, we are not talking about rigidity, like Adam brought up. We’re talking about creating a plan and being flexible as we can, but we have to have something to set yourself up for success here. So the key ways to think about creating that timeline for yourself would be, number one, we probably want to be eating something about every three to five hours. Everybody is different, but this is a really good framework to try to operate within. What happens when we wait too long to eat? Hangriness, anybody else? For sure. We’re all kind of human here, so we need to be getting proper nutrition in regularly throughout the day. Second thing is create some eating windows for yourself.

So what I mean by this is not saying, “Oh, I must have dinner at 7:00 every night,” because we all know things change, but creating a realistic window for yourself. So maybe it’s between 6:00 and 8:00 that you want to have dinner for yourself. You’re setting up some realistic expectations, that also are flexible with your day. Third thing here is do not underestimate morning fueling and nourishing. I’ve worked with so many people, and I’ve seen this so many times. For a lot of reasons, we tend to undereat in the morning time and overdo it in the afternoon, partially because we’re not getting enough nutrition in the morning to feel satisfied and fueled and the psychological part of we didn’t have enough or we were good by not having a lot in the morning, so it validates some behaviors with overdoing it in the afternoon. This gets complex, but this is a common thing that we see.

So an example of how to do this and how you might want to set yours up, just as an example, would be something like this. So each of these colored blocks represent the windows that we’re aiming to have these meal periods within. Again, I think this is better than just saying, “I must have a snack at 3:00 PM,” because times change. So we want to have some realistic windows. If you would like, you can think about what that looks like for yourself on these timelines, but this is just one example right here. Okay, we’re going to keep moving, because I want to make sure we get through this. Okay, second part of this core four is eat with purpose, like an athlete, right? Foods have a purpose. They each do different things for us, and so, we can leverage that to make that work for you. There are many, many ways to approach this, but what I’m going to give you is perhaps one of the easiest visual tools that you can take with you wherever you are at in the entire world.

It is this visual right here. I’m sure you’ve seen something like this. So this is a volumetric way of building out a balanced meal or plate. And so, we’re breaking this down here. We can see big area, green area, about 50% volumetrically from our colorful fruits and veggies. That gives us foundational nutrients, micronutrients for health, and just gives you satisfaction from some of that fiber in there. About 25% from our protein rich foods. That’s also important for satisfaction and for muscle,, variety of other things. And then 25% or so of our plate is coming from our starches. This is the main and preferred fuel source for the brain and the body. So if you are not feeling energized, first thing I’m going to look at with you when it comes to nutrition is, are you getting enough carbohydrate in for you? Your brain loves carbohydrate.

Glucose is what your body breaks down all carbs into. That’s the preferred fuel source for your brain. What does this mean in terms of foods? These are just some examples. Hopefully, the coloring, you can see that there. If you would like, the idea is you have a plate here. You can write down some key foods that you really enjoy, that fit into each of these sections. Now, this is not a stagnant plate. And if anybody’s seen the athlete plates visuals, we know we have a couple of versions of that. In particular, we know, if we’re more active ourselves, we want to push over that starches section, so it’s more than 25% to meet our needs for physical activity. But if you’re not sure where to start, this is probably the best visual I can give you. Whether you’re ordering at a restaurant, you’re going through a buffet, can you build your meal with these approximate proportions for yourself?

That’s going to go a long way in helping you feel energized and well-nourished. Third thing is leverage strategic snacks. We’re going to have a cool snack situation here for you to do this, practice this here in a little bit. But has anyone felt that feeling, when it’s like 4:00 to 5:00 maybe, and it’s been a couple hours since lunch, and you’re like, “I am ravenous. I don’t care what’s for dinner in a half hour. I need to eat anything right now, right?” Snack time can help us avoid that situation. So the easiest formula I have for you for building a balanced snack is simply your protein food, plus your carbohydrate food. We had mentioned previously with that plate, protein is your main source of satisfaction truly in a meal. Carbohydrate is your main source of energy. And so, if you combine protein rich foods with carbohydrate rich foods, you’re getting the best of both worlds, and they kind of synergistically work together.

What does that mean in terms of types of foods? In terms of protein, we’re looking at eggs, Greek yogurt, cheese stick, edamame, jerky, stuff like that. Nuts have some protein as well. Carbohydrate, we can get from our fruits and our grains, crackers, pretzels, all that good stuff. Okay, so on your list, if you would like, you can think about, “What are some snack foods or some combos that I enjoy that are in each of those categories?” Planning ahead is super key here. All these things sound great, but if you don’t bring it along with you, can’t eat it, that kind of thing. So that leads us into our next section, which is plan ahead. This is going to help you be more successful and make all of this less stressful for yourself. So as Adam had touched on, a great way to do this is to identify obstacles that you commonly come up or that you see in your life, in your scenarios, and plug in solutions to those that work for you.

So identify your challenges and what is your plan to overcome them. Some quick examples here that we see all the time. We talk about getting hangry before a dinner. This is probably one of the most common scenarios that I see in working with people sometimes. We can relatively easily adjust for that by saying, “Okay, I know I need a snack before dinnertime. If I don’t have a snack mid-afternoon, I will be hangry.” And that’s normal. It’s okay to have a snack. Let’s do that. Let’s bring a snack with you or identify one that you can get with you where you’re at.

Another really big one that I see is tempting restaurant menus, and I want everyone to enjoy all the foods that they want to enjoy. I think that’s all good. But if you have nutrition goals that you’re trying to stick to or a nutrition plan that you’re really trying to aim for, take that decision-making out of the situation. Maybe look up the menu ahead of time or if somebody’s ordering the meals for your team, tell them what you want before you’re looking at the menu, looking at those tempting things. So identify those things are going to be challenges or obstacles for you and plug in that solution to overcome it for yourself. On the worksheet, there is some area to do that, if you would like.

That is it when it comes to nutrition. Kind of ran through that. So hopefully, we have maybe a couple minutes for questions at the end here.

Adam Feit: Five minutes.

Stephanie Miezin: So a couple more minutes? Okay. This is some of our social media if you want to follow us. And we’re also on the TrueSport stuff, but that was a lot of information. Questions for either of us? Hopefully that was helpful. Yeah.

Speaker 14: The question I had is, if you’re dealing with students who are in a Title 1 situation, who have free and reduced lunch and whatnot, it’s really difficult to follow the plan here. They don’t like a whole lot of things, because they haven’t experienced a whole lot of things. How do you go about making sure that they have the right thing that they’re supposed to have?

Stephanie Miezin: Yeah, I think the great thing about nutrition is there’s no one right way to do it. For example, commonly, many kids or many people don’t love vegetables. Over time, we can find ways to address that, but fruits count. That colorful section of the plate, fruits count. So if they love fruits, let’s get those. That is a colorful component of the diet, that is at least something. So I would say, “What’s available? What do you like? And then, can you be open to pushing some boundaries sometimes?” Many times, when it comes to veggies, there’s so many environments that affect this, but it’s all about preparation of them. Like I don’t love steamed vegetables. Anybody really like steamed vegetables?

I don’t know. But roasted, okay, they’re not bad, but roasted vegetables, come on. It’s a lot better, typically. And so, preparation and education on that kind of stuff can make a difference. But I would say, in an environment where we don’t have access to the most delicious vegetables or whatever it is, “What is there that you do like?” Something is better than nothing. It’s not like a yes or a no kind of thing. “What can we do? Where’s the in-between?” If that answers that. Any other questions or… Yes.

Speaker 15: Guidelines on regulating caffeine and alcohol for coaches.

