"Let Me See Your Phone"

Today's headlines on ESPN included a write-up on the latest allegations involving Denver Broncos linebacker Jonathon Cooper. I won't spend much time on the details because, frankly, that's not where I think the value is for us as coaches. You can summarize it for your players as allegations that Cooper physically assaulted his girlfriend and violated protection orders, with the dispute itself reportedly stemming from an argument involving cell phones, accusations of infidelity, and access to personal communications.

There is immediate TeamsOfMen material here around healthy versus unhealthy relationships, emotional regulation, accountability, and keeping your hands to your damn self. But I actually think there is an overlooked connection point hiding inside the story that maps directly onto the daily lives of the athletes we coach.

The cell phone.

Not the lazy "kids are on their phones too much" conversation that adults seem determined to have every five minutes. I'm talking about the role cell phones now play inside intimate relationships.

I write this after spending an entire weekend driving a mini bus full of high school boys basketball players. When they weren't asleep or wearing headphones, they spent an inordinate amount of time huddled around somebody's phone trying to navigate texts, Snapchats, and interactions with girls. We've talked in our program about how a text thread is not a sanctioned watch party for all the homies, but we're still dealing with the constant chorus of "You should say this, bro," "She's capping," or "Don't respond yet." Personal conversations routinely become group projects.

Over the years, both as a college coach and now as a high school coach, I've also heard countless versions of "She wants to see my phone," "I need to check her phone," or "If you've got nothing to hide, why won't you let me look?" More often than not, those requests—and the arguments that follow—are rooted in skills we supposedly want young men to develop. Trust. Self-worth. Integrity. Communication. Emotional regulation. Yet whether they're playing out a script they saw on Love Island or genuinely worried they're being cheated on, I've seen plenty of 16- to 22-year-olds completely crash out over access to a cell phone.

That's why I think this story provides coaches with a natural entry point into a deeper conversation.

Not because you need to walk your team through every allegation. Not because you need to become a relationship counselor. But because almost every athlete in your room has either had this argument, watched a friend have this argument, or will eventually find themselves in a situation where trust, jealousy, insecurity, and cell phone access collide.

• What does it mean if your partner wants to see your phone?

• What does it mean if you want to see theirs?

• Is access the same thing as trust?

• Can a relationship survive without privacy?

• Can it survive without trust?

• At what point does concern become control?

Those are team room questions.

And if you don't want to tackle all of them, you can literally put the highlighted section of the article on the screen, point to the fact that this entire situation reportedly escalated over "let me see your phone," and ask your players what they think. My guess is you'll have more discussion than you know what to do with.

Coach Prompts

1. How has cell phone access changed the way young people navigate relationships?

2. What is the difference between transparency and surveillance in a relationship?

3. How can coaches create conversations about trust without becoming relationship experts?

Player Prompts

1. If someone asks to see your phone, what do you think they're actually looking for?

2. Is having access to a partner's phone the same thing as trusting them? Why or why not?

3. When does concern about a relationship become control over a relationship?

What Are We Teaching Young Men About Trust?

The topic (based upon the post above from @bitkhealth) most likely falls in that category coaches would tell me “Kip, there is NO WAY I’m touching that with a team.” It covers relationships, it involves how partners dress, and it could lead to BIG EMOTIONS in the room (all of which I understand a coach being leery of).

However, I also know this is 100% something your teenage and young adult players have thought about, witnessed, debated, or found themselves arguing about. And if we're being honest here, Coach, I bet you have too.

I would encourage you to approach this post in two ways. First, scroll through all of the slides. The author does a tremendous job laying out the different ways a man who is hell bent (and insecure) on controlling his partner might argue before she leaves the house, while also demonstrating how those arguments fall apart when examined through the lens of trust, autonomy, and healthy relationship skills.

Second, I would focus specifically on the comment featured in the title image of our blog today. What you're reading there is a Manbox-infused perception of how relationships are supposed to work. The commenter is somehow arguing that it is not insecure to micromanage a partner's clothing choices because "men will look at her a certain way" and that only a "simp" would allow this to happen. He even says that "she wants a leader," as if women are growing up like cattle looking for a ranch hand to guide them through the world.

