Here, TrueSport Expert Nadia Kyba, MSW, President of Now What Facilitation, explains what exactly communal care is, why we need it, and how to bring this idea to your team.

The Problem with Self-Care

In modern society, whether you’re reading magazines or scrolling TikTok, there’s a lot of discussion of self-care, ranging from seeking help from a licensed professional therapist to taking bubble baths to ease stress. But the issue with self-care, Kyba explains, is that it puts the burden of care on the people who are already struggling. To practice self-care pressures people to make themselves well—and it doesn’t always work. This is where the idea of communal care comes in.

What Is Communal Care?

Communal care is the shift from self-care to a community focus. Unlike self-care, where you’re expected to help yourself, and it’s your problem and responsibility to take care of yourself, communal care is based around asking for help and giving help when you can. “Communal care is a shift where people in your community—which can be your team—are committed to being there for one another, recognizing that sometimes people aren’t able to take care of themselves,” says Kyba. “It’s really about paying attention to how everyone on your team is doing, and figuring out what it is that they need to feel better.”

Communal Care Recognizes Privilege

To be in the position to practice self-care usually requires some level of privilege: It’s hard to make time for a bubble bath or to pay for a session with a therapist if your family is struggling financially and you’re working an after-school job in addition to playing a sport. Communal care is about each person recognizing their privilege, and acting accordingly. Communal care means asking how you can best serve your teammates. This may mean a more affluent teammate offering a ride to the teammate who’s usually left waiting for the bus after practice, or even accepting and acknowledging that teammates who are working after-school jobs may not be able to make every practice but shouldn’t be benched due to their circumstances.

Communal Care Starts with One Student

If your team seems disjointed and you don’t feel as though you’re practicing communal care right now, it only takes one teammate to start the process. There are two ways to begin creating a culture of communal care for your team: Offer help or ask for it.

Be Proactive and Be Curious

“Pay attention to what’s going on with your teammates,” says Kyba. “If there’s an issue going on in their family or in their community, pay attention to that. You don’t need to pry—just be open and listen. And if you think an athlete is going through a hard time, it’s okay to ask them, ‘What can I do to support you?’ The goal here is to offer help before they need to ask for it: The onus shouldn’t be on the person who’s struggling to ask for help. Ideally, their community is already offering it.”

Stand Up for Each Other

You may also consider how to use your privilege to help a teammate. For example, if you hear another team use a racial slur, rather than waiting for the target of the slur to complain, you can address it yourself knowing the negative impact it could have.

Ask For Help First

Often, a team isn’t practicing communal care because no one feels comfortable asking for help—even if everyone on the team would be happy to provide that help! And it is hard to ask for help, especially for someone who’s truly struggling. To make it easier for other teammates to ask for help, one of the best things that you can do is to find ways to ask for help yourself. “Once one person is okay asking for help, it becomes normal for the team,” says Kyba. “Even asking for help with little things can create a safe space where your teammates can now ask for what they need.”

Don’t Overcommit—Be Realistic

You shouldn’t be the only person on the team who’s helping everyone else. Reading this article, it’s easy to see how some athletes would fall into the trap of focusing so much on communal care that they end up overextended and drained. But how do you practice communal care while still preserving your own mental wellness? It’s important to remember that taking on the emotional burdens of others doesn’t help them, or you. The key is trying to find practical ways to offer help and support—without losing yourself in the process.

If you offer to drive someone home every day of the week for the whole season versus having everyone with a car on the team picking a day to drive your teammate home, you’re not only potentially overcommitting yourself, you’re denying the team the opportunity to join in the communal care.

Offer Options Rather Than Asking

It’s tempting to ask a teammate who’s struggling, ‘Do you need help?’ The problem with that well-intentioned question is that it’s too easy for your teammate to simply say no out of fear. Instead, ask, ‘How can I help?’ Whenever possible, Kyba recommends offering specific ways that you can help, whether it’s bringing extra food for a teammate for race day breakfast, offering a ride home from practice, or suggesting doing some extra practice together to work on their jump shot. Offering specifics takes the onus off the person who’s struggling and makes it easier for them to accept the help, says Kyba.

Helping Others Helps You

Communal care is actually a great form of self-care! Research has shown that when you help others, your mental state improves as a result. “If you’re thinking, ‘I don’t have time to help this person, it’s going to cut into my self-care time,’ that’s just not true,” says Kyba. Of course you need to make time for yourself and do what makes you feel good. But often, helping others is going to make you feel better than any traditional method of self-care.