Stephanie Miezin: For coaches. So that’s a big one. So caffeine, we know, can help us feel energized, although it does not give us actual energy like carbohydrate does or fats do, for example. But it kind of tricks our brain into not feeling tired. So that’s how it’s working behind the scenes. Caffeine is neither a positive nor negative inherently. For many people, it can feel good though, it can help. I think the answer is an individual one. It’s not that we should all have two cups of coffee a day or three cups or zero. It’s what feels right for you and paying attention to caffeine intake and how that’s making you feel.

I think, sometimes, when we feel stressed out, especially we just keep chugging it, because maybe more is more. But enough is what we’re looking for. Other emotional regulation strategies or what we need there. Maybe not the caffeine thing. It’s hard to give specifics in this kind of scenario, but I would say pay attention to what feels good for you and make that choice. When it comes to alcohol, my sad news is that it does not help us in any way when it comes to health or performance. I’m very sorry. With that…

Speaker 15: Mental health, it helps [inaudible 01:15:24]

Stephanie Miezin: Mental health. This is a big personal choice. I will say, when it comes to health, research is pretty clear, little to no alcohol is really what we’re aiming for. In terms of numbers here, we’re talking about up to one drink per day for females, up to two drinks per day for males. With that said, you will find some conflicting evidence that will also say zero in both of those categories is probably best, when it comes to decreasing disease risk. We know that both caffeine and alcohol can disrupt sleep, and when it comes to alcohol, it can also disrupt muscle recovery as well.

So it’s something where it’s about personal goals, what’s the priority for you at that moment? If I say, for myself, like last night, for example, my priority was really getting a good night’s sleep, because I had a long travel day. I chose to not have something… I didn’t have an alcoholic drink last night, because I really wanted to sleep well. But another scenario, my priority might be having a good social time, and that might include a drink or something like that. So it’s never a yes or a no completely in my opinion, unless you have other situations going on within that. It’s what makes the most sense for you in that scenario. What are your priorities when it comes to how alcohol or something like caffeine fits into that? If that makes sense.

Speaker 16: How about sugar intake in young athletes? And not so much like… Sugar intake in young athletes, and not so much, we know, well, just get some fruit and try to give them substitutes. But more so you’re not giving them a culture of, “That’s bad.” Where’s the balance there? How can you educate them without making it where it’s taboo and, “Your teeth are going to rot out,” just kind of that balance?

Stephanie Miezin: Yeah, I think this is an excellent question, and a really positive shift that I think the nutrition field has been taking over the past several years is really moving away from good food, bad food, healthy food, unhealthy food. Those terms are not really accurate. It’s the whole dietary pattern that we know has effects on health outcomes or performance outcomes. So I think, when it comes to us being around athletes, and especially young athletes, it’s being conscious with our language. Not saying “Good food,” “bad food,” or, “Is this an unhealthy meal or cheat meal?” Those are not helpful ways to talk about this. So I think being conscious of our own language is number one thing that we can do, and then, we can shift that same mindset into the actual recommendations. So for example, when it comes to sugar, media might say, “Sugar is bad,” but this mindset we have around nutrition says, “Oh, it doesn’t make sense.”

Because there are no inherently bad foods. It’s about the overall dietary pattern, and therefore, it’s about how much of things that you have over time and how that fits into things like physical activity. So it’s about the function of the foods objectively versus subjectively. Sugar is a fuel source for muscles in the brain. Let’s leverage that by having sugar at different times relative to activity. So sport nutrition is different from regular nutrition, where we kind of want to have some sugar before, during, and after the activity, to use that sugar, leverage it, to fuel the activity and to refuel the muscle. And so, if we kind of talk about food like that, versus “That is bad, you’re eating a bad food,” and then, we have that morality attached to that, that’s a whole other conversation, I think that can kind of shift. So talking about the objective actions of nutrients and foods and then, putting a positive spin, “What does that mean for what we can use that food for in different scenarios?” There’s one over there, sorry.

Speaker 17: I had a question for you about…

Adam Feit: All right, here we go.

Speaker 17:

About mentality. So working out. So for me, I am a all or nothing type of person, so help me with this. So I’m a routine person, but I can’t really be in a routine, because it always switches. And you said it’s not really based off motivation. So what would you say for someone who wants to have some sort of consistency in working out, but also, not being in a routine?

Adam Feit: Yeah, that’s a great question. Two things I’ll explore there. One, I think this is good, we should be good here, yep, this idea of rigidity. Stephanie talked about it earlier. You brought up a great word, “Routines.” As coaches, we love routines. We love pre-performance routines. “When this happens, you do this. When we approach here, you do that.” We play the film inside our heads, and we rehearse it over and over and over again. Your routine might be as soon as you get up or it could be after school. The first challenge I would ask of you is to not think in terms of rigidity, but in terms of, as our keynote speaker, Dr. Jake, talked about is this flexibility approach. With athletes, I think about this idea of an ice cube tray. How many of you still have an old school refrigerator and freezer, you don’t have the ice maker? Wave your hand proud. Western Mass, right?

That’s how we do, okay? If I want ice, I have to put the water in the ice cube tray. The ice cube tray has to be rigid enough to give me what I want. I want a cube of ice, but if that tray is too rigid, I can’t bend, I can’t turn. I don’t get the product, which is, for you and me, consistency. So I ask you to reflect on, what are some of the things that you are holding so rigid and so structured and so by the book routine, check the box, flow chart, go ahead here? And ask yourself how that’s working for you, when you oversleep, when something comes up. So that would be number one is, “Can we start looking at our routines of a little bit more flexibility, like an ice cube tray, so that I can still get what I’m looking for, but also move as needed?”

And then, number two, there’s a strategy called implementation intentions, where we build that plan. “If this happens, then I do this.” Or “When this occurs, then I will approach it as such.” And so, I’m all about routines and having an idea of exactly where to go, but there is a reason why the double yellow is over here and the rumble strip is over here. As long as I stay between the double yellow and hopefully the rumble strip, I’m in a good shape. So whether it’s a 6:00 AM workout, if it’s an eight o’clock meal prep, if it’s something that it doesn’t work out perfectly as you had such, I encourage you to lower those expectations for rigidity and choose imperfect action over no action. I think Kara is clapping us up. Kara is clapping us up. We’re all done, folks. We’ll be here the rest of the day. I think we have one more to go.

Kara Winger: I’m just a messenger. I’m just a messenger. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Adam and Stephanie.

Stephanie Miezin: Thank you.

Kara Winger: And we only have one more session left. So presenters are going to rotate. We will stay here again, but I would love for everyone in the atrium to stand up. And we just have one more session left. Our last session goes from 2:00 to 2:35. I love the messages of flexibility over rigidity, a mixture of both. Those are super fun. I also have an undergrad nutrition, fitness, and health degree. Hilarious. I never got the double major, dietetics, but I wanted to teach you, speaking of flexibility versus rigidity, the javelin throw really fast and talk about the fact, the plain and simple fact, that there is no perfect throw. Whether it’s discus, shot put, hammer or javelin, there’s no perfect throw. There are so many things that could happen at any moment.

There’s so much technical precision that needs to occur, that 97% is going to be really good, 90% is going to be really good, 85% on a really tough practice day is going to be really good. So I’m going to teach you right-handed, while we wait for our last round of presenters. You’re going to stick your right arm out straight. I want you to be careful of your neighbors. You, at home, stand up as well at your computers. You deserve the physical movement break as well. Rotate your palm to the sky by trying to point your armpit at the sky and push your fingers as far away from the middle of your body as you can. Now, I want you to bend your right knee, and take your left leg and reach it out to your left as far as you can. So your left toes and your right fingers are as far away from each other as possible.

