You Don't Have To Laugh

So I have a Starbucks addiction.

No, seriously.

Every day, since the birth of my oldest child in 2007, I have had at least one Starbucks Venti Iced Coffee (sometimes two).

Yeah, it’s an issue I’m well aware of but unwilling to do anything about.

Also, as you are all aware, I am into Mantra TShirts. I think taking the small step in courage of wearing a shirt with words on it that not only state something you believe in, but also something you are pretty sure others disagree with, is a choice we should all try to make occasionally.

These two truths collided yesterday for me at my local “watering hole” Starbucks here in Salem. I was in for my usual and it happened to be a light-traffic today and there was a middle-aged man also waiting for his mobile order to be served. I caught his gaze as I walked in and I knew he was reading my shirt (one of the She Is Not Your Rehab line found here). I took a short breath knowing some nonsense was coming and the man said, “Whoa, what does that shirt say?”

I responded, “She Is Not Your Rehab,” and sort of flipped the bottom of the shirt out a little tighter so he could read the text.

He said, “What does that mean?”

I said, “To me, it means that if you are a man with a wife, girlfriend, partner….that person is NOT responsible for your issues. You need to figure them out your damn self.”

He made a weird joke about “being IN rehab” and then said “well, I think women should wear that shirt for us” which of course is a pretty clean example of the deflection tendency we men know well: somehow turning a challenge about our behavior into a conversation about what women do wrong.

I said, “Tell me more about that” something which he appeared very unready to do.

He mumbled something and the convo ended.

I don’t think I changed the world yesterday during this Starbucks convo.

But, I do think this was an opportunity to interrupt some line of thinking and a script too many men let unfold unchallenged. This person, who let’s stop short of claiming to be awful (but most likely carries some Manbox training) was used to saying some sexist -ish, joke, banter with another man and getting laughter back.

I simply didn’t provide it.

That in and of itself was I’m sure a shock to his system. If that shock held or not is immaterial.

For me, it was a modeling of what I ask my players to do. In those moments, when someone is saying or doing what you KNOW you don’t agree with, you at least have to say something.

And THAT is the part I keep coming back to.

He didn’t need me to win an argument with him. I didn’t need the perfect comeback. I didn’t need to turn Starbucks into a TeamsOfMen session.

I just needed to not give him what the script was asking me for: another man’s approval.

Or, sometimes, simply refuse to give them the laugh, head nod, “exactly,” or whatever other form of approval they expected from you.

Because interrupting a script doesn’t always require a speech. Sometimes the interruption is simply making sure the other guy doesn’t leave believing you agreed with him.

Coach Prompts

• When a player makes a sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful joke, what response is he expecting from the other guys in the room?

• Do your players believe interrupting something they disagree with requires a confrontation, or have you shown them smaller ways to refuse participation?

• How often do YOU unintentionally reinforce a harmful script with a laugh, smile, head nod, or silence?

Player Prompts

• Think about the last time another guy said something you disagreed with but you laughed or went along with anyway. Why did you?

• What could you do when a friend says something you don’t agree with without turning the moment into a huge confrontation?

• What does another guy assume about your beliefs when you laugh along with something he says?

• When a player makes a sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful joke, what response is he expecting from the other guys in the room?

Sweat Equity Isn't Character Development

Coach Hurley returns to the blog!!! I say that a bit tongue in cheek because if you have been here often, you know Dan Hurley has provided us with a few moments worth a TeamsOfMen lens deep dive. Now, he is nowhere near the number of appearances by Mick Cronin, but he is back. As always, there is no denying his acumen on the scoreboard, as his back-to-back National Championships attest. But, once again, I think his words here are at best a misunderstanding of definitions or at worst a blatant bastardizing of them.

The post, originally put up on X by @coachajkings, is supposedly cueing the viewer to watch the video where “Dan Hurley shares the difference between transactional and transformational coaching.” But as you watch the video, you realize that YES, Coach Hurley says that he is a transformational coach, not a transactional coach…but then proceeds to simply describe an environment of physical and mental challenge.

He describes hard work. He describes seeking discomfort. And he describes a payoff the includes a lot of winning.

That’s sweat equity and a culture of effort. Absolutely fine. No issue there.

But transformation doesn’t happen during rigorous physical exertion simply by osmosis. Muscles and cardio systems are improved for sure. Work capacity can improve. Perseverance can be practiced.

But when I hear transformation, I think of human qualities and character. I think of (as we’ve talked about in the past) character of HEART, not simply perseverance.

I can run a lot of lines. I can do defensive slides for hours. That can get me in phenomenal shape.

I can be yelled at for hours. I can bite my tongue and learn to deal with it. That probably makes me at least PATIENT, maybe?

But I’m not sure you can claim TRANSFORMATION simply from enduring hard work. I think that requires exactly what we’ve learned about “virtue translation” lately and that is framing and reflection time on what happened, what I thought, what I felt, and WHY and HOW it applies to my future life.

Otherwise, we’re making the same assumption sport has made forever: because an athlete EXPERIENCED something hard, they automatically LEARNED the lesson associated with it.

I appreciate the outlining of what a day in the life of UCONN MBB looks like here (it sounds like a grueling physically challenging environment). Great.

But I don’t think this blurb (at least) showed us WHAT was transformed, WHY it was transformed, or HOW that transformation transfers beyond basketball.

Coach Prompts

• What do you call “transformational” in your program, and what evidence tells you an actual transformation occurred?

• When athletes experience something difficult in your program, where does the framing and reflection happen that helps them understand what they learned?

• Which qualities developed in your program could your athletes identify, explain, and intentionally apply somewhere outside their sport?

Player Prompts

• Think of something difficult you’ve endured in your sport. What did it actually teach you about yourself?

• What is something you’ve learned through your team that you know how to use somewhere outside of sports?

• When you’ve changed because of a difficult experience, what helped turn the experience into an actual lesson?

You Don't Gotta.

“As a man, I gotta…”

I’ve long argued that there may be no more destructive trap sentence than that one. And I know most men reading this can probably think of a time they’ve deployed it.

Pay attention to what comes AFTER “As a man, I gotta…” because what follows is often a Manbox-influenced limitation you’ve placed on yourself. TeamsOfMen teaches us to help our young men identify the snare before it makes the choice for them.

Our video share today (originally posted to IG by @newemergingking) is a great example of how to show your guys a way to counter the programming of “As a man, I gotta.”

What do I mean? The video shows a training session on deescalation, including a skit where the trainers role play how an interaction can go sideways AND how to stop it from doing so.

The shoulder bump, the mean mugging, the fist clenching…all those triggers that you see on a football field post play…on a basketball court after a hard foul…on a soccer pitch after a slide tackle gone awry. Think about how many times you’ve had a player react with that exact posture, get the flag or whistle for the resulting tussle, and then give you some version of: “Coach, as a man, I gotta…”

But he doesn’t gotta. He has options.

This could be the video you need (either to show, or to steal techniques of unlearning training from) to show your players how to #meetthemoment differently in your program. I would probably take it a step further and ask the guys to show you the way THEY would be currently comfortable deescalating. What would they say? What would they do with their hands? Would they walk away? Could they walk away without feeling like they had just “lost” something?

Their answers give you another launch point. Meet the guys where they are and start unlearning the idea that every confrontation requires them to prove something.

