Suck It Up Buttercup

There's a difference between an athlete having a hard day and an athlete making every hard day everybody else's responsibility. Sports put people under pressure, and pressure exposes insecurity, fear, frustration, and self-doubt. Athletes are human, and coaches should never expect them to become emotionless machines. There should be room for disappointment, anxiety, tears, frustration, and asking for help. But there also comes a point when constant reassurance, repeated emotional collapses, and the need for everybody else to manage your confidence stop being vulnerability and start becoming a problem.

Faith doesn't require us to deny difficult emotions, but it also doesn't give us permission to be controlled by them. Second Timothy 1:7 (ESV) says, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” Self-control matters here because emotional maturity isn't never feeling overwhelmed. It's learning what to do when you are. You can acknowledge that you're struggling without allowing your struggle to hijack practice, consume your coach's attention, affect your teammates, or become an excuse for refusing to respond to correction.

I've coached athletes who needed reassurance, and there were plenty of times when giving it was exactly the right thing to do. Sometimes an athlete needs to hear that one mistake doesn't define them, that they're capable of more than they currently believe, or that somebody still believes in them when their confidence has taken a beating. Good coaches recognize those moments. But reassurance is supposed to help an athlete regain their footing, not become something they need every five minutes to remain standing.

Eventually, you've got to learn how to coach yourself through some things.

That's especially true when adversity becomes predictable. If every mistake produces a meltdown, every correction feels personal, every bad practice requires somebody to rebuild your confidence, or every difficult moment becomes a reason the entire team has to stop and tend to your emotions, you're no longer just struggling. You're affecting the people around you. Your teammates shouldn't have to constantly regulate your emotions so they can do their jobs, and your coach shouldn't have to spend more time convincing you that you're capable than actually helping you become capable.

This is where compassion and accountability have to coexist. A coach can care deeply about what an athlete is experiencing while still saying, “This behavior has to change.” Those aren't contradictory positions. In fact, continually rescuing an athlete from every uncomfortable emotion can prevent them from developing the coping skills they'll need long after their athletic career ends. Sometimes support looks like encouragement, and sometimes support looks like refusing to keep participating in the same unhealthy cycle.

Christian athletes should also be careful about where they're looking for their identity and validation. If your emotional stability depends entirely on whether your coach praises you, whether you're starting, whether your teammates approve of you, or whether you played well that day, you've handed other people enormous control over you. Galatians 1:10 (ESV) asks, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?” Paul isn't talking about athletic confidence, but the question still exposes something important about our dependence on human approval. If we constantly need somebody else to tell us we're good enough, eventually we need to examine what we've allowed to determine our worth.

None of this means legitimate mental health concerns should be dismissed as whining or attention-seeking. Coaches aren't therapists, and we shouldn't diagnose an athlete's behavior from the sideline. Significant or persistent emotional changes, anxiety, depression, disordered eating, trauma responses, or other concerning behaviors deserve appropriate professional support. Telling somebody with a genuine mental health condition to “get it together” isn't coaching them through it, and toughness isn't a substitute for treatment.

But professional support and personal accountability can exist at the same time. An athlete can be struggling and still be responsible for learning healthier ways to respond. They can deserve compassion while being held accountable for behavior that hurts the team. They can need help without expecting everyone around them to constantly rescue them.

There may also come a point when boundaries have to get stronger. If an athlete repeatedly disrupts the team, refuses available support, rejects accountability, or continues behavior that damages the locker room, coaches have a responsibility to the other people wearing the jersey too. Loving one athlete doesn't require allowing that athlete to consume the entire environment. Sometimes the appropriate response is a clearer behavioral expectation, professional intervention, reduced participation, or, in serious circumstances, separation from the team.

Athletics should teach athletes how to function when everything doesn't feel good. You're going to get corrected. You're going to fail publicly. Somebody else is going to outperform you. You're going to have practices where nothing works, matches where you cost your team points, seasons when your confidence disappears, and days when you'd rather have somebody tell you everything is fine than confront what actually needs to change.

Feel it. Talk about it. Pray about it. Ask for help when you need it, and use the resources available to you. Then learn how to respond.

Emotional strength isn't pretending nothing bothers you, and faith isn't pretending you're never afraid. Maturity is developing the self-awareness, self-control, coping skills, and spiritual foundation to experience difficult emotions without requiring everyone around you to carry them for you.

Sometimes an athlete needs a hug, sometimes they need additional support, and sometimes they need a coach who cares enough to tell them they've reached the point where they need to get it together. Knowing the difference is part of coaching.