Then you’re going to turn your right knee underneath kind of your left armpit. And that’s the flexibility through the right side, plus the rigidity of the left side that you’re shooting for, after you sprint down the runway and stop on a dime. Combination of flexibility and rigidity, and that’s exactly how you tear your ACL if you do it wrong. Yes. So I love that message, because we can strive for perfection, but we’re probably not going to reach it. And my kind of overall message is my 6811, second American record of my career, was everything I ever visualized in a throw. And it was my seventh to last attempt that I took in 21 years. It took me that long to really feel like I did something fully, intentionally, completely the way I had always imagined it going in my mind, and it was the result I always dreamed of.

But I also understood at that point, at 36 years old, that I hadn’t reached my ultimate potential. If I could do that at 36 after two ACLs at the end of my career, I feel like I had more potential throughout the rest of my career, and maybe I didn’t have all the right scenarios that came together at the right time. So I had this overwhelming sense of accomplishment, mixed with I know that I did my best, but there’s still this little bit of sting that I left something on the table. I did the best I could with what I had. I strove for perfection. I ultimately got the throw that I always imagined in my life, and it was still not perfect, because it can’t be. But that’s the goal.

You work towards that together, you do your best, and that’s what you’re satisfied with. So mill round, keep moving before people show up, and I’ll come back and introduce. Oh, we’re ready. We are ready. Thank you for these handouts. This is our third and final breakout session. How are we feeling about the interactivity this afternoon? Great, great, great. Very good. You are going to hear from Senior Director of Psychological Services from the USOPC, Jessica Bartleyica Bartley, and Melissa Streno, who owns her own practice in Denver, on boundaries and balanced identity. Thank you, ladies.

Melissa Streno: All right.

Jessica Bartleyica Bartley: All right. So as Kara Mentioned, I’m Senior Director of Psychological Services at the USOPC. My role is to oversee mental health and mental performance for all of Team USA.

Melissa Streno: Great. And I’m Mel Streno, licensed clinical sports psychologist and also TrueSport expert under the realm of body image, self-care, and have been with the program for a couple years. Really excited to be back and here with you all today. So this is our last session. We’re really excited. Has everyone received a piece of chocolate most importantly and then, two handouts? Okay. So with the candy that you have, we are going to start with a quick icebreaker. As Jessica Bartley mentioned, we’re talking about, and as Kara mentioned as well, we’re talking about values, identity, and boundary setting, and how do we all align all three of those? So with the candy that you have, I want you to think of the question of, “What is it that I do that takes care of my mental health, my mental wellness?” And each different of the four that you have, you have Krackel, Goodbar, the yellow, the Special Dark, and the Hershey, corresponds to different value areas that we’re going to talk about today.

So if you have the Krackel, you’re going to be thinking about relationships. “What do I do in terms of taking care of my mental health, when it comes to relationships?” If you have the yellow one, the Goodbar, “What do I do in terms of taking care of my personal health?” And then, if you have the Special Dark, “What do I do in terms of taking care of myself when it comes to leisure activities?” And then, the final one is if you have, which one am I forgetting, Special Dark, “What do I do in terms of taking care of my work and my education?” So I wish we had time for everybody to answer this, but we’re just going to have a couple volunteers to get started, and we’ll go from there. So does anybody want to start with answering that question in correspondence to which chocolate they got? Yes, go for it.

Speaker 18: All right, I can go really quick. So I guess this represents leisure.

Melissa Streno: Awesome.

Speaker 18: And I do not take time for leisure. That’s something that I’ll have to figure out. I’m at a boarding school, so my personal and professional work together, so there’s not a lot of time for leisure. There is time, but there’s not a lot. So something that [inaudible 01:29:01]

Melissa Streno: Awesome. Yeah, great, great transparency with yourself, good awareness. Yes.

Speaker 19: I have a Krackel. So I think that was a relationship question.

Melissa Streno: Yeah.

Speaker 19: I’ll grab this, I guess.

Melissa Streno: Cool.

Speaker 19: Thank you. Appreciate you. I had the Krackel, so the relationship question. We talked about it a little bit earlier today, but just being intentional with my time, where I schedule out time for those relationships in my life, whether it’s, hey, we’re just going to grab lunch or we’re sitting down and watching Netflix, or whatever it may be. But being able to make sure I block off time for those relationships, so I can pour into those relationships and then, again, get filled back up by those relationships. That’s something that I try to focus on.

Melissa Streno: Fantastic. Great.

Jessica Bartleyica Bartley: Thanks for sharing.

Melissa Streno: And I should have mentioned this at the very beginning too. For those of you who are watching from home, grab yourself a sweet treat, candy, something, and think about this question as well. Obviously, the candy is kind of the silly part. The importance is being able to have that awareness to do these check-ins. Like “How am I actually taking care of myself in these realms?” And we’ll get more into how this connects to values and such as we go. One more? Yeah.

Melissa Streno: … and such as we go. One more.

Speaker 20: I have the Mr. Goodbar, so what do I do for my personal health? I have focused on my physical health, so I make sure that I get a workout in. Another one was keeping all my appointments, like my dental, my eye, all that stuff because it was easy to skip or postpone those things.

Melissa Streno: Good one.

Speaker 20: And also, any old injuries that were creeping back up, I started going to PT and doing little things like that.

Melissa Streno: Fantastic. Organized on top of that self-care.

Jessica Bartley: All right, so now we’re going to jump into some values work. So you have a colorful values handout, so I want you to take that one out. For those of you at home, I want you to Google “Brene Brown values”. And so those of you who have the handout in front of you, this is from Brene Brown’s work on values. So she’s done extensive research on values. So, again, if you’re at home, pull this up. Otherwise, we have printed the handouts, and I want you to go through the sheet thinking about what is important to you. So go through the sheet and I want you to circle those things that are really standing out to you, the ones that are like, “Yes, that’s totally me.” In addition, I want you to go through and start marking stuff out like, “Yep, that doesn’t fit. Definitely, don’t want that one in the mix.” So just start to go through the list.

Again, for those of you at home, you could pull up the Brene Brown values work. I will also share that there’s hundreds of these online. Brene Brown has done a ton of work in the value space, and so this one’s pretty comprehensive. I’ll also share that if you’ve done values work or you’re starting to go through that list, you don’t see the one that’s on there, you can just plug that in at the bottom. So other values, plug that in. Take a few minutes to just go through the handout. So a circle, a check, a star if it’s really standing out for you. Go ahead and scratch it off the list if it’s not resonating with you. And some of the questions we’ve got as we’ve gone through this exercise is, is this work? Is this the leisure? Is this personal? Really think of it in an exercise. What we would like to do is to walk you through a bit of some imagery.

So I want you to think about the fact that it is your 100th birthday. So you’re sitting around with all of your loved ones. These are actually going to be loved ones. They could be your grandparents and your parents. They could also be your kids and your grandkids. So 100 years old, you’re with everyone who loves you past and present, what are they saying about you? What are the values that are hoping to be said at your 100th birthday? So again, anyone and everyone you loved, have ever loved is all sitting around. The spotlight is on you. What are they saying? What was your life about? What was the 100 years that you have lived? What was it about out? So keep going through, keep checking, keep circling ones that really stick out. You’re hoping that those people around the table at your 100th birthday, they’re saying those things, and what are the things that just simply won’t matter?

All right. And the goal is going to be to get down to three. Anyone have any anxiety now? You start to have some reactions, some emotions, some things that come up in your body. You’ll literally start to look at those things that you’ve circled or starred and you’re like, oh, it’s not going to make the top three. But you have a reaction, and that’s okay. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. We often find that as you’re going through, you’re like, you know what? I can combine this one and this one, and that’s this. This one’s going to be under this. If I were to somehow capture it, it’s going to go right under this. So you’re going to start to have this process go on a bit and, again, the goal is to get down to three. Do we have anyone that’s down to 10? Anyone under 10? Okay, keep plugging away, keep scratching things out, keep stars, smiley faces. What’s rising to the top?