Coach Prompts

• What versions of “As a man, I gotta…” have you heard from your players after a confrontation?

• When conflict starts escalating, what options have you actually taught and rehearsed with your players?

• Could your players deescalate a confrontation without feeling like they backed down or “lost”?

Player Prompts

• Finish this sentence honestly: “If another guy disrespects me, I gotta…”

• What could you do to deescalate a confrontation and still feel like you stood up for yourself?

• When someone bumps you, stares you down, or talks trash, what makes it hardest to choose not to escalate?

Can You Watch This Without Making It Funny?

I’m not going to claim that your locker room is full of Chance The Rapper and Vic Mensa fans…but they are relevant artists in hip hop culture. And I’d wager that hip hop has some version of influence in your room.

So my hope is this video can resonate with your group.

Long story short, this is a exceptionally emotional and vulnerable scene of Vic and Chance (who were very tight for an extended period of their lives) apologizing to one another and mending fences after a prolonged “beef” between them. Their friendship was literally non existent for years and this is their trying to patch it back together.

I wouldn’t put this up with a bunch of prompts and stop it at a bunch of different points. I would let it play all the way through and then intentionally call for silence for 2 minutes. Not because it’s the best apology makeup scene of all time, but because the TEARS between the two men matter. I want your guys to be able to see the emotional exchange between Chance and Vic.

If you don’t enforce the silence, you will get guys trying to escape the moment with snickering and jokes. And those mechanisms are probably their default in all heavy situations that challenge their emotional fluency.

So, make them sit in this one for a little bit. They don’t need a lecture about how “real men cry” and you don’t need to immediately ask them to share some deeply personal story of their own. They just need to WATCH two men they recognize as culturally relevant be hurt, apologize, cry, tell each other what their friendship meant and try to repair it.

I think sometimes we get ahead of ourselves when we ask young men to “be vulnerable.” Hell, some of your guys might not even be comfortable WATCHING another man be vulnerable without using humor to break the tension. So maybe that’s the rep today. Can you sit in a room with your boys, watch two men cry with one another and not need to make the moment less uncomfortable?

After the two minutes, I’d probably start with one question: “What was it like to sit and watch that without anybody talking?”

And then LISTEN.

Coach Prompts

• When something emotionally vulnerable happens around your team, how quickly do YOU help the room escape the discomfort?

• Do jokes and laughter in your locker room create connection—or sometimes protect your guys from having to feel something?

• Are you asking your players to demonstrate emotional vulnerability before you've given them enough opportunities to simply witness it?

Player Prompts

• What made any part of that uncomfortable to watch?

• Why do you think guys sometimes make jokes when another guy cries or gets emotional?

• Which do you think would be harder: apologizing like that, accepting an apology like that, or letting somebody see that the relationship hurt you that much?

Before we can expect a young man to confidently CHOOSE vulnerability, he may need reps simply learning not to escape it when he sees it. That's Decision Confidence too.

Boy Math

Sometimes our blog shares posts and or events that need some framing from you the coach to make it palatable for your players. Sometimes we ask you to do some “gymnastics” with the content in order to get to the real lesson in sharing it with your guys.

Today, we aren’t doing that.

Today, you can just put this graphic up as is (originally posted on IG by @stay.at.home.tom) and be quiet for awhile.

Let your guys read the captions (hell, you probably don’t even need this specific graphic, you can just read or write the stats out for your team to see). Then deploy a familiar TeamsOfMen tool (embrace the silence) and sit back and LISTEN.

• Which one of those stats surprise them?

• Which one’s make them uncomfortable?

• Which one’s did they know in advance?

This is a Manbox myth busting list. This a cliche busting list. But it’s also going to ruffle “some feathers” in your space because you, your coaches and your players have most likely been hearing some of this “boy math” your whole life. You’ve been told my men you respect that these “boy math” statements are facts to live by.

So, maybe when one of your guys pushes back, don’t immediately tell him why he’s wrong. Ask him where he learned it. Who told you women were worse drivers? Who taught you that women were “too emotional”? Where did you learn what work “counts” inside a household? Who taught you that being sensitive or empathetic was somehow a weakness?

Using this session is a first step toward UNLEARNING that nonsense and, at the very least, planting the “hmmm, there might be some things I’ve been taught that I need to question” seed in their minds.

And that is the entire point of what we do.

Not telling young men WHAT to think, but teaching them to examine WHY they think it.

Coach Prompts

• Which one of these claims would YOU have pushed back against when you were your players' age?

• What beliefs about women did men you respected hand down to you that you later had to question or unlearn?

• Can you let a player openly disagree with one of these claims long enough to understand WHERE his belief came from before you try to change it?

Player Prompts

• Which one of these claims did you immediately want to argue with? Why?

• Who or what taught you what you currently believe about that claim?

• What is something you believe about men or women that you've honestly never stopped to question where you learned it?

You can't build Decision Confidence without examining the beliefs underneath the decision. Sometimes the first rep is simply asking: “Who taught me that?”

Before Somebody Needs Protecting

I met the author of the post above (on IG @Professor_Neil ) in Hamilton, Ontario when I presented at MentorAction “Rewriting The Playbook” conference in 2025. His content is so refreshing AND applicable as he almost always stitches himself into a video that is trending online and gives well informed, often scientifically backed takedowns of the bullshit being spewed (and you know I am here for a good intellectual smackdown).

So, I was not surprised to see him use his considerable platform to pushback against the woman’s video above (where, without spoiling the entire thing, she claims her girls trip was marred by a lack of being around “masculine” men who could protect her if the scene went sideways).

As Neil points out, research on bystander intervention complicates the hell out of this idea that MEN = PROTECTORSand women should feel safer simply because “masculine” men are nearby. Women frequently report greater willingness to intervene, depending on the situation and type of intervention, while men aren't automatically stepping into the protector role we've culturally assigned them.

Why share this here in our 30 seconds space?

Not because I want you training a legion of Batmen in your program (that could actually lend itself to creating an unhealthy ownership of and white knight syndrome in your guys).

But because I want them to sit and reflect/process the imaginary scene the woman describes, and where they are currently likely to find themselves in it.

• “If I’m at a party…or I’m at a club...”

  • Who am I with in this scene?

  • What are we doing?

  • What are we TRYING to do?

  • With who?

• “If things ‘popped off’ in this scene…”

  • What is likely the REASON for escalation?

  • Who said something?

  • What did something?

  • What happened in the five minutes before it got physical?

• “Is it more likely I could stop this from happening via prevention or reaction like a superhero?”

  • What would prevention look like and deal with?

  • Who would I need to say something to?

  • How early would I need to say it?

Protection doesn't have to begin when somebody throws a punch.

Hell, if that's when your guys believe their responsibility begins, we've probably started teaching this way too late.

You might even find yourself leaning into a conversation about the mindset difference between the woman in this video—who seems to be reinforcing some pretty traditional Manbox ideology through her desire for a “masculine” protector—and perhaps women in your players' own lives.

What do their moms tell them? Their sisters? Their girlfriends? Their female friends?

What actually makes those women feel safe around men?

There are GREAT conversations to be had from this.

Don’t shy away from them.

Coach Prompts

• When you talk about men “protecting” women, are your players imagining prevention—or primarily physical confrontation?

• Have you given your guys actual reps recognizing the moments BEFORE a situation becomes dangerous?

• Would your players be more comfortable fighting a stranger for a woman or checking their own teammate whose behavior is making her uncomfortable?