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Takeaway

Communal care ensures that people who are struggling have the support they need without having to ask for help or feel like a burden. Research also shows that helping others is actually great for your own mental wellness!

Here, Vicki Vaughan, Director of Athletics at The Colorado Springs School and a longtime contributor to TrueSport curriculum, shares a few ways that an athletic director can best help coaches and referees thrive.

Be clear about expectations and values for your program

Being part of a TrueSport style of culture means having strong core values around sportsmanship, character building and life skills, and clean and healthy performance. Using those three cornerstones, you can create a set of values and expectations for your coaches and referees with regards to fair play, treatment of athletes, and what really matters to the athletic department. Vaughan notes that for some schools, winning might be a higher-priority value than participation, for example. Determining what matters most to your school will inform everything from how auditions and tryouts are run to how teams are selected and how practice space is prioritized. Being upfront and open about these values will help your coaches make choices that are aligned with your program, as well as make it easier for you to support their efforts.

Ask what they need and set clear protocols for those needs

Tasks like booking fields and gym space for practices are obviously part of an Athletic Director’s job, but actually doing this part of the job is much more complicated than it may seem. Coaches are almost certainly going to have conflicts with other coaches as teams vie for practice space, and referees are often stretched between sports or competitions. Your calendar should be coordinated to the best of your abilities, and to do this, it’s helpful to set early, simple protocols around submitting practice and competition space requests, transportation needs, and any other administrative details. This way, rather than having some coaches provide you a schedule in July while others wait until October, you have a deadline and a format that makes it easy to allocate resources, supporting each coach in the way that they require. Referees should also know how to submit schedule requests as early as possible. Make it as simple as possible for coaches and referees to help themselves by helping you!

Offer regular check ins

Communication is key, says Vaughan. And that doesn’t just mean a single meeting at the beginning of the school year and an occasional memo or email. It means creating simple and easy ways to regularly communicate with you one-on-one, and with the department as a whole. Again, having a clear set of expectations around communication is optimal when it comes to supporting your staff. Will you respond to every email within 24 hours? Do you have regular ‘office hours’ for coaching staff, volunteers, and referees to meet with you one-on-one? Make it clear how coaches and referees can get in touch with you when needed. You may also want to institute more regular ‘town halls’ for coaching and athletic staff throughout the season, allowing coaches a chance to share their experiences and expertise with each other, discuss problems, and brainstorm solutions.

Connect them with experts

As Athletic Director, your job is already busy, admits Vaughan. But small things like bringing in a sports dietitian with an expertise in assessing symptoms of RED-S or disordered eating patterns to speak to coaching staff can make a big difference. Ideally, your town hall meetings should feature a short presentation from an expert like a dietitian, sports psychologist, or physical therapist to enhance coach knowledge. Make it clear that coaches aren’t expected to know everything, nor should they try to play psychologist, nutritionist, physical therapist, and sports medicine expert with their athletes. Coaches should also know to come to you for recommendations for experts when they’re dealing with certain issues, and they should feel confident that you’ll be able to connect them to expertise that they need.

Be their advocate

You will likely deal with tricky situations involving parents of your students or of students from competing school districts, as well as other coaches from different schools during your tenure as Athletic Director, says Vaughan. And in these cases, it’s important to be an advocate first for your student-athletes, but second, for your coach. If a parent is complaining about a coach who isn’t giving a child ‘enough’ playing time, you may need to advocate for the coach—assuming that the coach is adhering to your program’s values and expectations, of course. Similarly, in heated moments during games and competitions, you may need to step in if a referee is being treated poorly by parents or coaches. Being prepared to deal with conflict is part of your role in supporting coaches and referees.

Stay in the know

Vaughan says that boundaries are the trickiest things to set as Athletic Director because on one hand, you should be present for your coaching and referee staff regularly. It’s also important that you show up to assess how things are going rather than relying solely on reports from staff. However, you don’t need to be at every single game or meet, says Vaughan. Establish a routine that allows you to check in periodically, especially for coaches and referees who are dealing with tricky issues around students, staff, or parents. Coaches and staff appreciate seeing you take an interest in the teams, and that show of support goes a long way—even if it’s only one game per season.