All right. And so when we’re thinking of values, again, this is who we are. This is our identity. This is who we’re going to hopefully have our friends and family and everyone else talking about us at our 100th birthday. So again, we wanted to start with identity because a lot of times these values help us actually make decisions. And so when it comes down to it, each and every day, we have opportunities to behave in a way that is aligned with these values. We can behave in a way that somebody goes, “That’s loyalty or that’s accountability. That’s dependability.” And so that’s what we’re trying to get to, is trying to understand what these values are and, how do you start to behave in alignment with these values? We’re going to segue a bit into boundaries because then we start to look at, how do we make those decisions?

It’s really interesting because I would be surprised if there is not an opportunity that comes across your board that these values actually come into direct conflict. So how in the world do you make these decisions when things are at conflict or at war, if you will? And so I think it’s interesting to get down to the three and then understand how you start to make decisions or again, behave, which is how we’ll segue into boundaries. So wanted to have a little bit of interaction. Anyone willing to share what their top three are?

Speaker 21: My top three are truth, caring, and courage.

Jessica Bartley: Okay. Hold on. How did you get down to those three? What was your process?

Speaker 21: There was a couple that I circled, honesty and truth and openness, and so really it came down to truth can mean a lot of different things. And then care wasn’t initially in my top three until you said, what is it that you want people to remember? So that was one. And then courage for me because thinking about what I face on a daily basis. And, again, I want to model that.

Jessica Bartley: I love it. Anyone else willing to share? Yeah.

Speaker 22: My three were freedom, integrity, and optimism.

Jessica Bartley: Okay. How did you make that decision?

Speaker 22: I initially went accountability, but I thought integrity summed that up. So I just was doing a lot of combining. It was difficult, but those core stood out.

Jessica Bartley: Yeah. Sometimes you have an actual reaction and it’s a word on a piece of paper, but it’s incredible what kind of reaction you can have to be like, “I’m literally crossing this word off a piece of paper.” But it means a lot, yeah. Anyone else willing to share? Yeah.

Speaker 23: Family, faith, and friendship.

Jessica Bartley: Love it. I like the alliteration too. How did you come to that?

Speaker 23: How people will talk about me when I’m 100 resonated and really what it boiled down to, what are the three most important things in my life, is how I came to that.

Jessica Bartley: Love it. All right, so now we’re going to dive a little bit into boundaries and how we make those decisions. And, again, sometimes you’re going to have these values that really come into conflict. So we’re going to segue to Melissa.

Melissa Streno: Great. Okay. So as Jess said, I want you to think about what came up for you in doing the exercise on values and identity as we talk about boundaries. We know that one of the biggest influencers, one of the most important factors in taking care of our mental health and our wellbeing, and also aligning with our values is the ability to identify and set boundaries, maintain them, and then I think most importantly is be able to have the flexibility to adjust them when we need this. This is not just for your high school athletes or college athletes, Olympic, Paralympic. This is also for the other coaches that you work with, parents, caregivers, sport admin, personnel, whoever is on that team, whoever’s in that circle, setting those boundaries, maintaining them, and like I said, adjusting them is really important.

So just to get some feedback from you all, and for those of you who are at home, be thinking about this as well, when I say the word boundary, what comes up for you? Boundary is a very broad term. You can throw out words. You can throw out types of boundaries, maybe those within your realm. Yeah.

Speaker 24: I see on a bowling alley, there’s bumper lanes.

Jessica Bartley: Yes.

Melissa Streno: Love that visual.

Speaker 24: I get to say it again?

Melissa Streno: Yes.

Speaker 24: The bumper lanes on your bowling alley, and I need those bumper lanes. Those are my boundaries.

Melissa Streno: I like that. I have never heard that and I really like that. That’s a great one. What else?

Speaker 25: I think it’s having respect for myself and having respect for others and having those two simultaneously.

Melissa Streno: Awesome. Great. Great. Yeah.

Speaker 26: I think of the word barrier.

Melissa Streno: Barrier Yeah. Great. Yeah, you’re all listing all different types of boundaries. We have media, we have time, physical, emotional, physical boundaries, emotional boundaries. Boundaries are really relative to what you stand for, what you value, what drives you, what motivates you. I think from feedback we’ve gotten today and in our work, when we think of boundaries, everyone’s like, “Gosh, I should set those more often.” It seems so much more simple, but the reality is when you care about the people that you work with, when you care about your athletes, and I have felt this energy in this room, in different sessions talking last night, today, that you see your athletes as more than just an athlete who shows up at the pool or on the track. You see them as a whole person.

And I think Jessica Bartley and I have talked about this before too, and very much experienced, that’s when those lines flex a little bit and start to bend in terms of really sustaining the boundaries that are important and really speak to who you are and finding that balanced identity and what you stand for. I think the other piece is you’re all probably saying, “Mel, we work, live in a world we can’t just turn off. You don’t work an 8:00 to 5:00 where you close your laptop and you log out of your portal or you turn your work phone off. You have to have a pivoting perspective.” So I always like to think about the basketball metaphor of always having that one foot in the present, and there are times where you’re going to have to pivot forward a little bit and know what’s ahead, what’s coming in that very preemptive, preventative way. And then you also have to pivot backwards sometimes to learn from the past, have that hindsight reflective perspective as well.

I think that sometimes can help in terms of figuring out how, do you set those boundaries and how do you maintain those? So your next handout that you have, you all should have a handout that has a bullseye. For those of you who are at home, this is from Russ Harris, his Act Mindfully work, and he has multiple worksheets, resources, et cetera. Also, just for time’s sake, for those of you at home, don’t worry, you can easily grab a piece of paper, draw a circle, four quadrants. And as you’ll see on here, the four quadrants we have are work and education, leisure, personal growth and health, and then finally we have relationships. So what I want you all to do and looking at these, keeping in mind the values that you identified, those maybe three or maybe a couple more, I want you to mark an X in each one of these quadrants in relation to how much effort, time, energy do you put towards each of these realms?

The target in the middle, the bullseye, obviously being 100%, very well-balanced, I love where it’s at. The outer ring being, I’m pretty far removed from that. My effort, my time, energy, et cetera, resources probably could shift a little bit. So again, you’re just going to mark an X in each one of these quadrants on where you fall. There’s no right or wrong answer to this. This is good information for you to have. I think it’s really good awareness, and it’s a good example of doing something for yourself that you’re role modeling to your athletes, you’re role modeling to other coaches you work with, et cetera. Take a couple of seconds and, then for those of you who are willing to share your experience, and similar to the values identification, things might come up for you, you might feel things, that’s totally fine. We’ll ask if there’s anyone who wants to share.

Jessica Bartley: Any bullseye in the room? Anyone just nailing it? Yeah.

Melissa Streno: Awesome.

Speaker 27: I think I’m nailing it in the work area. I just feel like I’m doing a really great job doing that. I think all of my attention is on that. And I think also the personal growth in health is also pretty good for me, but the leisure and relationships are suffering a little bit. I don’t reach out to other people and stuff like that, so I got to find a little bit more balance.

Jessica Bartley: That happens a lot. It can be a little bit inequitable. You could be knocking it out of the park or a bullseye in one area. So the self-awareness piece is going to be really key here.

Melissa Streno: Absolutely.

Jessica Bartley: Anyone else wanted to share?

Melissa Streno: The authenticity of acknowledging that too is going to help you in the long-term. Better now to know that and be able to figure that out. Yeah.