Player Prompts

• Would it be easier for you to confront a stranger who threatened a woman or YOUR BOY who was making her uncomfortable? Why?

• Think about a party where something eventually “pops off.” What decisions probably happened in the 10 minutes BEFORE the fight?

• Ask a woman you trust what men do that actually makes her feel safer. Is her answer what you expected?

Believing you would protect someone is not the same as being prepared to make the decisions that might keep them from needing protection in the first place.

That's Decision Confidence.

What the Hell Does “Process It” Mean?

I had to look in the mirror myself today with this blog post inspiration.

Originally posted on IG by @conscious_psychology, it caught my attention because of the “emotionally processing” line. I say that A LOT in my ToM work (both in speeches with other programs and departments and with my own players).

• “Emotions are information to be processed.”

• “Emotional fluency means being able to process through tough feelings.”

• “Process it, don’t act on it.”

But this post made me realize we need some more detail in describing what our guys think “processing” actually is. Because for some of them (especially the high school age group) their experience with processing might literally be “like the food plants coach?” And that of course doesn’t lend itself to a ton of action steps they would feel confident taking.

I would (and will this year IN SEASON) most likely use this graph in the following way:

1. Split team up by position groups.

2. Ask them to think of the last situation that cause them a BIG EMOTIONAL REACTION (good, bad, everything in between).

3. Decide as a group if they TALKED that emotion out or PROCESSED that emotion out.

4. Then, take one agreed upon scenario that all groups can be queued to use this posts bullet points with (for example: “Hey, I just got a technical foul in the game and it was my fifth foul so I’m OUT).

5. Now, deploy bullet by bullet what does TALKING look like this and what does PROCESSING look like with this

   1. For example, third bullet: “Coach asking you and you saying why you yelled “Fuck that” at the ref is talking it out” vs “Was there some aspect of you the baller you were protecting with that verbal assault…like, you did get beat baseline and foul that guy, and you’re supposed to be our stopper, so you probably were protecting that identity, without realizing failing at that job one time doesn’t mean I’m not still that guy for us”

That is what a ToM session looks like with this post. And I think you should bet on 10-12 minutes for the exercise. And I would put it EARLY, PRESEASON as most of the pitfalls of a team that can’t process will be exposed once games start, so do this prep work up front!

Coach Prompts

• How often do you tell your players to “process,” “reset,” “move on” or “control their emotions” without ever teaching them what those actions actually look like?

• What emotional situations can you predict your players WILL encounter this season—and which could you give them reps with before they happen?

• When a player reacts poorly, do you stop once you've learned WHY he did it—or help him understand what the reaction may have been protecting?

Player Prompts

• Think about your last BIG emotional reaction. Can you tell the story of what happened AND identify what your reaction might have been protecting?

• Which is harder for you: recognizing what you're feeling or figuring out why you're feeling it?

• What basketball situation is most likely to make it difficult for you to process before you react?

Update the Playbook

I know you've heard of the “Love Languages.”

• Words of Affirmation

• Quality Time

• Receiving Gifts

• Acts of Service

• Physical Touch

I know you and/or your wife/spouse/partner have probably even had at least a cursory discussion of which one is yours and which is theirs, etc.

And, yes, I'm writing about this today in a space that hopefully gets read by coaches of male athletes because your players have heard of them too.

(Pssst: They might have heard YOU mention them as well.)

And I want you to STOP using them, talking about them, mentioning them at all.

Why?

First, because of what I learned on [IG from @theselmafilali] about the origin and fake science behind their creation (just click on the image above for more insight on that). READ her entire post and scroll every slide.

And there is research backing up the larger criticism here: the Love Languages framework didn't originate from psychological research, and subsequent research has failed to provide strong empirical support for its central claims—that everyone has one primary Love Language, that there are exactly five of them, and that relationships are better when partners “speak” one another's primary language.

But, also, because your players look to you as a model of manhood.

They take cues from how you and your staff navigate the world as men (regardless of age), and if you constantly reinforce—via talking about and acting according to—these “languages,” you are going to encourage them to do the same.

And if you are living out these fake ideals that ultimately lead to unbalanced asks of women in relationships and cater to ridiculous manbox-cliched ideas of men's “needs,” they will be more likely to do the same.

Think about how easily:

“Physical Touch is my Love Language.”

can become:

“This is what I NEED from you.”

Or:

“Acts of Service is my Love Language.”

can become:

“This is how you need to show me you love me.”

Or how any of these supposedly fixed “languages” can become an explanation for why the other person needs to change their behavior to accommodate you.

And maybe THAT'S the part I most want our guys thinking about.

NOTE: I’m writing more about this in today’s HuMANiTEAM Report—including what ditching “Love Languages” might actually look like when we talk with young men about relationships.

[Read that HERE.]

Coach Prompts

• Have you ever talked about “Love Languages” with your players as though they're established psychological categories?

• How are you helping your players distinguish between identifying something they value in a relationship and believing they're entitled to receive it?

• What other relationship ideas have become so culturally normal that you've never stopped to ask where they came from or whether they're actually supported?

Player Prompts

• What's something that makes you feel cared for—and does valuing it mean somebody else owes it to you?

• What happens when something you want from a relationship conflicts with a boundary your partner has?

• What's the difference between telling someone what you appreciate and telling them what they're responsible for providing you?

Wield It On Yourself

Listen, I’m the TeamsOfMen guy.

I’m the “Hey, when you use your platform as a coach of young men, you can change the world via the men you help mold” guy.

I believe that.

But, this from @frontofficesports on X alleging famous LSU WBB Head Coach Kim Mulkey thought it was a good idea to have Ukrainian player Kate Koval and a Russian player on the same team in the middle of their countries mired in a 4 year war (12 years if you start from the annexation of Crimea) is peak coach delusion.

Seriously, what we do is NOT THAT IMPORTANT.

Even for someone as well compensated as Mulkey (reportedly $3.6 million/year), at a place as big as LSU, on a stage as national as SEC basketball, this is a SPORT and your “team room” is most likely incapable of solving world conflict.

Coach, the girl’s FATHER is literally a soldier fighting in this war every day.

You’re asking her to box out and then shake hands with someone who, at best, is from a country who is actively trying to kill her dad.

This is beyond a misstep. This is a complete break from reality.

I think in this profession the best you can hope for is a progression from where you mandate actions to a player…who grows in their ability to act independently enough to the point you can simply witness their choices in the game. I do believe you have a responsibility to try and use the learning design you deploy for that progress with the athlete with the human being too.

But notice in there, it was very much an individual growth proposition.

And maybe that's where we coaches need to develop some humility around this whole “use your platform” thing.

Your team room can be an incredible place for individual growth. You can help a young person examine what he believes. You can expose him to people different from himself. You can give him reps navigating conflict, empathy, curiosity and disagreement. You can create conditions where he leaves your program a more thoughtful human being than when he entered it.

That's a hell of a platform.

It is also still just a basketball team.

There are experiences your players bring into your room that are bigger than you. Bigger than your program. Bigger than whatever lesson you've designed for Tuesday afternoon.

A player's father fighting a war against the country her new teammate comes from qualifies.

Maybe the growth opportunity in those moments isn't for the athlete. Maybe it's for the coach to recognize the limits of his or her own influence.

Sometimes using your platform responsibly means knowing where the platform ends.