What's most revealing is what sits underneath that viewpoint. It is fear masquerading as leadership. Fear of other men. Fear of losing control. Fear that trust is weakness. Fear that a partner exercising autonomy somehow diminishes your role in the relationship. None of that is leadership. Leadership requires trust. Leadership requires security. Leadership requires the ability to respect another person's agency, even when they make choices you would not make yourself.

What's most scary, Coach, is that you're probably not surprised by this viewpoint at all. You may have heard versions of it from players, friends, teammates, family members, or social media personalities. You might even have held pieces of it yourself at one point in your life. At the very least, I suspect most men can identify a season when they spent more time worrying about what other men might think, do, or say than they did trusting the person they claimed to care about.

That's why I think there is tremendous value in a coach being willing to tell that story. "I was insecure. I was a bit of a controller. I spent too much time worrying about other men and not enough time trusting my partner. I confused control with care." Then explain what helped you move beyond that viewpoint and why you eventually realized it wasn't serving either of you. Those conversations create opportunities for growth in ways that lectures rarely do.

This is a topic that requires intention and nuance. It is not a topic to avoid. And if your immediate reaction is that it should be avoided, then I would encourage you to do a little Mirror Training of your own and ask why.

Coach Prompts

1. What messages about relationships did you absorb as a young man that you later had to unlearn?

2. Where is the line between concern for a partner and control over a partner?

3. Why do conversations about relationships feel riskier for coaches than conversations about sportsmanship or teamwork?

Player Prompts

1. What is the difference between trust and control in a relationship?

2. Can someone genuinely care about a partner while also trying to control their choices?

3. What does healthy leadership look like in a relationship, and what does unhealthy leadership look like?

Sometimes The Answer Is The Answer

Before I show you the screen grabs of the comments men made that @defineconsentiowa is referring to (after she posted a simple “I believe if you pressure someone into sex after they repeatedly said no, that is SA”), I want you, as coaches of male athletes, to ask yourselves the following:

“Do my guys REALLY understand that no means no the first time?”

I ask you this because in today’s athletics “grind” and “chase your dreams” culture, I think you have witnessed your guys (and their parents) blowing past BOUNDARIES YOU SET first hand. What do I mean by this? Think to yourself about that conversation you had with a player about the role you foresaw for him on the team, and not a week later, he was asking you for another meeting to reassess. Or that time you explained to a player that his snap count was going to be lower that game, and then a day later he asked you for a meeting to talk about how he could get more?

Are these signals of a predator? NO. But they do show that young men today (who are emboldened and encouraged by the content they consume and the clichés their parents and adult influences peddle) rarely take the truth of their ability to be real. They embrace a “Mamba” mentality and think, “If I just push more, I can change his mind about me.”

And this is where NUANCE in coaching and life matters. Yes, you need him to embrace the idea of improvement and growth, but you also need him to understand that there are limits to this thing. He will most likely never be able to work hard enough to change your evaluation of him this season and his role (let alone magically become Messi overnight on the pitch). He won’t be able to grind into a 96 mph fastball if, as a senior, he is at 74 mph.

It’s not in the cards.

Now, hopefully you can see the through line here to the mindset of the awful takes below (when it comes to women saying no and trying to set a physical boundary)

You can feel the rage here. You can read the lack of respect in the first NO. You also, if you’re being honest with yourself, can SEE in your mind that same kid who was wanting to lash out at you when you cut him, told him he wasn’t a starter, he wasn’t going to get carries in the red zone, or he wasn’t going to pitch this weekend.

The situations are obviously not equivalent. But the underlying mindset deserves our attention.

The belief that if I want something badly enough, my boundary is negotiable. The belief that your answer is merely temporary resistance. The belief that my desire matters more than your decision.

This IS a team room conversation.

And if we don't help young men understand the difference between persistence and boundary violation, someone else eventually will.