Speaker 28: All four are pretty either one to two away from my bullseye, but I think that it’s going to change once we get into 2024. So I think for myself, it’s also recognizing, hey, there’s a part of the season. These Xs may be closer to the bullseye and recognizing some may be further away. I intentionally took two months and stayed home and not traveled as much and so just feeling good like, hey, it’s good now, and maybe some of those Xs might be further. But just being okay and knowing, like you said, maybe changing some of those boundaries.

Melissa Streno: Similar to how values shift and change throughout our life for different times and relationships and different life events, I think you’re really talking to and speaking to that ability to look forward and see what’s coming and having that flexibility, that psychological flexibility, relational, physical, whatever that might be. Thank you for sharing. I think I saw the microphone being passed. Maybe not. Yeah.

Speaker 29: So what I discovered is that most of my Xs closer to the bullseye were basically when I started thinking about what I’m doing for other people as opposed to what I’m doing for myself. So when I started thinking about it as myself, leisure and personal growth and relationships, I was way out on the perimeter, but when I was thinking about what I’m doing in relationships with other people and helping them to succeed, then I’m a lot closer to the bullseye. So that was an awakening for me.

Melissa Streno: Great. We did not pay her to name the title of this, but oxygen mask effect, that’s exactly it is. You have to take care of yourself in order to take care of those who are around you. Yeah.

Speaker 30: First of all, thank you for the reference in the worksheets. I’ll be looking that up. But I read the definitions at the top of the page and I was struck by leisure because it’s different than personal growth and health. I work out a lot, I run every day, I’m pretty active, but I don’t know that I do anything for fun. So I’m going to go get a PlayStation or something. I need to do something that’s just joyful, and that was a major mark away from the bullseye, very far for me. So I appreciate that.

Melissa Streno: Fantastic point. All right, a couple of really important things. Any last comments on that or anybody else have burning thoughts they want to share? No. In terms of setting boundaries, it’s really important with the language and communication that not only we’re doing with our athletes, high school all the way through Olympic, is being able to role model to them being very direct with your boundaries setting and very consistent. So making sure you’re setting boundaries with everyone that you’re working with, but obviously those are going to be different depending on the role and the relationship that you have with each person. The other piece is, from the start, make them aware of what your availability is and your role. So speaking of role, know the hat that you have on and know that you’re not alone in that.

You work in a field and in your day-to-day routine where you have a lot of pressure, you have a lot of expectations, challenges, demands coming at you, and often that can feel really isolating and it can feel really overwhelming like you’re on this island by yourself. So make sure you are consistently doing that check-in of, who’s in my support bubble? Who do I have that I can call on when I need a school counselor or when I need a sports psychologist or a dietician or sports med, whatever that might be so, that I know that I’m not tasked with taking all of this on myself? The other thing is knowing the difference between crisis versus something that can wait a little bit. So expect respect of your boundaries and make sure that this is something that you role model to those that you’re working with.

Something that’s a safety concern or a health concern, something that your gut’s telling you, this needs to be taken care of right now, follow that instinct, of course. But also trust that when there are things that you can push a little bit and be able to place, compartmentalize a little bit in the future, that that’s okay too. And then, finally, you are the expert on yourself, so know when those boundaries are being pushed, when they’re being flat out disregarded, and most importantly have a plan in place of how you’re going to address that, whether that’s with the team, whether that’s with the individual, or with the parent. I think that’s it in terms of what we have. We definitely want to open this up for questions, comments, thoughts? I think the conversations in here have been great so far. Yes.

Speaker 31: So when a coach transitions from in season to off season, I think a lot of these quadrants change for us. Do you have any advice on how to make that transition easier?

Melissa Streno: Yeah. I think this reminds me a lot of the comment that we had earlier, is knowing what’s worked in the past. It’s okay to lean on strengths, it’s okay to lean on what’s worked before and really having a plan for when that happens, and most importantly, feeling good about that plan. We’ve talked a lot today about how setting boundaries and identifying them is very much based on the things that are most important to you. So however you decide to use that time and what that transition looks like we hope is based on and really formulated by what’s most important to you, and also how you are going to recharge, refresh during that time.

I think it’s also a great opportunity to role model and to be very, I think, refreshing probably to your athletes or other coaches that you work with, that there is a time and place for me to slow down or to log off as best possible, like we talked about earlier. Hard to do fully, but to take that space, I think it shows you’re human and I think it gives them permission also to do this for themselves. So I appreciate it. Anything you’d add, Jessica Bartley?

Jessica Bartley: Sorry, I thought we had another question.

Melissa Streno: No, go for it.

Speaker 32: How are you thinking about modeling the language for a proactive conversation to set these boundaries? So what language are you using there, what variables are we talking about as far as time goes, and just setting that expectation for boundaries for athletes, for parents, for coworkers, and so on?

Jessica Bartley: Yeah. At the USOPC, I think we’ve really started to train our entire system around, what is a crisis? What’s an emergency? And it actually goes, what’s an emergency? What’s a crisis? What’s a problem? And so we’ve started to have this language around an emergency as immediate, a crisis probably needs to be handled in the same day, and a problem is a few days. And so, as we’re building out our mental health and wellness resources, I think we’ve been very clear on how we’re communicating. What does that mean? We’ve provided a lot of examples like, this is an emergency. So if someone is suicidal, I think Mel said this earlier, if someone is suicidal, if it’s a health risk, you have that gut feeling that you’re like, this is an emergency, it happens immediately. And then a crisis is, they’re probably not doing okay, but again, they’re okay now. We’re not pulling someone out of school. We’re not doing X, Y, and Z.

So there’s a number of things that we’ve started to train our entire system on, and we’re also communicating that to the athletes, and I think the more we role model that, the more we talk about it. And for our system as well, we’ve started to get everyone really comfortable with, how do you ask somebody very directly about suicidality? How do we ask somebody very directly? Because, again, the number of times we ask and they’re like, “Oh no, I didn’t really mean that. I didn’t answer that question correctly,” we’ve been doing a lot of mental health screens, the more that you can have the conversation, be direct, really understand where someone’s at, I think that’s really helped our entire system understand that the reality is this isn’t an emergency and you can get to it at the end of the day.

So I think for someone like myself, I was going to share, I have a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and an eight-month-old, so there’s this window of time that usually my house is absolute chaos. I can usually figure out if somebody calls between 5:30 and 7:30, if it’s a true emergency, I will figure it out. But I’ve also trained people, you can catch me back online after the kids are in bed. So I think there’s these things, because of my values and how we’ve started to set up a system, that have been really healthy. And it has taken some time. So it’s been about three years since I’ve been at the USOPC, but who do they call during that time, especially if it’s a crisis or an emergency and they’re like, “We got to do this now”? So we also start to train up other folks. Or I really need this time off or I’m completely unavailable for this weekend, you start to figure out some of those boundaries. And again, it may take time and it may take a little bit of pushback, but those can be really healthy boundaries to set.

Melissa Streno: When I think about younger teams also, I think about high school, developmentally, they might not even understand what a boundary is. And so I think it can be helpful to use the language around, why? Why is a boundary important? So not only are you making it clear, repetition, consistency, language that you know that they’re going to understand, but also you’re helping role model to them that setting boundaries is really important. So yes, we’re talking about under the umbrella of sport today, but we would hope that they’re using this in other realms of their life as well. So I think the consistency, the directness, and then that why piece, why is this important, can go a long ways as well. Especially I think with athletes who have been around for a long time or they’re more seasoned or more elite, they might have heard the term or even had their own. So two different ranges on the spectrum. Yeah.

Speaker 33: I just have another comment on boundaries. This is pretty metaphorical, but, for me, time is really important to myself and to my players and their parents. And so what I typically do is I set my practice time clock and I run that, and when the practice time clock ends, that is my end of practice. And so I honor that for my players. I’m teaching them the value of time and I’m also honoring it for the parents who are picking those players up, and I’m honoring it for myself. So just a reminder that sometimes, I used to be the coach who would keep the kids around and chatter and wrap up things for 10, 15 minutes easily at the end of practice, but I think it’s important for us to really set that boundary metaphorically and literally with our clocks and keeping track of our time. So I love that.