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Takeaways

As athletic director, you’re able to both strengthen and support coaches and referees, beyond simple scheduling and basic day to day operations. Prioritize communication, set clear expectations and processes, and become an advocate for your staff.

TrueSport Expert and registered social worker, Nadia Kyba, addresses how parents, coaches, and athletes can respect and overcome generational differences to improve their communication and relationships.

Learn more about Nadia Kyba.

Rituals can have a positive, healthy effect on any athletic team when they’re created thoughtfully. But when rituals are left in place without consideration year after year, they can also have a negative impact on a team’s culture. Here, TrueSport Expert and President of Now What Facilitation, Nadia Kyba, MSW, shares a few ways that you can establish team rituals that lead to a more successful, cohesive, happy team.

Understand the power of rituals as a team

Sports give people a sense of belonging, and rituals within a team can amplify that and unite teammates who may otherwise not have much in common. And while you might think rituals are just superstitions that a team has before a game, they can encompass so much more than that. Rituals can be used to promote healthy behaviors, like meditating before each game or having a healthy snack after every meet. They can also be used as sports psychology tools, by creating mantras and chants that align with a team’s values and goals they’ve set for the season. And they can be fun and simply a good way of helping teammates—even the shy ones—feel a bit more connected.

Understand that rituals can have dark sides

While rituals can be great for team bonding and may bring a team closer together, they can also alienate individuals on the team and even promote unhealthy behaviors. Some teams, for example, have rituals like public weekly weigh-ins that encourage athletes to engage in unhealthy eating and exercising practices. And some rituals, like certain snacks pre-competition, might not align with an individual athlete’s allergies, sensitivities, or cultural food choices. New athletes may also feel left out of rituals that aren’t well explained at the beginning of the season, especially when the team has many returning players. Be aware of this—and reconsider the rituals you currently have in place on your team. Make sure they are aligned with the team’s values and goals.

Create a ritual-making ritual

Some rituals evolve organically, like the whole team opting to wear school colors on game days, but it’s a good idea to sit down as a team and decide together what the best rituals and routines for your team this season should be. Together, you can vote and decide on things like team mantras, whether or not your team will do a group cheer before competition, if you’ll all wear a certain color or t-shirt to meets, and if bringing snacks to practice or game day is a good shared ritual for the team. If you’re a leader or captain on the team, you can take ownership of the process. Your coach should be invited into the dialogue, but rituals should be based on what the team as a whole chooses.

Enlist an expert to help

Ask your coach to bring experts to a practice early in the season to talk about fun and healthy rituals. A sports psychologist can be helpful in creating a positive mantra or set of goals for the team, and a dietitian may be able to help perfect the plan for healthy pre- or post-competition snacks.

Bring a mantra to life

If one of your rituals is a team mantra—ideally one that focuses on process-oriented goals rather than outcome-specific ones—then a great ritual could be writing that mantra on t-shirts or on the back of your hands before every competition as a reminder throughout the game or race. Put it on posters in the locker room, make beaded bracelets that spell it out, write it in icing on a post-game cake or spell it out with olives on the post-race pizza. Have fun with these rituals: Lean into silly, fun ways of keeping them top of mind.

Yes, team cheers are great

A team chant fosters a sense of belonging, regardless of why each person is on the team and who they are outside of the team. A team cheer or chant may feel a bit silly for some people, but it really does have a positive impact on a team—and it’s something you’ll remember for years to come. Your school or team may already have one, or you could make one up as a group. Some teams lean into a team song instead. Even if you’re not a big fan of singing in public, team chants and songs can instantly create a bond between teammates, so it’s worth trying one.

Designate an ‘on-boarding’ expert on the team

When a new athlete joins mid-season, it can be intimidating to suddenly be a part of a team that essentially has a secret language. A team’s rituals, from mantras to cheers to snacks to game day attire, can be tricky for a new athlete to navigate, especially if that athlete is also new to the school. Designate one person on the team to be ‘in charge’ of helping new athletes figure out all of the team rituals and routines so that they don’t feel left out.

Check in on rituals regularly

As we mentioned earlier, rituals are a great way for a team to bond and feel closer, but they can also have negative repercussions. Having each athlete be in charge of making a post-game snack may start to feel like a burden and team mantras may start feeling more critical than motivational if the season isn’t going well. Keep a dialogue open about your current rituals and be open to them changing as the team evolves.