Coach Prompts

1. How often do we unintentionally celebrate "never take no for an answer" thinking in our athletes?

2. What is the difference between persistence and disrespect?

3. How can coaches teach boundary-respect without discouraging ambition and growth?

Player Prompts

1. When have you struggled to accept an answer you didn't want to hear from a coach?

2. What's the difference between advocating for yourself and refusing to respect someone's decision?

3. Can you think of situations where persistence is a strength and situations where persistence becomes a problem?

The Coaching Phrase I'm Reconsidering

Don’t be fooled, Coach.

That urge you have right now, that feeling telling you “I don’t want to read this one, Kip. You got little kid graphics on here,” is your own Manbox conditioning popping up and trying to steer your behavior. Stick with me for at least another paragraph.

What you see is the first of three slides of alternative phrases for us to use in place of “Calm Down” (or, as I know I’ve been saying a lot to my guys this past year, “No crash-outs”). Just because they are part of a 3-graphic production from @teachwithbronte on Instagram, and she happens to be a kindergarten teacher in Australia, doesn’t make this “soft” or “too cute” for your male athletes. To the contrary, I think it’s worth figuring out which ones might be better language tools for you and your staff, and if not directly applicable, how you would swap in your words for similar usage to bring your player down from an emotionally charged reaction IN GAME?

I’m thinking of myself last weekend. I’m remembering a player furious with what he FELT like was both a poor call on a rebound by an official and his feeling that “no one is effing helping me on the boards”.

I pulled him.

I said, “NO, we aren’t going to start pointing fingers, dammit. I saw 4 other guys working with you. The call just didn’t go your way. Calm down.”

With these phrases, I think I would absolutely still PULL HIM, but I would lead with “What are you feeling the most? Because it looks like you're pissed at your teammates, but I bet you’re more upset with the ref,” and see where that takes us (either way the convo takes place right next to me on the bench).

I’ll put the other two graphics below after our usual prompts, so you and your staff can have a chance to work through the same “this instead of that” exercise I just modeled.

I’ll leave you with something poignant from the author herself: “Our words can either dismiss a feeling or help a child feel safe enough to move through it. Sometimes the most powerful response isn't telling a child to calm down—it's helping them feel understood.”

Coach Prompts

1. What phrases do you use most often when a player is emotionally escalating during a game?

2. How often do you lead with correction versus curiosity in those moments?

3. Which phrase from the graphics could realistically become part of your coaching vocabulary this season?

Player Prompts

1. When you're frustrated during a game, what responses from coaches help you regain control fastest?

2. Is there a difference between someone telling you to calm down and someone trying to understand why you're upset?

3. When have your emotions caused you to misidentify what you were actually angry about?

The Decision Hidden Inside Non-Decisions

We wrote about Josh Jacobs’ legal troubles late last month, and this blog is obviously both a follow-up to that conversation and a critique of how the Packers’ coaching staff and organization chose to proceed after he was arrested on domestic violence charges.

As always, it is necessary to acknowledge that the legal process is still ongoing. Jacobs was clearly able to post bail and return to practice, and the case has not yet been resolved. It is also important to acknowledge that TeamsOfMen was born from a desire to help coaches actively engage male athletes in conversations and work that reduce and prevent violence against women. So when situations like this arise, I am far less interested in depth charts and rushing totals than in what leadership looks like when harm enters the picture.

What bothers me most is how quickly organizations retreat into business as usual.

That approach functions as a security blanket for coaches like, at least from the outside looking in, Matt LaFleur. What do I mean by that? I mean that if sport remains the sole focal point, coaches never have to grapple with the realities their players are wrapped up in beyond practices, film sessions, and dog piles of tackling. If I continually toe the company line and pretend my mouth is somehow sealed shut by an all-seeing "process playing out," then I never have to take a stand on how I believe someone representing my logo should act in society.

Instead, we get statements like, "We'll see what the authorities say."

It's a remarkably convenient sound bite.

It allows organizations to continue benefiting from a player's talent while avoiding any meaningful conversation about the possibility that someone may need intervention, accountability, or help. It avoids confronting the possibility that others may be at risk from the very behaviors being dismissed as separate from football. It allows leaders to remain comfortably passive while presenting that passivity as professionalism.