Melissa Streno: I really appreciate that you brought up parents as well because they can help hopefully reinforce this at home. But sometimes they need to hear that too, and not because they’re intending to take your time or ask you all those questions after the timer’s off, but I think a really good reminder that these boundaries are set for your athletes and, like I said at the beginning, also for parents, other coaches, and people that you work with.

Speaker 34: I’ll just go one more on top of that. I use respect on that, so respect for the kids’ time, respect for the parents’ time, and so on. And so, in my expectation meeting at the front of the season, we’ll talk about the respect. I will respect your time. You pick your children up at the appropriate time. I will be letting them come out at the appropriate time so that everybody knows where we are and what we’re doing and it lessens the problems. It really does, ahead of time, when you talk to parents about those kinds of things. And then the kids get the respect piece also.

Jessica Bartley: And that’s where I think we go full circle with values is, how do we make those decisions and how do we instill some of these values in the system, in our youth, things like that? And so it’s incredibly powerful to think about how values, identity, and boundaries are really intertwined. I think we’re actually at time as well, so to be respectful of time, I know the other groups will be coming back in here, so we’ll hand it back over to Kara, but we really appreciated the conversation and hope you can take away something tangible from this. Thank you.

Kara Winger: Thank you, thank you, Mel and Jess. I really like what Mel just said about older athletes maybe having a better idea of what boundaries are because I had a really hard time setting my own boundaries for a really long time in my career. At 35 plus, I finally went to therapy after I decided that my husband would coach me for my final season. I had tried lots of different sports psychologists, they’d been really helpful, but the fact that whether it was led by me just from what I understood about sports psychology or I just never said out loud, what else can we talk about in these sessions, I was never able to get to the heart of some of the other things that were bothering me. And therapy on my own better help was super helpful for me to go into my final season and be able to protect my own energy.

As an introverted athlete, I spent a lot of time accommodating people who kept me, “Just one more second. Just one more second. Just one more second,” before a competition, and through the therapy process was able to say, “I’m not being rude by saying, ‘Nice to talk to you. Goodbye.’ I am doing what I need to do. And then later in life I can have all of those conversations. But right in this moment, it’s important to me to go be by myself in the dark in my hotel room before I throw tomorrow.” And it was very empowering to understand that, that was helping ultimately me be my best for those people who were really interested in my career. I’m going to let you guys get up too if you want to right before we end this session. Maybe don’t go too far because everyone’s coming back, and we won’t have that much more for you to listen to before we wrap up at the TrueSport Talks Symposium 2023. No. You. No. You.

Kara Winger: Come on back, come on back. Or fill in the sides and listen up. Thank you to those of you at home. I know that endless hours of meetings, even if you’re not participating, are really difficult. So appreciate your mental fortitude, mental wellness and commitment to yourself to show up to the TrueSport Talk symposium today and learn some tools for yourself to create that oxygen mask effect that we’re talking about.

Come on back. So many seats still to fill in here at the very end of the day. I know our virtual audience is locked in. So come on back to our seats. So for one last time, I’m Kara Winger. I have been absolutely honored to be your MC today. I hope that what I brought to the table as an athlete was relatable as a coach as well. All of our experiences are valid, valuable, and really important to the continued greatness that we all know that sports are and can continue to be and even better ways when we work together to benefit our all of our mental wellness. I want to kind of cover some of the full circle moments that I had before handing it back over to Jen. Dr. J Harrison was talking about exploring different aspects of who we are when we choose to see sport as an expression of self rather than a self identity.

So being able to foster different parts of your own personal identity by using sport as an expression rather than who you are. Then I heard Mel Streno in our last round table here in the atrium talk about there are different areas of our lives where values are important. So same concept, different parts of self that you are choosing to honor in different ways and being able to identify those parts, focus on them independently of each other can really help you bring your entire self to the table when you’re coaching, when you’re with your family, when you’re with your friends, when you’re by yourself.

On our coaching panel, I heard some really great stuff. Lead with vulnerability from Leslie, have shared power on teams and treat the vulnerable conversations you’re having with each other as consistent, important parts of what your team dynamic is. Walk the walk, including when you recognize in yourself that you need to take a break so that others get to see that it’s okay to take a break. Vision, value and voice on teams being a guiding mantra, as well as normalizing direct communication, whether it’s on the wheelchair rugby pitch, or in the locker room that you cultivate for yourself amongst your coaching peers.

Practicing effective communication with Alex Cohen, I thought was really fun to witness the role playing conversations. And it struck me that those conversations, practicing them to not just have them with athletes, but using that role play as a tool to develop relationships with fellow coaches can be so powerful as you lead those teams together for years in the future.

Dr. Kevin Chapman normalized emotions for us, taught us how to feel them in our bodies and recognize them as what they are. Then deal with them in sustainable ways.

Adam Feit, one thing that he said that really struck me was instead of thinking about a huge giant outcome, focused on the next imperfect step you can take on the continuum of your journey to who you want to be. Get your always something out of that next little step rather than getting bogged down by the end result. Jessica Bartley, I was really struck by specificity and honesty with ourselves, narrowing it down to three values rather than a hundred values that are important. How can we really hone our focus and honor what’s truly, truly important to us by being honest with ourselves first.

I want to thank TrueSport. This TrueSport Talks Symposium was chockfull of information, but the resources that TrueSport has all the time, I highly recommend you check out as coaches. There are just massive amounts of curriculum that you can access available from TrueSport, that TrueSport and USADA care about so much in empowering coaches, players, parents, and anybody involved in sport to make better experiences for everybody involved. So thank you to TrueSport for today. I was personally very honored to be here as I transition out of sport from athlete life. I’ve always honored coach relationships and it’s so fun to see so many people invested in what I then see as hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of athletes represented in this room. So thank you for the role that you play in your athletes’ lives.

Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 5 Transcript

Jennifer Royer: I would like to echo Kara’s gratitude. Today has been phenomenal. It seems like a year ago that we started this morning. It’s been that full of great conversation and information and resources that hopefully loop us all into the same pathway forward.

Last night at the reception, and then today in the back of this room, if you’re here in person, we had a place where you could vote for the things that were most stressful to you. We had taken those ideas from feedback we got from coaches ahead of the event. Pressure to win, no time for self, pressure from athletes or athlete families, and time away from home were the top four that we received in advance of this symposium. What is both encouraging and also disheartening is that all four of those received very similar levels of votes. I think that speaks to the fact that this is a complex issue. There’s not one single solution. There’s not one person, or resource, or tool, or mindset shift that can make this okay. We know this is a big issue. We know that this is a daunting challenge.

But what I think we heard today, what I certainly took away from today, is that sports history, just like this, is full of great upsets, and the time for that is now. We have arrived at a place where it’s okay to be brave enough to believe in something better. To know better, to educate ourselves so that we know better and we do better. Because that dreaming audaciously and facing a big foe is the moment at which something magical can happen where you can invest in yourself in a way that impacts hundreds upon thousands upon hopefully millions of the next generation of athletes. It starts here, it starts here, it starts here.

Thank you to Kara. Thank you for all of our talented experts for their gift today. One of the things that one of you put on the back wall, on that words of wisdom wall that we ask you to tell what’s working for you, and it was, “Next best action.” What’s the next thing you can do that’s in your control to put you in a better position? I think we heard that over and over and over again today. It’s not binary thinking, it’s not this or that. It’s this, and. What’s the next little thing? Today was a little thing. In the grand scheme of things, it was one day. But this one day can be the thing that drives you to the next best thing, and you’re not alone. You have a room full of people who are like-minded. You have communities who are joining us virtually, who are like-minded. You have resources. The US Olympic and Paralympic Group brought with us national mental health resources. There are handouts in the back. Access those resources. Check out TrueSport.org.