And this is where I think Mulkey, who reportedly told Koval she couldn’t pass on recruiting the Russian player because she could help LSU win, needs to take some of that considerable influence and power coaches like us love talking about and WIELD IT ON HERSELF.

Look in the mirror and say:

“I'm Kim Mulkey, dammit. I run this program. If I sense this is going to be an issue for either of these young women, I can and HAVE found talent everywhere. I can find somebody else.”

That's an option too. In fact, that's probably the place where Mulkey had the MOST power in this entire situation.

Not to make two young women ambassadors for peace.

Not to see if basketball could somehow bridge a war.

To make a different recruiting decision.

Sometimes we coaches get so enamored with the idea that our influence can change the people in our room that we forget we also have the power to change OUR OWN DECISIONS.

Coach Prompts

• Where are you asking your players to grow when the decision that actually needs reconsidering might be YOURS?

• What problems are legitimately within the reach of your platform—and which ones require the humility to admit they aren't?

• When you identify a difficult “growth opportunity” for a player, do you first ask whether there's a decision YOU could make that changes what you're asking them to carry?

Player Prompts

• What parts of your life should a coach understand aren't theirs to fix?

• Can teammates respect one another without being responsible for resolving everything that exists between them?

• Have you ever had an adult frame something as a “growth opportunity” for you when you wished they would simply make a different decision?

We talk a lot about preparing athletes to reconsider their decisions. But what happens when the decision that needs reconsidering belongs to the coach?

Coach Readiness requires more than having the tools to develop the people in your program. It requires the ability to turn those same tools inward.

Your Decision System has to apply to you too.

DeCA is built to help programs examine that.

Who Do You Send Him To?

You’re a basketball coach. You see a football practice drill. You’re mind immediately goes to “Ooohhh, I think there’s a way to use this in hoops.”

You’re a soccer coach. You see a tennis warm up. You’re brain screams “Yes, we could do that in lines of 4 instead of 1 on 1 and it would be great.”

Okay, so maybe that’s just my brain (although I have a sneaking suspicion there are a lot of you reading like this too), but that tendency to look for correlation from random sources is a good thing! “Curiosity is a Superpower” after all. But, the article I share above [originally posted on LinkedIn by Matthew Hood, EdD, CMPC] has me thinking there’s a danger to doing that without pause, especially when it comes to the well being of our players.

First, read the article. While it is full of technical jargon relating to the mental health industry, it is directly addressing the idea that numerous experts CROSSING LANES so to speak in to other’s lanes of expertise can be a problem for the very athletes they are trying to serve (not to mention the professional blow back that it can cause between various providers).

Second, I was very interested in Hood’s “org chart” so to speak of what Nutrition, Strength & Conditioning and Injury can be affected by (ie one can affect mood, one can affect emotional regulation, one can play a role in mood). While I still would ask him about the two way arrow I see in his statements (like, if S&C can affect identity, then identity can affect S&C), it’s a helpful diagram of the many ways your sport is going to hit your athletes.

Finally, though, the real TeamsOfMen tie in here, I believe, is an examination of your pathways.

What do I mean by pathways?

I mean IF & WHEN (because in 2026, it’s not really crazy to assume this is GOING TO HAPPEN to you and your team this year) you and your staff ID that a player is struggling as a person, what is the flow chart for getting him the help he needs?

What questions come up? Who gets called? Who decides if this is a coach convo, a parent call home or a mental health referral?

In my experience (at HS and D3 levels) that unfortunately is almost always a single person. Regardless of titles, degrees, or even capacity, this particular person in some office or job who has proven to give a damn and more importantly, is WILLING, gets assigned fire fighter duty over and over again. You send kids to them. You text them issues. You walk into their office with problems.

Now, these spaces all have one thing in common: They are under resourced. NO ONE is claiming the answer to NOT ONE “GOOD HERO” set up is “oh, well, we’ll just hire a team of all the right certifications” but the answer to “What is the path to help for a struggling young man” can’t be the same one person answer it is now either.

This is a TeamsOfMen type question that doesn’t require a CPMC or a MD or an SPLSW.

Coach Prompts

• Think about the last player you realized needed help beyond what you could provide. Who did you send him to, and why that person?

• If your program’s usual “go-to person” disappeared tomorrow, could your staff still explain the pathway for getting a struggling player help?

• Where does your competence end? Can you identify the moment when “I can help this kid” needs to become “I need to help this kid find someone else”?

Player Prompts

• If something was going wrong in your life that your coach couldn’t help you solve, do you know who you would go to next?

• Who are the adults around your team that you trust for different kinds of problems? Are you relying on one person for everything?

• Have you ever avoided asking for help because you didn’t know who the right person was or what would happen after you told them?

Having caring adults available is not the same as having an intentional system for what happens when an athlete needs help. DeCA examines whether your organization has built structures that reinforce what you say matters. One question worth adding to that examination: Could your coaches and athletes describe the same pathway from “we noticed something” to “this young man is getting the right help”?

What Is It Like to Be Around You When You're Angry?

Shout out to TeamsOfMen Inner Circle Coach Joseph Jackson (Milwaukie HS Boys Basketball HC) for sending this my way via IG. Originally posted by @jason.c.lewis the video shows a father debriefing with his son their effort to build a new bed, and features the dad asking his son questions like “how often am I super angry” “what’s it like to talk to me when I’m angry” and the ways that anger showed up when the son was “messing up” in the construction of the bed.

Candidly, this hit me as a SON, as a FATHER and as a COACH.

The line in the caption “The most persistent and cascading effect of my childhood is my anger and reactivity” resonated with me, as much of my upbringing revolved around a fear of setting my father off. Like the author here states, my dad showed my brother and I HUGE expressions of love and was never shy in telling us how much he loved us. He, also, was capable of nuclear explosions that would make grown men quake, much less the boys we were.

As a dad myself, I know I have had reflection moments where I tell my wife, “oh god, that blow up when I was screaming at the kids, that was so [insert my dad’s name]” and the horror that came with remembering the fear I felt in those moments, combined with the knowledge that I could very well have done that to my own kids, was mortifying.

Finally, I know I use my voice selectively nowadays, but in the beginning of my head coaching career (almost 20 years ago now) I know I used it as a weapon often, deploying tirades and volume-intensified rants that I thought were “coaching tough”.

All these reflections and contemplation came from both the emotional video here AND the caption description. Both for me as the current pivot point of many rooms (the angry dad or coach) AND as a former person who “used levity to deflect the rage” or “got as small as possible to avoid it.”

What really sat with me is this:

“When you have the power to move rooms, you can’t assume you are always moving it in a good way. Sometimes, you are TERRIFYING them.”

And that made very uneasy. I don’t want to be that guy.

I believe we must hold our kids and our players and ourselves accountable. I believe we must strive to be better every day. BUT, I know there are so many more tools at your disposal as a father and a coach to make those things a reality.

Anger and volume are not the only solution (and often, part of the problem).

Maybe the rep from this video is as simple (and terrifying) as asking the question this dad was willing to ask his son:

“What is it like to be around me when I’m angry?”

And then shut the hell up and listen to the answer.

Coach Prompts

• What is it actually like for your players to be around you when you're angry?

• When you raise your voice, are you choosing a teaching tool—or have you lost access to the other tools you have?

• Who in your program could tell you honestly that your anger scares the room without worrying about what you'll do with the answer?