To me, that's "hear no evil, see no evil" leadership. Ostrich syndrome from grown men in positions of power.

And before someone jumps to the predictable response, no, I am not arguing that coaches should become judges, juries, or prosecutors.

What I am arguing is that organizations have choices.

At the very least, why couldn't the response be: "We will allow the legal process to play out. If our player is ultimately exonerated, we will welcome him back. If he is found guilty, we will not have compromised the integrity and stated values of our organization for a few extra rushing yards on Sunday."

That is a choice.

The fact that so few organizations make it tells us something.

Part of it is cowardice. Part of it is the persistent unwillingness to believe survivors. And part of it is the reality that many people in positions of power prefer systems that protect players because those same systems may someday protect them. If the precedent becomes that allegations of serious violence carry meaningful consequences during an investigation, then suddenly people have to imagine how those standards might apply to themselves, their friends, their colleagues, or their favorite players.

So the safest path becomes pretending there is no decision being made at all.

But there is.

Allowing business as usual is a decision.

Continuing to benefit from someone's labor while distancing yourself from the allegations surrounding them is a decision.

Claiming neutrality while one side of the situation is carrying all the risk is a decision.

It's gross. It's disappointing. And unfortunately, it remains a pattern that runs through major college athletics and professional sports alike.

We must be better.

Coach Prompts

1. When a player is accused of serious harm, what responsibilities do coaches have beyond simply waiting for the legal process?

2. What is the difference between respecting due process and avoiding leadership?

3. How do our actions communicate organizational values more clearly than our mission statements?

Player Prompts

1. What message does a team send when nothing changes after a player is accused of harming someone?

2. Can a team claim certain values if it only enforces them after a court ruling?

3. What does accountability look like before guilt or innocence has been legally determined?

Nuance Is Not Neutrality

One thing that keeps rattling around in my head after the Jackson Dart/Abdul Carter conversation is how quickly people want locker rooms to be "neutral."

When situations like that come up, especially among right-wing and MAGA-leaning folks, there is often an expectation that you shouldn't be upset with someone for supporting racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic nonsense because, under their version of locker room neutrality, we're all supposed to come together toward one common goal.

But that only serves one side.

A lack of nuance in the locker room. A lack of accountability in the locker room. A lack of critical analysis of our relationships and beliefs in the locker room. Those things overwhelmingly serve the side of oppression and hatred.

Because what is really being asked?

What is often being asked is, "Can I just come in here, play football, and continue holding these harmful views without anybody making me grapple with them?"

And if the answer becomes, "Actually, yes, we're going to talk about that too," suddenly people claim politics is invading sports.

I don't think that's what's happening at all. I think what is actually happening is that people are being asked to engage with nuance. And nuance is not neutrality. Those are not the same thing.

I think this applies to fandom too.

A lot of fans, particularly right-leaning fans, want sports to remain an escape from reality. They don't want to deal with the adult complexity that comes from recognizing that the quarterback on their favorite team isn't a robot designed to throw touchdowns. He's a human being. And human beings have beliefs. They have values. They make choices.

Sometimes those choices make you uncomfortable. Sometimes those beliefs make you question whether you want to cheer for them. And when that happens, the escape gets interrupted. But that's not politics ruining sports.

That's adulthood.

That's being asked to hold multiple truths at the same time. The player might be talented. The player might help your team win. The player might also support ideas you find harmful. All of those things can be true simultaneously.

That's nuance.

Nuance is being able to sit with multiple realities at once and emerge with a critical perspective on all of them.

Neutrality, on the other hand, often becomes a demand that nobody critically examine anything because doing so might make someone uncomfortable.

And if we're serious about developing young men, I don't think neutrality is the goal.

I think the goal is helping them become capable of navigating complexity.

Coach Prompts

• What topics get labeled "too political" in your program, and who benefits from avoiding them?

• What is the difference between creating space for disagreement and demanding neutrality?

• Are your players learning how to navigate complexity or simply avoid it?

Player Prompts

• Can you support a teammate while disagreeing with some of their beliefs?

• What's the difference between neutrality and nuance?

• Have you ever felt pressure to stay silent because speaking honestly might make others uncomfortable?