Plan a post-season ritual early in the season

Often, we celebrate wins at nationals and or states, but rarely do we celebrate simply living up to our mantra of ‘finish with a smile’ at every race. Early in the season, come up with a ritual that you’ll use to close out the season, whether that’s a team party, a huddle where you all share your highlights of the season, or an email or text group that helps everyone stay in touch during the off-season. Otherwise, players may leave feeling a lack of closure on the season, and it can feel like a letdown rather than a natural break between seasons.

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Takeaway

Establishing healthy, strong team rituals is a great way to improve a team’s sense of camaraderie, but the rituals should be carefully considered and regularly revisited to ensure that they are healthy (both physically and mentally), and that everyone feels included rather than alienated.

Jamie Kay Discher, Director of Girl Experience for the Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey has a few ideas on how your child or your team can give back this season in a safe, healthy way.

Get informed

In the Girl Scouts, volunteer opportunities aren’t just listed as things that need to be ticked off a checklist: The girls are encouraged to decide on projects that they’re passionate about, and then the leaders get involved to help with the specifics. But Discher believes that the research and decision-making is an important part of the giving back process. “Generally, the first step for anyone who’s looking to perform service is to figure out what you’re interested in,” says Discher. Have your team brainstorm ways that they’d like to give back. Make a list of options. Then, Discher says the second step is to make sure that you’re actually filling a need in the community. For example, check with an animal shelter to see if they really need food or bedding donations before starting a collection process!

Get outside

Stream, park, and roadside cleanups are easy examples of socially distanced activities that make an impact and allow youth to spend time outside, says Discher. “We’ve had a lot of success coming up with safe ways for girls to perform service outside, doing things like watershed cleanups and forest regeneration projects. Those kinds of opportunities continue to be viable even while we’re socially distanced.”

For your athletes, this could be as simple as doing an unofficial trash pickup during a hike in a popular park area, or you can contact your local parks and recreation department to see where the local need is greatest.

Get online

There are countless ways to take your volunteerism online. “For example, we had one girl who was doing a project to help residents living in assisted living facilities by teaching them how to protect themselves from cybercrime,” Discher says. “Obviously, when the pandemic hit, she couldn’t go into those places. So, she got creative and took all the lessons that she was planning to prepare in person and recorded them as videos. Then she got the center to host the video on their TV systems so the residents could watch. She still managed to reach her target audience, she still managed to perform the service that she was looking to perform.”

Your athletes may not be ready to create a course on tackling cybercrime, but they could potentially create or teach something suited to their strengths, like virtual painting or cooking classes through a local library!

Get offline

While athletes can’t go into senior living facilities to provide comfort and entertainment, athletes can still become pen pals with people in senior centers who are craving contact with others right now. The Girl Scouts have an official national service project dedicated to this, but your team can simply contact local nursing homes and senior centers to see if there is any interest in starting a program. For younger athletes in particular, this is a great way to practice their penmanship and writing skills, Discher adds.

Get involved with citizen science service projects

“Citizen Science projects harness the idea that anyone can contribute to science research, generally using some sort of computer interface,” Discher explains. “SciStarter is a product of the National Science Foundation and has a slew of different research projects where they just need people to go look at their environment and report back to get a whole new set of data.”

The SciStarter website lets you choose your research project, and some—like this OpenSidewalks survey—can be done while running or walking. It’s a great way to help contribute to science while getting miles in for young athletes.

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Takeaway

While it’s not ideal that sports have been interrupted by COVID-19, athletes can still give back to their communities in meaningful ways while practicing social distancing and other safety precautions.

Nadia Kyba, MSW, TrueSport Expert and President of Now What Facilitation, explains the principle of positional behavior, which often leads to fixed or oversimplified solutions to conflict. Instead, Kyba explains how parents and coaches can evaluate the interests of all parties in order to develop mutually beneficial solutions and uphold the values of sport.

Learn more about Nadia Kyba, MSW.

TrueSport has partnered with Disabled Sports USA (Move United), the national leader in community-based adaptive sports, to help create a more positive and inclusive sport environment for all youth. This starts with the simple recommendations below from Disabled Sports USA (Move United) on how to best interact with and support people with disabilities.

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General Best Practices:

• Use person-first language to put the athlete first.