Player Prompts

• What's the difference between a coach being intense and a coach making players afraid of him?

• What happens to your ability to listen and learn when you're worried about someone's reaction?

• What does a coach do after losing his temper that helps rebuild trust?

One of the hardest gaps for a coach to see is the distance between what we intend our players to experience and what they actually experience.

“I was holding him accountable.”

“I was creating urgency.”

“They know I love them.”

Maybe.

But what did the room experience?

That gap between intention and experience is exactly the kind of thing DeCA is designed to help coaches examine.

The Camera Doesn't Care About Your Excuse Either

I was ecstatic this summer when our AD informed me that our Hudl InFocus camera had been mounted in our Main Gym. With the click of an app on our phone, I could grab any portion of practice I wanted on film and break it down for use however my staff and I decided. It was a setup I was used to in college and was glad was now, two years in, being the norm at the high school level as well.

More film more film more film am I right?

Well, the clip above, originally posted on IG by @abc7la (where a HS football coach is ranting in practice and kicks a ball in anger into a young man’s groin), reminded me of not just the need for emotional fluency in coaching, but also the fact that if we believe “put it all on film” applies to our players (namely, the idea that I can catch them with the eye in the sky slipping and then show them that and expect a new version of them) it also means WE ARE GOING TO BE ON FILM MORE TOO.

Our words, our tactics, OUR RANTS.

Those are going to be captured too.

I lived this in college.

Over a decade into being a Head Coach, I had the Hudl camera running during practice filming a 5 on 5 session. One of our players made a comment to a teammate I didn’t appreciate and I lost it. I screamed eff bombs, etc at him, took him out of the scrimmage and stomped around the floor. Now, I thought it was a warranted rant, as the young man needed to be checked for failing with his words, but I also went too far in the words I CHOSE to correct him with.

And guess what?

That shit was on camera.

And the players all had their own log ins to that days footage.

So that film ended up in front of our AD, because I did a poor job debriefing with the player post practice (because I was still processing rage) and what could have been repaired between the two of us right then and there ended up being a week long issue in our program.

Credit to the young man in the story, as he held grace for me in my own failings to meet the moment and owned his own. We “made up” and had a productive season of him starting. But my point here is both emotional processing AND more “eyes in the sky” means you have to be better at your job.

For years, coaches have loved film because the camera doesn't care about the player's excuse.

“You said you were in help? Let's watch the film.”

“You said you sprinted back? Let's watch the film.”

“You said you didn't say anything? Let's watch the film.”

Well, Coach...the camera doesn't care about your excuse either. We can’t hope for gotcha moments on video that move our guys and then NOT own our own on the same feed.

Coach Prompts

• If your players had unrestricted access to film of YOU at practice, what would you be uncomfortable having them watch back?

• When was the last time you watched coaching film to evaluate your own behavior instead of your players'?

• When you cross a line with a player, how quickly does your system move you toward repair instead of justification?

Player Prompts

• What would you notice about your coaches on practice film that they probably aren't watching for?

• Does a coach owning a mistake make it harder or easier for you to respect them? Why?

• What's the difference between a coach holding you accountable and a coach losing control?

We love building accountability systems for players. Film. Stats. Grades. Standards. Consequences.

Where is the accountability system for the adults?

If your program's decision system only creates feedback loops for athletes, it isn't much of a system.

DeCA examines Coach Readiness too—because the adults designing the environment are making decisions inside it every damn day.

Teach Them to See It

I realize that if you’re a frequent reader of my blog, you have to do a lot of extracting from my writing…meaning I think I put up topics and frames of current events that require you to digest a story you may not have heard of, then decide if the TeamsOfMen frame I apply to it sits well with you…and then ultimately decide if it works for YOUR belief system, YOUR program’s system and WHERE your players are in this particular moment (oh, and don’t forget the little detail of “do I have time and access to them today Kip” to even do this session).

I get it. I’m usually asking for a lot.

So when I saw the post above (originally on IG from @pridewasariot.sac) I thought to myself “Hey, this should be an easy one. We all hate Nazis.”

Now, if 2026 has taught me anything it’s that that particular sentiment no longer holds 100% certainty, but I do have faith in my readers and fellow coaches. So, I’m not going to waste too much time stating the obvious (our programs need to be free of Nazi’s and racism) BUT as I scrolled the post, I realized I wasn’t able to ID all the images and “code” associated with those things.

For example, I was unaware of:

• Othala/Algiz markers

• Celtic Cross

• Pepe the Frog

• Black and Yellow Polos

as dog whistles and sleight-of-hand ways to extremist groups communicate.

Believe me when I say I would imagine the chances you come across this on a player in your team room is small. You vet, you recruit, you parse your space where folks committed to hateful beliefs wouldn’t feel like they belonged there.

BUT, your players go out in the real world. No matter if you’re a college coach or a HS coach, your guys will get time away from your bubble. And what happens then?

No, I’m not claiming they go to Nazi raves…I’m saying they will be in mixed company and it would behoove them to be able to SEE and ID when the people, symbols, jokes, memes and language around them start adding up to something they don't want to be around.

This post today is less about “help your guys unlearn” as much as it is about “PROTECT your guys”.

We talk a lot about equipping young men to recognize unhealthy ideas inside themselves. But we should probably spend some time helping them recognize unhealthy spaces around themselves too.

NOTE: there is an important distinction here: seeing ONE of these things does not automatically mean you found a Nazi. Context matters. A Celtic Cross can just be a Celtic Cross. Pepe can just be Pepe. The point isn't to teach your guys to profile somebody based on a shirt, tattoo or meme. It's to help them recognize when multiple pieces of information start telling them something about the space they're in.

Coach Prompts

• Would your players recognize extremist symbols or language if they encountered them outside your program?

• Have you taught your athletes the difference between noticing a warning sign and making an assumption about someone?

• Do your players know they can leave a party, group chat, gathering or social situation simply because something about it doesn't feel right?

Player Prompts

• What would have to happen for you to realize a group or space you're in isn't one you want to be associated with?

• If you noticed extremist jokes, symbols or language at a party or gathering, what would make it difficult to leave?

• How do you distinguish between one thing you don't understand and a pattern telling you something about the people around you?

Your players don't need another adult telling them Nazis are bad. They need reps recognizing when a situation is becoming something they don't want to be part of—and confidence in what to do next.

That's the difference between believing the right thing and being prepared to make the right decision.

DeCA is built to help programs examine that gap.

Let the Team Die

I don’t do “captains” in my HS hoops program. Long story short (and this blog isn’t really about captainship) I used to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to create a “leadership” plan for our captains and then inevitably in season you find yourself lagging on it once the season started.

In addition, to be honest, I believe as the coaching staff it’s your job to lead and too often we scapegoat young people with a “captains” label as a last bastion of desperation when a year isn’t going well (you know you’ve done it, the “well, we need better internal player leadership”).

Anyway, I start there because my commentary on the above post this morning from X stems from something I read during one of those long rabbit hole investigations trying to find captains material.

Namely, something written by Bruce Tuckman called the Stages of Group Development. I will let you deep dive the entire theory, but one of my main takeaways that I’ve held onto since then AND I think applies here to the sheer panic gripping college sports (especially football) after a recent court ruling granted the possibility of eligibility to guys who were already graduated and gone, is that you MUST LET THE LIFE CYCLE OF A TEAM HAPPEN…and that includes LETTING IT DIE (years after his original work, Mary Ann Jensen helped add “Adjourning” to the stages).