What If I Say The Wrong Thing?

One of the most honest conversations I had during my recent appearance on the Hoop Heads Podcast had nothing to do with offensive sets, leadership strategies, or team culture. It centered around a fear I hear from coaches all the time.

"What if I say the wrong thing?"

Beneath that question are a dozen others.

What if a parent complains? What if a player misunderstands my intent? What if a conversation gets taken out of context? What if addressing something beyond basketball puts my job at risk?

I think those fears are real. Pretending they don't exist doesn't help anyone.

We coach in a time where people are understandably protective of their children, where communication travels instantly, and where a single comment can be amplified far beyond the original conversation. It makes sense that some coaches would hesitate before stepping into discussions about character, relationships, identity, emotions, or the social pressures their athletes face.

But I also think there is a danger in allowing fear to become the deciding factor in what we choose to teach.

The reality is that coaches are already shaping young men every day. Silence teaches. Avoidance teaches. The decision not to address something is still a decision, and it still carries a lesson.

What has helped me over the years is remembering that the goal is not to convince athletes to become a specific version of who I think they should be. The goal is to expand what they believe is possible.

Too often, young men inherit a very narrow definition of manhood. They are told, directly or indirectly, what they are supposed to care about, how they are supposed to act, what emotions are acceptable to show, and what parts of themselves they should hide. My job is not to hand them a different rigid script. My job is to help them examine the script they've been given and introduce them to possibilities they may have never considered.

When the conversation starts there, most of the fear begins to lose its grip.

You are not telling athletes what to think. You are teaching them how to think.

You are not prescribing an identity. You are creating opportunities for reflection.

You are not trying to control who they become. You are helping them see that they have choices.

And frankly, that's what great coaching has always been.

Coach Prompts

• What important conversation have you avoided because of fear of getting it wrong?

• How do you distinguish between teaching athletes what to think and teaching them how to think?

• What lessons might your athletes be learning from the topics you choose not to address?

Player Prompts

• Who has helped you see possibilities for yourself that you hadn't considered before?

• What messages about being a man do you hear most often from society, social media, or peers?

• What parts of yourself feel most authentic, regardless of what others expect from you?

A Haven Is Not A Hideout

One of the most common misconceptions about TeamsOfMen is that we're trying to create a soft landing spot where athletes are protected from accountability, hard conversations, or personal growth. I understand where that assumption comes from. When people hear words like "haven," "emotional fluency," or "vulnerability," they sometimes imagine a space where expectations are lowered and standards disappear.

That's never been the goal.

What we're trying to create is what some researchers and educators call a "third space"—a place where young people know they will be challenged to become better while also knowing they are valued as human beings. A haven is not a hideout. It isn't a place to escape growth. It's a place where growth becomes possible because trust exists alongside accountability.

The athletes I work with are asked to look in the mirror regularly. They're asked to reflect on their choices, examine their assumptions, own their mistakes, and consider the impact they have on the people around them. Those aren't soft expectations. In many ways, they're harder than running another sprint or lifting a little more weight.

The part that often gets overlooked is that coaches are being asked to do the same thing. If we're going to ask young men to engage in self-reflection, we should be willing to do it ourselves. The mirror isn't just for players.

I often think about the Aspen Institute research that asked young people what they wanted most from sports. Winning mattered. Competition mattered. Improvement mattered. But the highest-rated response wasn't about championships or trophies. It was the desire to learn life skills that would help them beyond athletics.

That finding shouldn't surprise us.

Most athletes understand, whether they can articulate it or not, that their playing careers will eventually end. What they are searching for is something that lasts longer than the final game.

The reality is that players are far more likely to buy into a coach's vision when they feel seen as people first. Coaches love talking about leadership and culture, but leadership is not simply getting athletes to survive a hard workout together. Culture is not just shared suffering. If a player feels invisible, unheard, or valued only for what he produces, eventually that disconnect shows up. And when the hardest moments arrive—when the charge needs to be taken, the box out needs to happen, or the sacrifice needs to be made—it becomes much harder to ask for complete commitment from someone who doesn't feel connected to the people around him.