• Don’t assume
  • Ask how you can help instead of making assumptions about what an athlete can and cannot do. Avoid the urge to help simply to speed up processes. Instead, build in extra time for the athlete to get equipment set up or complete a skill progression. Some athletes may need more time to think or speak, so be patient when waiting for a response.
• Don’t ignore
  • Take the time to get to know your athlete and how their disability might affect their participation and make appropriate and reasonable modifications.
• Ask prior to moving or touching equipment
  • Understand that an athlete’s adaptive equipment, such as a wheelchair, walker, or cane, is part of their personal space. Only adjust the equipment if requested, as unexpected shifts could cause the athlete to become off balanced and cause injury.

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Communication Best Practices:

Do:

• Speak directly to the athlete using your regular speech patterns. Only speak louder or slower if requested to do so by the athlete.
• Face the athlete when speaking and try to avoid blocking the mouth or chewing anything so that those who are deaf or hard of hearing can clearly see your lip movements.
• Put yourself on the same level as the athlete when speaking to an athlete who uses a wheelchair or is short of stature for more than a minute or two.
• Provide extra time for athletes with cognitive or intellectual disabilities to formulate thoughts and complete sentences. Try not to interrupt or provide words for the athlete as this could further delay processing time. Instead, consider ways to ask questions that require only yes/no answers.
• Make sure to introduce yourself to an athlete who is blind or has low vision they know who is speaking. Prior to ending the conversation, let them know you will be leaving and who will be guiding them next or when they should expect your return.

Don’t:

• Be afraid to ask an athlete with a speech impairment to repeat themselves if you have difficulty hearing or understanding.
• Over-inflate the successes of an adaptive athlete. While PR times or other goal-related successes should be celebrated as with any other athlete, over-hyping achievements for adaptive athletes gives the impression that expectations were not high to start.

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Coaching Best Practices:

• Take the time to look around your facility and ensure that there are no physical barriers to participation.
  • Is parking close to the venue? Are there enough handicapped parking spaces?
  • Are areas accessible to all without having to navigate stairs, thick grass, etc.?
  • Are hallways wide enough for wheelchairs?
  • Is the facility tidy and clear of any obstacles?
  • Are equipment areas or water stations set at a height that is accessible for all?
• Have the same expectations of all athletes as you would any other in your program. This means requiring them to show up on time, participate in the full lesson to the best of their ability, etc. While modifications can be made, the focus should be on independence and inclusion.
• Don’t be afraid to try out a variety of adaptations to find the one that works best for your individual athlete. Prior to the start of the activity, ask the athlete what they need and want, and keep up a dialogue with the athlete throughout the process.
• Schedule more breaks if stamina is an issue, consider quieter lesson areas or times of day if the athlete is easily over-stimulated, etc.
• Ensure proper adaptive equipment is available so they can be ready to start lessons at the appropriate time.
• Allow athletes to choose to challenge themselves by providing appropriate skill progressions to meet their goals.
• Consider using Universal Design coaching practices where suitable.
  • Universal Design: Planning an activity to ensure everyone can participate by considering all needs and abilities ahead of time. You can find links to examples below.

• • • Specific to Physical Education
    • Not Physical Education-Specific

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Taking the time to learn about disability and general etiquette is a great first step to creating a positive and inclusive environment. While the tips provided by Disabled Sports USA (Move United) will help to ensure that you have the basics, learning more about your individual athlete, their needs, and communication preferences will allow you to create a positive experience for all.

Prepare for a New Athlete

Whether it’s before the season starts or before the first practice, start a conversation with your new athlete by asking a few questions to get to know them better. That preparation can help you determine the best way to make sure the ‘new kid’ is seamlessly integrated onto the team.

If an athlete is shy and would prefer not to be put on the spot at the first practice, try assigning them one or two ‘buddies’ to help show them the ropes. For more outgoing athletes, encourage them to lead one of the simpler drills and do a more traditional ‘getting-to-know-you’ introduction.

Belix suggests that there’s no right way to introduce every athlete, and the more tailored you can make that first meeting, the better the athlete will feel afterwards.

Make a Team Plan

“Let your team know a new person is coming before they show up, if possible,” says Belix. “Don’t always rely on the same person to step up and help the new athlete through the first practice.”

Encourage your entire team to take on a leadership role and take the opportunity to ‘buddy’ up with their new teammate. It will help your team get to know the new player on their own and relieve the stress on the newcomer to initiate every conversation.

Keep an Eye on the New Kid

While you should let the new athlete integrate into the team naturally, you should also be on the lookout for bad behavior from your players.