Seriously coaches…let them go.

Let’s avoid the banter back and forth about the legality of the ruling, and just address the question here in the screengrab that allegedly comes from a D1 Head Coach. He is asking what to do with the promises made to kids who are “of age” now in the program vs letting back “great guys and great players” and while I understand the stress involved, I think the answer is actually really simple:

Let. Them. Go.

I think the idea of “more time: or “run it back” or “one last ride” is getting overplayed here. These young men, let’s say, were “screwed” out of a year of CFB because of a worldwide pandemic. Sure. Yes. They were. It happened. It was unjust.

But life is full of injustice. Life is full of “dammit, I wish that would have gone better.” Coaches preach that all the time. “Adversity builds character” am I right?

So we can’t pretend these guys didn’t live out a “last year” “last ride” with your program. At the time, everyone believed it was over. He finished and did his senior day spectacle, lived through the senior day emotions, and grieved through the “this was my last time in the uniform” process.

He’s done it. You’ve done it together. That team LIVED its cycle.

It “died” honorably.

It is over.

Let it go.

And in terms of direct TeamsOfMen teaching points? This is for you as a staff. You can’t hold on to something too tight, you can’t prevent TIME from taking its toll. And I’m not convinced we should always want to.

There is something developmentally important about endings.

A senior plays his last game. He takes the uniform off. He cries with his teammates. He walks out of the locker room. Eventually somebody else gets his locker. Somebody else takes his minutes. The team becomes something new without him.

And he has to become something new without the team.

When in your calendar is the natural process of death to mourning to acceptance to rebirth of a new team?

Because learning how to let something you love end—and discovering that you are still somebody after it does—is a life lesson too.

That is a life lesson your team calendar should embrace.

Coach Prompts

• Where in your annual calendar do you intentionally acknowledge that one version of your team has ended before beginning to build the next one?

• Have you ever tried to hold onto a player, team or season longer than was healthy because YOU weren't ready for it to end?

• What are your athletes learning from you about mourning something meaningful, accepting its ending and moving forward?

Player Prompts

• What was hardest about the last team, season or role you had to leave behind?

• When something important to you ends, what helps you move from wishing you still had it toward accepting what's next?

• Who are you when the thing you've spent years identifying yourself by is no longer yours?

We spend enormous energy intentionally bringing teams together.

Tryouts. Retreats. Team dinners. Standards meetings. Leadership exercises. Preseason practices.

How intentionally do you take them apart?

DeCA asks whether development is actually designed into the rhythms and systems of your program rather than left to chance. The ending of a season belongs in that design too.

If your players are supposed to learn how to navigate transition, loss, identity and what's next, where exactly have you built the rep?

Are You Coaching—or Performing Coaching?

I’m a Notre Dame Football fan.

I have loved the Irish since my godfather first introduced them to me during the Tony Rice hey day of Lou Holtz era.

The fight song. Touchdown Jesus. NBC. The alternate green uniforms. I was and am still all in.

I lead with that because the Seahawks RB coach above, Coach Thomas Hammock, was previously the Head Coach at Northern Illinois and he defeated Notre Dame (in Head Coach Marcus Freeman’s debut) in 2024. So when I saw him on HBO’s Hard Knocks in the clip above it triggered a memory of “Hey I know this guy.”

However, I don’t share it here in our TeamsOfMen blog space to get you to like Notre Dame. I share it because I think this is one of those moments where the term “performative” is appropriate. I know you are probably used to hearing that term in the world of social justice, as it means “actions, allyship, or activism done primarily to increase social capital, protect a reputation, or signal virtue, rather than out of deep devotion to a cause.” But performance happens in coaching too.

I don’t know Coach Hammock so I won’t blanket his career or individual integrity with claim beyond THIS SPEECH he gave his RB room reeked of coaching performance.

Count the bleeped eff bombs. Feel the cringe at the timing and usage of all of them. Look at the players faces as they are delivered. At least from what we can see in this edited clip, NONE of them land, none of them move anyone. If our goal as coaches is to use our platform to teach and inspire change in behavior (both on and off the field), this was a not a tool that delivered.

Hard Knocks is, of course, a hard environment for anyone to coach in. Where are the cameras, when are they rolling, what is the level of clipping and out of context of each scene we see. I get all that.

But, if you’re being honest, you have been in spaces where a coach fell flat like this. Where a coach tried to be someone he isn’t and you know the players FELT IT. Hell, I would argue Coach Hammock would watch this and cringe himself and navigate thoughts of “Who in the hell is that guy up there? That ain’t me.”

Because how many of us have a version of “Coach” that we put on? The voice gets deeper. The profanity increases. The anger gets manufactured. The speech gets louder. We perform toughness because somewhere along the way we learned that this is what leadership in men's sports is supposed to look and sound like.

Maybe that's what happened here. Maybe it isn't. I don't know Coach Hammock well enough to make that claim about him. But I damn sure know I've seen it happen in coaching.

I’ve seen Coach Hammock’s pressers as a college coach (albeit never behind the scenes cutups from any Hard Knocks type production) and he was NOT this guy in those public settings.

It’s worthy of both a reflection and #MirrorTraining by him, but also as an example for you and your own staff to navigate as well. Go find film of yourself coaching this week. Not game film. YOU film. A timeout. A practice huddle. A pregame speech. Something where you're doing the talking. Turn off the sound first and watch your players.

Are they with you?

Then turn the sound back on and listen to yourself.

Is that actually you talking—or are you performing what you think a coach is supposed to sound like?

Coach Prompts

1. When you turn the sound off on film of yourself coaching, what do your players' faces tell you?

2. What parts of your coaching personality are authentically yours—and what parts did you inherit because you thought that's what a coach was supposed to look like?

3. When do you find yourself getting louder, tougher or more profane than you naturally are? What are you trying to accomplish in those moments?

Player Prompts

1. How can you tell when a coach is genuinely fired up versus trying to manufacture intensity?

2. What makes something a coach says actually stick with you?

3. Does yelling or profanity make a coaching message more powerful to you? When does it make you tune out instead?

One of the things DeCA asks us to examine is Coach Readiness. And readiness isn't just knowing what you want your athletes to learn. It's being able to communicate it in a way they can actually receive.

Your athletes can't make decisions aligned with lessons that never got through.

The Decision Confidence Analysis™ gives coaches a way to examine whether the teaching they believe they're doing is actually supported by the systems they've built around their athletes.

What Are the Other 20 Players Doing?

Our blog today is going to be one of those “Where’s Waldo” type film exercises. I say that knowing that I am both DATING the hell out of myself (as Waldo picture books where you had to physically search high and low on a page for Waldo’s red and white hat are a thing of the past) and asking you to deploy a “gotcha” type moment in your film room.

Background first: the screengrab above is allegedly from film from a South Dakota HS soccer game (originally posted here). The first 10-20 seconds are just soccer action but I think that is the hook setting you need for a TeamsOfMen session impact here. As the game plays out you get the moment above where competitive intensity turns into a violent assault by one of the players against an opponent.

Yes, you can (and probably should) stop the film then and there to talk about emotional fluency and processing on the field (note: this film works for any sport, not just soccer). That’s fine, especially for a first year, first month or first exposure ToM program.