A haven is not the absence of standards.

It's a place where standards and belonging exist together.

Coach Prompts

• How do you currently balance accountability and belonging within your program?

• What opportunities do your athletes have for self-reflection beyond athletic performance?

• Are your players being asked to grow only as competitors, or as people as well?

Player Prompts

• When do you feel most valued by your coaches and teammates?

• What life skills have you learned through sports that extend beyond competition?

• What does accountability look like when it's paired with trust rather than fear?

“That’s Not Him”

One of the points I shared during my recent appearance on the Hoop Heads Podcast was that I think coaches sometimes spend too much time focusing on behavior and not enough time investigating what is underneath it.

Every coach has had the experience. A player says something cruel. A player starts a fight. A player shows off. A player takes a joke too far. A player does something that leaves us shaking our heads. And somewhere in the conversation that follows, a coach inevitably says, "That's not him."

Maybe.

But maybe it is. Or at least maybe it's the version of himself he feels pressure to become in that moment.

One of the concepts we discuss in TeamsOfMen is the idea of "man points"—the invisible scoreboard many boys and young men carry around that tells them they have to constantly prove something. Toughness. Dominance. Fearlessness. Status. Control. Popularity. Coolness. Whatever the category, the message is often the same: perform correctly and you'll earn approval.

When that scoreboard becomes the priority, young men start performing instead of being. They interrupt because they want attention. They laugh because they don't want to look weak. They pile on because they don't want to be the next target. They say things they don't actually believe because they're trying to earn approval from the room.

From the outside, it looks like bad behavior. Sometimes it is. But the behavior is often the symptom, not the cause.

This is why simply telling boys to "be respectful" rarely creates lasting change. If we never address the pressures they feel to perform masculinity in a certain way, we're asking them to fight a battle we haven't even named.

The question isn't always, "How do I stop this behavior?" Sometimes the better question is, "What is he trying to prove?"

That question won't excuse harmful actions. But it might help us understand them. And understanding creates opportunities for coaching that punishment alone never will.

Coach Prompts

• Think about the last time you said, "That's not him." What behavior were you reacting to?

• What pressures might that athlete have been feeling in that moment?

• How often do you address the belief underneath the behavior rather than the behavior itself?

Player Prompts

• Have you ever done something because you felt pressure to impress others?

• What are some of the unspoken expectations young men feel from teammates, friends, or social media?

• How can you tell when you're acting like yourself versus performing for approval?

The Day I Fired “The Sniper”

Last week I joined the Hoop Heads Podcast for a conversation about TeamsOfMen, coaching, and the ways our team rooms shape young men far beyond wins and losses.

One of the stories we discussed was incredibly small.

Or at least I thought it was.

Then I realized it wasn't.

Years ago, every time a player tripped over his own feet in practice, I'd yell, "SNIPER!" Everybody laughed. Including me. It was one of those throwaway coaching moments that felt harmless, normal, and honestly pretty funny.

Then one day I caught myself.

Why was violence-infused language so normal that I didn't even hear it anymore?

We weren't talking about actual violence, and we certainly weren't promoting it. But we were swimming in language that treated violence as the default reference point for humor, competition, and everyday interaction. It showed up in phrases, jokes, drills, and coaching shorthand that had become so common we rarely stopped to examine them.

So we made a small change.

Now when a player trips, we yell, "TIMBER!"

The laugh is still there. The joke is still there. The teaching moment is still there. The only thing that changed was the message underneath it.

The point isn't that yelling "sniper" is some catastrophic coaching failure. The point is that language teaches, whether we intend it to or not. Every phrase we normalize carries a lesson. Every repeated expression helps shape how our athletes think about themselves, their teammates, and the world around them.

If language teaches, then every coach has to ask a simple question:

Coach Prompts

• What phrase do you use regularly that you've never really examined?

• What language has become so normal in sports that you barely hear it anymore?

• If your athletes repeated your most common phrases, what would they learn from them?

Player Prompts

• What words or phrases get repeated most often on your team?

• Which ones build people up?

• Which ones might be worth rethinking?

