Last week was about how coaches play a crucial role in their athlete’s lives and performance beyond just skills and tactics. Coaches need to be knowledgeable to at least some degree about sports psychology, but they already have so much on their plates. So, how can athletes, parents, their peers, and especially sports administrators help coaches? It takes a team. Coaches get so much of the blame, and yet often lack support. Sports psychology is not just something to help athletes perform better, but coaches use and need those principles too. Although a coach plays a different role than an athlete, they can still be distracted, fearful, stressed, anxious, deal with confidence issues, and have lives outside of the sport that impact their performance as well.
However, a coach’s struggles may not always appear as evident a player’s does. In almost every sport, the coach is either not involved during the competition or is overshadowed by the team. An athlete’s or team’s performance in the competition is not always a direct result of coaching. Some athletes or teams may be able to overcome subpar coaching. This means that it is up to others to help identify, bring attention to, and address the coach’s challenges. Athletes can struggle with this due to the dynamic of the relationship. Parents are not always around to see what happens in the background. This puts a lot of the responsibility on the sports administrators. Those who oversee the organization, whether it be school, professional, recreational, or amateur need to be checking in with their coaches as well.
Supporting coaches can help allow them to perform their jobs better. They are humans too just like the athletes. Often, a coach’s struggles are expressed as anger or a short temper, a lack of energy and enthusiasm, or even not calling the types of plays that they normally do. These are just some of the things to watch for in your or your athlete’s coaches. Let us truly be a team and take care of ALL our teammates.
MindFullSports 
Very enlightening post here. Coaches are under so much pressure from high school through pro sports that the psychological impact can run so deep. Every sport organization should be mindful in providing coaches and executives professional development and mental health resources to help them perform better with healthier mindsets and overall better mental health.
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This is such an important topic to bring up. It is so true that coaches all may be suffering from mental health issues and need to seek out help from a sport psychologist. I believe as the stigma that comes with mental health gets erased more players AND coaches will receive the help they need!
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That is absolutely the hope and end goal! I want to be able to help coaches, athletes, sports administrators, and even those who surround these people understand the importance and the consequences (both good and bad) of mental health in relationship to performance. It is unfair and wrong to expect people to be turned on at a high level all of the time and yet shame them for needing support to do so. We have lost the balance between grit or pushing through for the short-term and taking care of ourselves for the long-term.
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