But, where the real work can happen is letting it play after that and stopping the film at say the point below.

And I say that because the assault is happening. The defender is on top, wailing away with punches at the offensive player.

Now LOOK AROUND.

Ask your players to SCAN the rest of the field. Who is reacting to this? Who is MOVING to this? Who, in the moment, has the courage to go over and STOP THIS? Literally ask them for body counts, for descriptions of age, of team affiliation, etc.

You are going to be able to have a myriad of conversations from this film, including but not limited to:

• Look at the teammates FROZEN of the attacker. Why aren’t they rushing to stop him? Is staying out of it necessarily the wrong response?

• Look at the teammates of the kid being assaulted. How are they reacting? What would you do?

• One teammate eventually comes flying into the situation and reportedly throws punches himself. Is that protecting his teammate—or escalating the violence? Where's the line?

• If this was your teammate and he came back to the bench after tackling and punching an opponent, what would you say to him? Why?

• Where are both teams' coaches? Did they get there in time in your opinion? What should they do next?

Hell, I’m interested in the comments you could record during playing of the clip from you team. What was the breakdown of laughs, shock and silence? What does that tell you about your program climate and culture?

Email me any and all feedback!

Coach Prompts

• When violence suddenly happens, what do your players believe “having your teammate's back” requires them to do?

• Have you ever explicitly discussed the difference between protecting a teammate and retaliating for one?

• What did your players' first reactions to this video reveal that their polished answers afterward might not?

Player Prompts

• Forget the two players on the ground. Who else on the screen made a decision you noticed?

• If someone attacks your teammate, what does “having his back” actually require from you?

• Where is the line between protecting your teammate and becoming another person who needs to be stopped?

The attacker makes one decision. Everybody else on that screen suddenly has to make one too.

And most of them don't have time for a team meeting, a coach's speech or a reminder of your program values before making it.

That's Decision Confidence.

The TeamsOfMen Decision Confidence Analysis™ (DeCA) asks coaches to examine whether they've intentionally built the systems, conversations and repetitions that prepare athletes for moments exactly like this one—when the coach isn't standing beside them telling them what the right decision is.

When the Laughs Tell You Something

Shout out to long time TeamsOfMen practitioner and Inner Circle member Coach Chris Horton of Warren Wilson College Men’s Basketball for the share of this video (originally posted on X here). The video shows a scene from The Carmichael Show (allegedly Season 3 Episode 1) with a family debating the nature of consent, rape and sexual assault. I have never watched the show, but familiar faces like David Alan Grier, Jerrod Carmichael and Tiffany Haddish interact in the scene and the discussion feels authentic enough that it’s worth a share with your players.

As a coach running this, I would let it play one time through without any comment from you or your staff. Then, at the conclusion (it’s about four and a half minutes long) I would ask the players to physically stand up. Ask them to sit down on the left side if they agree with the argument from the character “Maxine” or sit on the right side if they agree with the argument from the men in the show. Additionally, you can allow players to stay in the middle and call that the “I don’t know yet” space.

Next, I would have them pick one note taker and then as the clip is played again, write down/record which aspects they most identified with. Then, have the note taker and another elected voice from the group stand up and present the WHY behind why they sat down on the side they did.

Now, let’s be real clear here coach: This is not a “both sides are equally right” or a “let’s all kumbaya in the middle of this thing” moment. Rape is (statistically speaking) very unlikely to fit the stereotype of a man in the bushes or a random stranger breaking into your house at night. It is much more likely (statistically) to come from someone known to the victim. In fact, the study linked above found that literally 76% of SA is committed by someone known to the victim. So we’re not going to end this session with your guys who agreed with the old man’s point of view getting a pat on the back and a “hey bro, great convo today” as they leave.

No, you’re going to ask them “where did you learn the ideas or stereotypes that lead you to believe that side of this thing” and “what parts of the manbox are showing up when you lean towards that definition or belief of what rape and SA are” and finally “why was it so hard for you to engage with what the female character was saying”? And then coach, I want you to take specific notes at the answers you get.

They will be a window into the ideas about sex, consent, women and sexual assault that already exist in your team room.

Notice I labeled it an abstract set of ideas and not some targeting of your guys. That is important. Because to engage with them, you will need to separate them from those beliefs. Our hope is they are embracing unlearning and curiosity and vulnerability in your program on a daily basis, so this ask won’t feel foreign. But, in all honesty, you need to be prepared to unearth some things about your guys that don’t sit well. While the clip itself is from a comedy, the topic and the WHEN of the laughs are going to unearth UGLY in your vicinity.

But, that’s the point of TeamsOfMen.

Better to find this now, when they are HS to college aged young people who have lots of time to grow and discard nonsense, than to find out later when they are set in stone and acting towards these ideas. You have the “laboratory” for them in your gym, on your field, in your team room, to run the experiments they need to field test the bullshit.

And hopefully, when the results come back, it hits them in a way that starts the change we want to see.

Coach Prompts

1. If your players watched this clip today, which arguments do you think would get the most agreement—and why?

2. Where are your athletes currently learning what counts as consent, rape and sexual assault if you aren't intentionally talking about it with them?

3. What belief could surface during this conversation that would be difficult for you to hear without immediately judging the player who said it?

Player Prompts

1. Where did your definition of rape and sexual assault actually come from?

2. Which argument in this clip felt most believable to you—and what made it feel believable?

3. Has anything you once believed about consent changed as you've gotten older? What changed it?

And coach, this is prevention infrastructure.

Not waiting until one of your athletes is accused of crossing a sexual boundary and then scrambling to figure out what your guys believe about consent. Creating the space beforehand to surface those beliefs, challenge them, and give your players reps thinking through situations they may actually encounter.

That is exactly the kind of intentional system the TeamsOfMen Decision Confidence Analysis™ (DeCA) is designed to help you examine. If you're curious how much of that prevention infrastructure actually exists in your program right now, start there.

What If He Tells You First?

Full disclosure (without sharing the personal experience of past players and family members) I’ve walked alongside folks experiencing both sides of online sexual exploitation. I been trusted with the agony of the one whose body images are being used to blackmail and I’ve heard the reactions when unsolicited pics are suddenly sent. Both experiences are layered, confusing, emotion laced situations.

I share the above article from Amanda Goharian on LinkedIN because I think coaches-especially coaches of male athletes-need to save it. Not because Amanda wrote it for our industry (it’s actually for mother’s of children) but precisely because when a male athlete is living through this, you could be the very first person they confide in. And in that moment, you want to be able to help.

As we do when prepping for any game on our schedule, we want to have the clearest picture possible of the challenges our opponent presents. An athlete living through online sexual exploitation is obviously far more consequential than any game, but the need to prepare before you're in it still applies.

I want you to read the article entirely, but here’s a couple heavy takeaways to start your “scouting report”:

• Reporting the exploitation and supporting the person being exploited are two different jobs.

• The first adult response can either reduce or compound the harm.

• “Here’s a number—call it” isn't necessarily support.

Whichever one of those makes you feel the most uneasy is where you should begin your prep work and exploration of resources and best practices.

You can also reach out to me privately. I’m more willing to share details of my own experiences one-on-one than I am here on a very public blog. Remember, while we know and embrace the power of story to connect with one another, if it’s not OUR story to tell, a public forum can be a very hurtful place to share someone else’s experience—even when we mean well.