What Women See That Men Don’t

What you’re looking at in the title image here is a study tracking where men and women’s eyes and gaze tended to go while walking through outdoor city environments. Dark red spots represent heavier concentrations of visual attention while blue spots represent less focus. As you can see, the way the two groups move through these spaces is drastically different.

In short, men generally look straight ahead, focused on destination and movement, almost as if the path itself is assumed to be safe. Meanwhile, women scan. They look around, paying particular attention to areas with low light, limited visibility, or difficult escape routes. That’s not coincidental. It’s a reflection of something many women instinctively know from lived experience: the possibility of danger changes how they move through the world.

The study’s conclusion is difficult to ignore: gendered violence shapes how women experience cities, influencing the way they navigate even routine moments like walking to a car, crossing a campus, or heading home at night.

So how is this applicable to your team of male athletes?

First, we talk in almost every sport about the need for clear, accurate, and timely vision. We can’t make decisions on a pass, shot, read, or pitch if our eyes aren’t clear. I think that idea extends well beyond sport. Seeing where you want to go, who you want to become, and how you want to move through life becomes harder when fear, distraction, or self-protection constantly takes up bandwidth.

Second — and this is the harder conversation — women are often scanning these spaces because of MEN.

And before the defensiveness rises up with “I would never” or “not all men,” I’d simply offer this: until women no longer feel the need to move through the world this way, then all men still have work to do.

• What are we doing in our spaces to make sure our boys are not becoming part of the problem?

• What kind of inner healing, emotional fluency, and accountability are we modeling ourselves so we are less likely to lash out, control, intimidate, or cause harm?

And where, specifically, can we point in our lives that would allow some of these mental hot spots of danger in a woman’s mind to slowly dissipate? Because if the women in our lives are navigating the world with one eye on safety, that should matter deeply to the men we claim we are trying to develop.

Coach Prompts

• What conversations are coaches avoiding about the ways women experience public spaces differently?

• How do we teach boys accountability without immediately triggering defensiveness?

• What behaviors in sports spaces unintentionally reinforce entitlement, intimidation, or control?

Player Prompts

• Why do you think women often experience public spaces differently than men?

• What role do boys and men have in helping people feel safer?

• What would it look like to be the kind of man who lowers fear instead of increasing it?

When Harm Enters The Headlines

I really don’t think continuing to write some version of “Why is this in a blog for coaches today?” is necessarily a strong literary device. But until I find another way to invite coaches into conversations I’ve long believed should be obvious for our profession — and yet somehow remain stuck on the periphery — I suppose I’ll keep asking variations of the question.

Green Bay Packers RB Josh Jacobs was arrested yesterday and is facing serious domestic violence-related charges, including strangulation and suffocation, tied to what authorities describe as an alleged disturbance involving a partner. The case is ongoing, and Jacobs has denied the allegations through counsel.

And I want to put this, AGAIN, in our space because the script surrounding prominent male athletes in moments like this feels painfully familiar.

Player is accused of violence. Media reports the charges. Team withholds commentary until “the legal process plays out.” And because of that vacuum, so much of the airtime immediately shifts toward defending his character, discussing his value to the team, offering up the usual “everyone deserves a second chance” line, or asking the inevitable question: “When will he be able to play again?”

Meanwhile, the person allegedly harmed starts disappearing from the story. Conversations about the broader patterns of behavior that often precede these moments go dark. And then, if actual consequences emerge for the athlete, we collectively act shocked that accountability showed up at all (and God forbid his team not have him for an OTA practice this week).

It’s DARVO. It’s JADE. And it’s rinse repeat.

I will do a full Tom Cruise-on-Oprah’s-couch celebration the first time one of these incidents is met by a panel of violence prevention experts, healthy relationship educators, or even ONE AMERICAN MALE COACH willing to say:

“We need to take a look in our team room and figure out why we are always apologizing for our lack of emotional fluency and the fallout harm that comes from those crash outs.”

It probably won’t happen on ESPN.

So here’s to hoping you have the willingness and bandwidth to do it in your team room today.

