No Man Left Behind

The more time I've spent coaching, the more I've realized that some of the biggest responsibilities we carry have very little to do with what happens on the scoreboard. Matthew 12 and Ezekiel 34 both deal with care and responsibility in very different contexts, and when I put those passages alongside the military principle of refusing to leave someone behind, I see a challenge that hits coaches pretty hard. If we're going to call ourselves leaders, we don't get to care only about people when they're performing well, making our jobs easier, or helping us win.

Matthew 12:11 (ESV) says, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?” The context matters because Jesus isn't giving coaches a leadership lesson here. The Pharisees were challenging Him about healing on the Sabbath, and Jesus uses the example of rescuing a sheep to expose the problem with their thinking before declaring that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. The bigger point is about mercy and doing good rather than using religious rules as an excuse to withhold compassion.

There's still a pretty strong application for coaches because leadership gets tested when helping somebody becomes inconvenient. It's easy to invest in the athlete who's starting, producing, responding to coaching, and doing everything right. What about the athlete who's struggling academically, buried on the depth chart, frustrated, homesick, injured, making mistakes, or becoming difficult to coach? I'm not saying coaches should remove every consequence, solve every problem, or rescue athletes from responsibilities they need to learn to carry themselves. Accountability is part of caring about somebody too, but there's a difference between holding an athlete accountable and deciding they're no longer worth your effort because they're making your job harder.

Sometimes the athlete who needs the most coaching is the athlete who's giving you the fewest reasons to want to coach them, and that's where leadership has to become bigger than convenience. If I'm only pouring into athletes who can help me win, I'm not developing people. I'm using them.

Ezekiel 34 takes the responsibility of leadership even further, but we need to handle this chapter carefully because God isn't talking about sports coaches. He's condemning Israel's leaders, pictured as shepherds, because they were feeding themselves while neglecting and exploiting the people they were responsible for. Ezekiel 34:4 (ESV) says, “The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.”

That's a pretty uncomfortable verse for anybody entrusted with people.

I wouldn't call myself the shepherd of my athletes in the same biblical sense used in Ezekiel because that role belongs in a much different theological context, and later in the chapter God Himself promises to seek and care for His sheep. But the warning to leaders still gives me plenty to think about. Authority can become selfish really fast when we start viewing the people under our leadership primarily through the lens of what they can produce for us.

Coaches can fall into that trap without even realizing it. We invest more in the athletes who score points, give more attention to the people who make us look successful, and sometimes become frustrated with athletes whose injuries, struggles, personalities, or mistakes require more patience than we wanted to give. We can preach family and culture when everybody is useful, then make somebody feel invisible the second their role changes.

If we're going to talk about caring for athletes, we'd better mean the whole roster.

That doesn't mean everybody gets equal playing time because that's not how competitive sports work, and caring about somebody doesn't mean lowering standards or pretending performance doesn't matter. You can sit an athlete, discipline them, correct them, tell them they're not ready, and still care deeply about them. In fact, sometimes caring about somebody means telling them the truth instead of telling them what they want to hear. The conviction comes in asking whether the athlete still knows they matter to you when they aren't helping you win.

The military connection needs some clarification too. “I will never leave a fallen comrade” is part of the U.S. Army Soldier's Creed and specifically the Warrior Ethos contained within it. “Leave no man behind” is a widely recognized military expression, but it isn't the exact wording of the Soldier's Creed. I think the actual wording makes the connection even stronger because “I will never leave a fallen comrade” carries the idea that commitment doesn't disappear when somebody is down.

Teams need that kind of commitment to each other. Volleyball makes it impossible to succeed completely by yourself anyway because somebody has to pass the ball before somebody can set it, somebody has to set it before somebody can attack it, and somebody has to cover when a teammate gets blocked. Even the athletes who aren't currently on the court affect preparation, competition, energy, accountability, and culture. Everybody's role isn't identical, but everybody should understand that they're part of something bigger than themselves.

That's also why I don't buy into the version of team culture where we're “family” only when we're winning. Anybody can celebrate together after a championship. I want to know what happens when somebody is struggling, when a teammate loses their starting position, when somebody gets injured, when the freshman is homesick, or when the athlete who normally has everything together suddenly doesn't. Do we notice, or are we so wrapped up in our own role, stats, problems, and playing time that somebody can struggle right beside us without anybody bothering to ask if they're okay?

At the same time, refusing to leave somebody behind doesn't mean dragging somebody forever while they refuse to take responsibility for themselves. Teams need accountability, boundaries, standards, and consequences. Coaches can provide resources, support, truth, encouragement, and another opportunity to get back on track, but athletes still have choices to make. Supporting somebody doesn't mean enabling them, and compassion doesn't require removing every consequence from a bad decision.

That's an important lesson for athletes too because being a good teammate isn't just cheering loudly from the bench or posting a team picture after a win. Sometimes it's noticing that somebody has gone quiet. Sometimes it's checking on the teammate who's having a terrible week instead of being annoyed that their energy is off. Sometimes it's having the courage to tell your friend they're making choices that are hurting themselves and the team instead of helping them justify it. Sometimes it's sitting beside somebody after the worst match of their career without immediately trying to fix everything.

Those moments don't show up in a box score, but they tell me a whole lot about the people in my program.

That's what these passages and principles make me examine in my own coaching. Am I paying attention to the people I've been trusted to lead, or only the athletes producing something for me? Do I notice when somebody is struggling before their performance starts hurting us? Can I hold high standards without becoming harsh? Can I correct somebody without making them feel disposable? Can I care about the athlete underneath the jersey even when that athlete is frustrating the hell out of me?

Winning matters to me, and I'm never going to pretend it doesn't. I want athletes who compete their butts off, embrace their roles, hold each other accountable, and understand that being part of a college program comes with expectations. But if the only thing athletes learn from me is how to win volleyball matches, then I've left a whole lot of coaching on the table.

Eventually every athlete plays their last match, and when that happens, I want them to leave knowing they were coached hard, held accountable, challenged to grow, and cared about as a person whether they were an All American or barely got off the bench. That's the kind of team culture worth fighting for because nobody should have to earn their value as a human being by helping us win.