We believe that this problem requires the solution of many. It can’t be one organization. It can’t be one team. We know we’re all a part of a solution. So please, the challenge coming out of this is to not be alone. Don’t be the island. Reach out. Lean into each other. Lean into the resources that are out there.

And we have left you a little queue. I had to check with Dr. Kevin Chapman because I blanked out on the term. If you’re a visual person, if you’re somebody who likes a little mental queue, we’ve given you all pennants. And they’re cute and they’re fun, and we love good swag, so we bought them. But this is a visual queue for you. Please take this with you, put it in your office, throw it in your car, throw it in your gym bag, whatever you happen to have around, so that whatever you take away from today … And I want you to take a quick second and think about it. If you had to pick one thing from today, what is the one thing that you’re going to come back to over and over again? And I want you to get that in your head right now. And every time you see this visual queue, I want you to be drawn back to that. That one action item, that next best thing. What is your next step? Because we’re inviting you to take that next step with us because sport deserves it, our next generation deserves it, you deserve it.

Thank you for investing in today, for investing in athletes, and for investing in us. We appreciate you. Have a wonderful afternoon. Thank you. Don’t forget your snack.

Jessica Bartley, PsyD, MSSW, LP, LCSW, CMPC

Jessica Bartley, PsyD, MSSW, LP, LCSW, CMPC
Sr. Director, Psychological Services, United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee

Joining the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) in 2020, Dr. Jess Bartley (she/her) is the senior director of psychological services. She is a licensed psychologist, clinical social worker and a certified mental performance consultant (CMPC®) with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). She’s served on the executive board for Division 47 in the American Psychological Association (APA) in various roles and was elected President in 2023 of the division. She has also been a member of AASP, the Counseling/Clinical Sport Psychology Association (CCSPA), and the International Society for Sport Psychology (ISSP).

Dr. Bartley earned her bachelor’s degree in government and sociology as well as a master of science in social work from the University of Texas at Austin. She went on to complete a master of arts in sport and performance psychology as well as a doctorate in clinical psychology with an emphasis in sport and performance psychology and behavioral therapy at the University of Denver. After graduation, Dr. Bartley completed a fellowship at the Eating Disorder Center of Denver where she worked with colleagues to develop a treatment program for athletes with eating disorders. She has served collegiate student athletes’ mental health and performance needs at the University of Denver, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Ohio State University. She has also been contracted as the sport psychologist with USA Karate and USA Track& Field, and provided mental health and performance psychology services to professional bull riding and the Colorado ballet.

Her areas of expertise include mental health with athletes, specifically depression, anxiety, eating disorders and body image, and substance use, as well as performance anxiety, motivation, and sport transition/retirement after sport. She has presented more than a hundred times at national and international conferences and has published more than two dozen journal articles and book chapters. Her theoretical orientation is rooted in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and she often utilizes tools from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT),cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and interpersonal process therapy (IPT) while infusing multiculturalism.

Dr. Bartley is licensed to provide services in California, Colorado, and New York as well as PSYPACT® states.

When she is not working, Dr. Bartley is spending time outdoors with her husband, her three young children, their Germadoodle – Herbie, and her mom. These outdoor activities often include hiking, biking, swimming, skiing, snowshoeing, and playing soccer.

Kevin Chapman, PhD

Kevin Chapman, PhD
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Founder
Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders

Dr. Chapman is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, founder and director of the Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (KYCARDS) where he specializes in the assessment and treatment of anxiety and related disorders. Dr. Chapman is a Diplomate and Certified by the Academy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (A-CBT), and is a internationally recognized expert in the implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and related disorders. Additionally, Dr. Chapman serves on the Editorial Board for the Oxford University Press Treatments That Work treatment series, which includes evidence-based treatment protocols for training mental health professionals and treatment workbooks to assist clients throughout treatment. Dr. Chapman is also known for his expertise as it relates to the intersection of multiculturalism and mental health. Similarly, Dr. Chapman has published numerous papers in scientific journals and has written several book chapters. Dr. Chapman is a Faculty member for the Behavior Therapy Training Institute (BTTI) for the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) and serves on its Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Chapman serves on several Editorial Boards including the Journal of Anxiety Disorders and Clinical Child and Family Psychologist Review. Additionally, Dr. Chapman is a Media Psychologist and regularly contributes to and serves as a consultant for multiple media outlets including A&E and other production companies. Most recently, Dr. Chapman was the Program Expert on the hit series My Strange Addiction: Still Addicted as well as Seasons 1 and 2 of A&E’s hit show 60 Days In. Dr. Chapman has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, NBC Health, Bloomberg Business Week, Men’s Health, and numerous other outlets including the Nick News documentary Worried Sick: Living with Anxiety, a feature on adolescent anxiety. Dr. Chapman previously served as an Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology. Dr. Chapman completed a BS in Psychology from Centre College, a MS in Clinical Psychology from Eastern Kentucky University, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Louisville.

Professional Sports Background

Dr. Chapman also serves as a Mental Health Expert for TrueSport, a subsidiary for the United States Antidoping Agency (USADA) and is a recognized expert in sports performance and mental health, particularly in the areas of anxiety and emotion regulation in athletes. Dr. Chapman also serves as the Team Psychologist for the Louisville City Football Club (USL) and the Racing Louisville Football Club (NWSL) and regularly appears on numerous podcasts that highlight the necessity of mental skills in sports as well as navigating performance anxiety. Dr. Chapman previously served on the Performance Team for the University of Louisville Department of Athletics. Dr. Chapman was a two-sport collegiate athlete (track and field, football) and was inducted into the Centre College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2020.

Lesley Irvine

Lesley Irvine
Vice President and Director of Athletics, Colorado College

Lesley Irvine began her tenure as Vice President and Director of Athletics at Colorado College on June 1, 2019. In her role, Irvine serves on Colorado Colleges President’s cabinet and oversees the multidivisional Division III (Division I Hockey and Women’s Soccer) department of Athletics and Recreation sponsoring over 400 student-athletes across 17 sports. Since Irvine’s arrival Colorado College Athletics has experienced unprecedented success in championships, academic performance, attendance, revenue and fundraising while focusing on developing holistic student support including mental wellness and antiracism. A proud former student-athlete and coach Irvine has established herself as a leader in hiring practices and supporting coaches as a sport administrator.

Prior to joining Colorado College, Irvine was Director of Athletics and Recreation and Chair of Physical Education at Pomona and Pitzer Colleges. At Pomona-Pitzer, Irvine managed 21 intercollegiate athletics teams, the Pomona physical education curriculum, faculty/staff fitness and wellness programs, and club, intramural, and recreation programs.

Irvine’s active service is also extensive and includes being an elected member of the Board of Directors for Women Leaders in Sports, Colorado Springs Sports Corporation, the Olympic City USA Task Force and the Colorado Springs Sports Authority. Irvine was also a founding board member of the WeCoach organization and regularly attends the NCAA Coaches academy as a faculty member.

Before Pomona-Pitzer, Irvine was the senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator at Bowling Green State University from 2010-15.

From 2001-2010, she was the field hockey head coach at Stanford University, leading the Cardinal to three consecutive Northern Pacific Conference championships. She is a two-time conference Coach of the Year recipient, and led her team to program highs in national ranking, wins, goals, assists, and points in 2009.

As a student athlete in field hockey, Irvine led the University of Iowa to the Big Ten regular season title and an NCAA Final Four appearance in 1999.