“If you see the new athlete being treated poorly, of course you need to act on that,” says Belix. This means acting as early as possible versus waiting for a situation to become more dire – bullying can be subtle. “Trust your gut. You may need to have a chat with athletes and hold them accountable.”

Check-in After Practice

Try to make time for a quick one-on-one with the new athlete after practice, without singling him out. “Have a quick conversation about how the practice went, if they are feeling comfortable, if they need anything, or if they have any questions or concerns,” Belix says.

Often, after the initial introduction, a coach assumes that a new athlete is integrating fine, but this check-in process can help an athlete feel heard. Belix adds that if the new athlete is chatting with their teammates, postpone talking with them versus interrupting.

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As a coach, it can be hard to step back and let the new athlete on the team integrate on their own terms, but it’s necessary. Remember that “some kids are less social than others and that’s fine,” says Belix.

“Don’t necessarily assume that an athlete isn’t fitting in if they’re not immediately making friends. Pushing a new athlete will likely just make them feel uncomfortable – give those athletes space if they seem to be happy otherwise.”

As a registered psychologist practicing in Calgary, Alberta, Tasha Belix works with sports teams, coaches, athletes, parents, and her own daughters and Brownie troop to create positive cultures. Below, she shares five ways you can do the same with your team.

1. Create a Unique, Fun Team Culture

Most teams don’t have a negative culture, but they also don’t have a positive team culture either. Developing a team culture that’s unique and fun won’t happen if you just go through the motions of holding a team practice and requiring your team to show up at games.

Belix encourages coaches to “make an effort to develop a unique and fun team culture.” Coaches can start by “talking about games that didn’t go well and figuring out how to use positive psychology to work around that.” Or, coaches can even be more intentional about having fun at practices. For example, coaches can sprinkle in alternative practices, like going to play at a community pool instead of swimming laps.

2. Ask the Right Questions

As a coach, always ask yourself questions about the team. Belix suggests a few to get started thinking critically about culture:

• How do we make this team a safe place for people to speak openly?
• How do we foster team camaraderie?
• How do we make practice fun?
• How can we make this a space where people enjoy coming and want to be here?

Make sure you’re giving your athletes a voice. Belix adds that oftentimes a coach tries to fix everything themselves, but the athletes can and should be the ones helping to create a positive team culture.

3. Encourage Feedback

“During the season, create a way for athletes to give you honest feedback. I like doing this anonymously: Have all of the athletes sit down with index cards and pens, and have everyone write down their comments for you,” says Belix.

Tell your athletes that their comments can be negative or positive. This is a great way to make sure that athletes have a chance to share their concerns without fear of being singled out. Don’t wait until the end of the season to do this. Belix adds, early in the season or mid-season is better since you can make tweaks and changes before the season is over.

4. Tailor Your Coaching Style to Your Team’s Needs

You might think you’re doing everything right, says Belix, but there may be an athlete on your team who doesn’t respond well to your coaching style. Especially with adolescents, you may need to make an effort to coach certain players differently.

“I knew one coach who got a critique from one of his athletes, and he hadn’t realized that his tough-love coaching style was hurting her feelings and she was considering quitting the team,” she recalls. “He was a super passionate coach and loved the sport, and he was devastated to realize that he’d been unintentionally making an athlete feel bad. It changed his coaching style, and now he regularly asks for that anonymous feedback to make sure all of his athletes are doing well and feeling supported.”

5. Be Aware of Cliques

“Coaches can work behind the scenes to avoid cliques forming by doing things like randomizing room assignments on trips, choosing partners by alphabet or height, and keeping things mixed up so no one is singled out as being ‘split up.’ Shake things up so athletes have to get to know each other better,” says Belix.

Remember, shy athletes may need prompts when interacting with new people, so preparing team icebreakers will help those quieter kids feel less stressed about chatting. For example, prep three questions to discuss during a bus trip after randomizing the seating.

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If you find that your team isn’t fun and people don’t want to be there, it’s time to make a change.

Remember: “Building a positive culture won’t happen right away,” says Belix. “If your current team culture isn’t as positive as you’d like it to be, start taking small steps like asking for comments from your athletes, helping the team foster deeper friendships, and dedicating time to create fun during practice.

For young athletes, it’s not about winning or even about learning skills – it’s about building self-esteem and friendships and the other intangibles.”