When we sign on to be the coach of male athletes, we have to recognize all that encompasses, especially in the technology-rich environment that is 2026. There are perils and risks associated with simply being 16–22 years old right now that did not exist when we were young coaches, much less when we were players. Our work requires us to stay current with trends in the games we coach AND—as TeamsOfMen will forever champion—stay up to speed with what faces the human beings in our care as well.

Coach Prompts

• If an athlete told you today that intimate images were being used to blackmail them, would you know what to do in the first 30 minutes?

• Who in your school or athletic department is equipped to help you respond to online sexual exploitation—and do you know how to reach them before you need them?

• What topics affecting your athletes are you currently less prepared for than you would accept being for an opponent on your schedule?

Player Prompts

• If you or a teammate were being threatened or blackmailed with intimate images, which adults would you trust enough to tell?

• What would an adult need to say or do in the first few minutes for you to feel supported rather than judged?

• If a teammate came to you with something this serious, would you know how to help them get to a trusted adult without trying to handle it yourself?

Situations like this are exactly why we created the TeamsOfMen Decision Confidence Analysis™ (DeCA). It doesn't test whether you know how to respond to every challenge your athletes might face. It examines something bigger: how much intentional prevention infrastructure actually exists around the young people in your care.

If this article has you wondering what your team, program, or athletic department has intentionally put in place beforesomething happens, take the free DeCA and find out.

What Elite Athletes Can’t Outsource

So, yes, I was as surprised as you are to learn Tracy McGrady is on LinkedIn and actually posts.

Not as a judgment of T-Mac, but overall, someone with that level of celebrity rarely shows up on here. (And yes, I know it could literally be a paid employee doing it for him.)

Either way, it was really cool to see the work he has done with the rebranding and rebirth of ABCD Camp. For those unfamiliar, ABCD was a legendary basketball camp that McGrady himself attended in 1996, before eventually jumping from high school straight to the NBA.

Twenty years after the camp disappeared, McGrady brought it back this summer with 45 invite-only players, some as young as eighth grade.

And look at what they've intentionally built around the basketball.

Financial literacy. NIL education. Media training. Access to current and former NBA players. All alongside high-level basketball instruction.

That's awesome.

More importantly, it acknowledges something I wish more athletic spaces would acknowledge: if we're going to put young people into environments that can dramatically change their lives, preparing them athletically isn't enough.

Why, then, did I leave this comment on what was otherwise a post I really liked?

Because I think all too frequently well-intentioned folks creep right up to the starting blocks of what TeamsOfMen believes in, and then—whether from fear, naivety or intentional avoidance—don't go further.

There is absolutely a need for what McGrady and ABCD Camp put these 45 invite-only, high-level, and in some cases likely future professional basketball players through.

My issue is twofold.

First, if some of these young men eventually sign NBA contracts, they're probably going to hire people to help them with many of the things they're currently being taught.

Someone will manage their money. Someone will negotiate their endorsements and NIL opportunities. Someone will help prepare them for media appearances. There will be agents, financial advisors, publicists, team personnel and an entire infrastructure surrounding the professional athlete.

But there's one really important job nobody can be hired to do for them:

Make their choices.

And that's my second issue.

Because some of the most challenging things these young men may eventually navigate won't happen during a television interview or while looking at an investment portfolio.

They'll happen when they're navigating relationships and sex. Rejection and jealousy. Alcohol and parties. Conflict with a partner. The behavior of teammates. Anger. Loneliness. Ego. Social media. Suddenly having enormous amounts of money, fame, attention and access.

Their character may be tested in ways it never has been before.

Where are the reps for THAT at camp?

My comment gets into this in more detail, but it's also the question I have for so many people and organizations inside athletic ecosystems that proudly tell us they are teaching young people "life lessons" through sport:

Why do those life lessons so conveniently manage to dodge some of the hardest conversations they'll actually face?

I'm not suggesting ABCD Camp needs to become a week-long seminar on masculinity, consent and healthy relationships. Nor am I suggesting financial literacy, NIL education or media training aren't incredibly valuable.

I'm asking why those subjects qualify so easily as player development, while the decisions that determine how a young man treats another human being so often don't.

If we're courageous enough to prepare an eighth grader for the possibility that basketball might someday make him rich and famous, shouldn't we also be courageous enough to prepare him for who he will need to be when it does?

Coach Prompts

• Look at everything you intentionally teach your athletes away from the X's and O's. Which parts prepare them to perform and succeed, and which parts prepare them to make difficult decisions as young men?

• What difficult situations involving relationships, consent, rejection, alcohol, anger, social media, teammates or status are your athletes likely to encounter? Where do they get reps preparing for those situations in your program?

• When you say your program “teaches life lessons,” which of those lessons require you to have conversations that are actually uncomfortable?

Player Prompts

• Think about the adults helping prepare you for basketball, school, work, money and your future. Who is helping prepare you for the difficult decisions you'll have to make when none of those adults are around?

• What situations outside of basketball do you feel least prepared to handle well right now?

• When have you had to make a decision involving relationships, friends, anger, pressure or social media where you wished you'd had a chance to think through it beforehand?

Your program probably says it teaches life lessons. But which ones are you intentionally preparing your athletes for—and which ones are you hoping they figure out on their own?

The Decision Confidence Analysis™ (DeCA) helps coaches examine the actual prevention and decision-making infrastructure inside their program—not what they hope they're teaching, but what they've intentionally put in place.

What Are Your Team Rituals Actually Teaching?

@PierreFleury_ is someone I’ve reposted often on IG, and one of his recent posts (screenshot above) shares a video I think every coach should watch and grapple with. It shows what appears to be the pregame hype routine for a youth football team. More specifically, Pierre takes issue with the chant the ADULTS appear to be leading the kids in.

Press play yourself and then ask your staff, “Would we want these kids—or your own HS or college guys—launching into a ‘B***h WHAT’ chant before we kick off, tip off, or start running?”

Seriously, if you watch this video, you will see the glee the adults are having alongside the kids. The family members in the background JOINING IN, and even younger siblings echoing the chant. What are we even doing here?

We are not seeing a space ABSENT of life lessons. To the contrary, we see a space normalizing language and ritual around sport that clearly involves problematic language and ideas. And this isn't language sneaking past the adults. The adults appear to be helping lead it. We see the architects of this being the adults who are responsible for establishing what is normal in this team space.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: “Team rooms are not neutral. They are either spaces of unlearning and growth OR they are spaces of perpetration and harm.”

Coach: You have enormous influence over where your space lands. What are the rituals you’re allowing—or actively leading—teaching your guys?

Coach Prompts

• What pregame, locker-room or team rituals have become so routine that your staff has stopped examining what they actually communicate?

• What language would you immediately correct from an athlete but currently tolerate when it's wrapped in competition, humor or hype?

• If younger athletes copied every behavior your staff currently models and celebrates, which ones would you be proud to see replicated?

Player Prompts

• What are some things you've learned are "normal" in sports simply because older players or adults did them first?

• Does language become harmless because everyone is laughing or using it to get hyped? Why or why not?

• What team traditions would you want younger athletes copying from you someday?

If today's post made you wonder what your team's everyday rituals are teaching your athletes—whether you intended those lessons or not—don't guess.

Click here to run the free Decision Confidence Analysis™ and discover where your program is reinforcing healthy decision-making—and where hidden gaps may still exist.