An England native, Irvine was a three-time national champion in outdoor field hockey and two-time national champion for indoor field hockey while attending Loughborough University. Irvine also played for the England Under 18 and Under 21 National team.

Irvine earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education, sports science, and sport management at Loughborough University in 1998, and a master’s degree in health, leisure, and sports studies with an emphasis in athletic administration from the University of Iowa in 2001.

Candice Williams, PhD

Candice Williams, PhD
Director, Mind Health and Wellness
Boston Celtics

A nationally recognized researcher and mental health professional, Candice Williams, Ph.D. is a Texas native in Boston Massachusetts specializing in mental health counseling and sport performance. She currently serves as the Director of Mind Health and Wellness for the Boston Celtics. Previously, Dr. Williams served as an Athletics Counselor at The Ohio State University Athletics Department – Sports Psychology & Wellness Services where she provided psychotherapy and consultation services to student-athletes, coaches and athletic support staff. Prior to transitioning to college athletics, Dr. Williams served as a Program Manager for The Trust (Powered by the NFLPA). There, she assisted retired NFL players in all aspects of their transition following the success of their NFL career.

As a mental health professional, not only does she lead with care, but she also embodies the spirit of service and advocacy while supporting the well-being of athletes. Her passions include developing player centric programs focused on athlete development and transition, content creation on mental health related topics, as well as providing preventative and responsive training to coaches, parents, mental health professionals, and athletics staff on the importance of athlete mental health and wellness.

Over the past 10 years, Dr. Williams has crafted a respected career and professional reputation supporting the personal and emotional development of athletes at various levels of their athletic careers. An experienced mental health professional Dr. Williams is dedicated to building transformational relationships with stakeholders (i.e., athletes, coaches, sports medicine staff, sports performance staff) and developing innovative ways to foster access between athletes and mental health services.

She has been featured in popular press publications such as ESPN CollegeDay, Men’s Health Magazine, NCAA Champion Magazine, and USA Today – Sports. Dr. Williams is committed to elevating the conversations about mental health and sports performance. She’s a huge advocate for “training the body from the neck up and not just the neck down.” She is passionate about helping athletes move beyond the stigma associated with mental health and towards prioritizing their minds and bodies too.

Body Image Lesson Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Kara Winger, Olympic javelin thrower, and true sport athlete. Today I want to talk to you about body image and I have three things I’d like you to know. First, healthy thoughts often lead to healthier bodies. Second, there are varying body types and no one’s body is exactly like another. And third, true beauty goes deeper than the skin. As a multi-time Olympian, I’ve experienced a lot of variation and progression in my training. My coaches and I adapt to my training frequently, all with the goal of supporting my long-term success and health in the sport of javelin. I’m talking to you about body image today because sometimes even with the best of intentions and a common goal in mind, the changes you make to your training habits can prove to be detrimental if made for the wrong reasons. In the lead up to the 2012 Olympic trials, I was told in order to improve my performance on the field, I should try to become a leaner, skinnier version of myself.

So I changed my diet. I went along with what I was being told to do, even though I’d had great success at a slightly heavier weight and higher body fat percentage, and became much leaner than ever before. It seemed like a successful change at first, but I didn’t have nearly the results I’d had before. And I believe becoming leaner than my body naturally wanted to be was what caused my ACL to tear. In the end, it cost me heavily going into the 2012 London games. The takeaway for me, and hopefully for you, is that it’s important to know what works for you and your body and to not compare yourself to others. You should do your research and experiment with your diet to find what makes you feel the best, rather than focusing on what you look like. Today, if I feel like having a chocolate chip cookie, I have one, just not every day.

I’ve learned what a properly balanced meal for my body looks like and I recognize food as the fuel that keeps me throwing. I hydrate and allow myself time to recover. And I listen to and communicate with my body so that I can be the best version of myself. In the end, you are in control of how you see, treat, and respond to your body. We only get one and it’s amazing to discover how many things our bodies can do. Be a true sport athlete. Love who you are in this moment and get excited for all the places your body will take you.

THE SIMPLE TRUTH: DECODING THE SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

At first glance, dietary supplements look the same. They seem safe and healthy, but just because the label says a product is a dietary supplement, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether a product is safe or not just by looking at the label. Most vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other supplements containing nutrients are probably just fine, but supplements are not evaluated or approved by FDA before they are sold. Although it is rare for vitamins or minerals to be contaminated with drugs, there has been at least one case of a vitamin containing an anabolic steroid.

At the other extreme are products that contain drugs, stimulants, anabolic steroids, or other hormones. Even though these are not technically dietary supplements, many of them are labeled as supplements. For example, body-building products sometimes contain anabolic steroids or Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators, known as SARMs, or other hormones. Some pre-workout or energy products contain illegal stimulants like DMAA, ephedra, or other amphetamine-like stimulants. Weight loss products might contain prescription drugs like sibutramine, or hormones, like human chorionic gonadotropin, also known as hCG. All natural or herbal sexual enhancement products might contain hormones or Viagra-like drugs. Products like these can harm your health and career, but they’re for sale online, in some nutrition stores, and they’re labeled as dietary supplements.

When you pick up a supplement, especially one that promises performance enhancement, you don’t know if it belongs in the “Mostly O.K.” pile or in the “Dangerous” pile. After all, two products might look the same, but one might contain just amino acids and other legitimate ingredients, while the other also contains anabolic steroids. Because of this, FDA has issued a warning about certain categories of supplements: body building products, weight loss products, and sexual enhancement products. Be extremely careful when considering a supplement in one of these categories. We strongly recommend that you avoid products in these categories.

Even when FDA tests supplements and finds dangerous ingredients, companies sometimes refuse to recall them. Sometimes, they simply repackage their product and continue selling it under a new name. Just because a product is on a store shelf doesn’t mean it is safe. You need to do your research and be an informed consumer. The dietary supplement industry is enormous. Supplements that appear to be safe could actually be dangerous products in disguise. If you use dietary supplements without doing your research, you may be taking serious risks with your health and your career. Please visit USADA’s Supplement 411 for more information about dietary supplements.

Mental Wellness & The Student Athlete

Recorded Sessions

Event Schedule

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2023

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Academic Advisory Panel

2022 Testimonials

Testimonials from the 2022 TrueSport Talks.

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Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 1 & 2 Transcript

Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 3 Transcript

Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 4 Transcript

Mental Wellness and the Modern Coach: Session 5 Transcript

Jessica Bartley, PsyD, MSSW, LP, LCSW, CMPC

Kevin Chapman, PhD

Alexander Cohen, PhD, CMPC

Joe Delagrave, PLY

Adam Feit, PhD, CSCS, RSCC*D, SCCC, CMPC

Jay Harrison, PhD, LCMHCA, NCC

Lesley Irvine

Geoff Kelly

Stephanie Miezin, MS, RD, CSSD

Jim Miller

Melissa Streno, PsyD

Charron Sumler

Kara Winger, OLY

Corey Robinson

Cailin Bracken

Deborah Gilboa, MD

Erin Haugen, PhD, LP, CMPC

Jess Kirby, PhD

Michael Krueger, Ed. S., CMAA

Bhrett McCabe, PhD

Charley Nordin, PLY

Lt Col Stephen Pipes, USAF, Ret

Allison Schmitt, OLY

Candice Williams, PhD

Jay Coakley, PhD

Eddie Comeaux, PhD

Tomika Ferguson, PhD

Amanda Stanec, PhD

Goal-Setting Lesson Video Transcript

Body Image Lesson Video Transcript

A Good Sport Lesson Video Transcript

What Kind of Coach Do You Want to Be? Video Transcript

THE SIMPLE TRUTH: DECODING THE SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY VIDEO TRANSCRIPT