Because if you are the “leader of men” and “shaper of culture” your bio claims, then it should absolutely fall inside your wheelhouse to talk with the men in your room about how to handle themselves around partners, around children, and around people with less power — figuratively and literally — than them.

Otherwise, adjust your bio.

The White Lies Night Problem

Today’s blog is a co-sign and framing of a post on Instagram by @responsive_parenting concerning shirts teenage boys wore to a school function. I picked this one today because it struck a nerve about something I’ve seen far too often since entering the high school coaching space almost three years ago: “White Lies” themed T-shirt nights at sporting events.

If you haven’t experienced one of these before, in essence it encourages anyone attending a specific team’s game (including players themselves warming up on the court of play) to wear a plain white T-shirt with Sharpie-written “lies” about themselves. Why is this an issue? Because more often than not, teenagers decide the messaging on their shirts should move past a lighthearted fib like “I love homework” and all the way into manosphere-laced misogyny, sexual objectification, and degrading humor (see the shirts in the screenshots above).

These terrible shirts are paraded around a gym as funny, when really they become excuses to do exactly what the original post is calling out.

Why does this matter for TeamsOfMen and for coaches of male athletes?

Because moments like this are opportunities to interrupt nonsense, model what you allow in your spaces, and evaluate just how deeply the manosphere, pornography, and misogynistic humor have already rooted themselves in the minds of young men.

To begin with, you as the coach absolutely have the right to say, “No, we’re not doing a White Lies night at our game.” Like, it really can be that simple. “No. We don’t want it.” And if your players push back with, “Well, no one will come then,” you can either double down with, “Then we better do a better job of playing a style that attracts people without the bullshit,” or pivot toward, “Then let’s make a free team shirt the giveaway instead.” Either one works because both shift the emphasis back where it belongs: on your players earning an audience rather than becoming the side attraction to a harmful T-shirt runway show.

Now, if you’re at an event like this that you can’t control, then you and your staff need to start paying attention. Write down what you see on the shirts. Then sit together afterward and ask yourselves: “How would he gain access to this language?” “Why do they think that’s funny instead of insulting?” and “Why does hiding behind ‘it’s just a joke’ suddenly make harmful messaging feel acceptable in public?”

Once you have your list and have done a real debrief as a staff, go to administration and say, “Look at what the environment the other night was infused with. We need to address this.”

And then see what happens.

(Oh, and if you’re really interested in changing the vibe… CALL US.)

Coach Prompts

• What school traditions are quietly normalizing misogyny or harmful humor without adults challenging it?

• If your players wore their online influences on a shirt, what would you learn?

• What message does silence from adults send in moments like this?

Player Prompts

• Why do people sometimes laugh at things they would never say seriously out loud?

• When does “just joking” stop being harmless?

• What kind of environment do you actually want your games and school events to feel like?

When Life Bursts Into The Locker Room

Over the weekend, NY Giants QB Jaxon Dart garnered national attention for his introduction of President Trump. That act alone was making the rounds on social platforms, but went truly viral when teammate Abdul Carter responded in disbelief and shock to Dart’s actions with his own post below

Why is this in a blog for coaches trying to help male athletes toward a better, healthier masculinity?

Because so many of the comments following this exchange rushed to “protect” our team rooms from “politics.” Some even went so far as to argue that the only way to operate a sports program is through locker room “neutrality.”

I’m here to challenge that stance.

I’m here to lament the fact that in the year of our existence, 2026, we still have people pretending “politics” doesn’t touch every aspect of a coach’s or player’s life.

From the quality of the water your athletes hydrate with, to the funding available for your program, to the laws governing every state you travel to for competition, politics has already shaped those realities whether we acknowledge it or not.

Pretending this incident — where a white quarterback who has, at best, leaned heavily into Black culture (and at worst appropriated parts of it as a persona) introduced a convicted felon found liable for sexual abuse and widely criticized for racist rhetoric — would NOT stir something up for Black and brown players in your team room feels like willful ignorance.

Brushing it aside feels like full ostrich mode as a coach.

Head in the sand.

“Please guys, don’t make coaching harder than it needs to be.”

But it is hard.

Because your players are human beings experiencing the world exactly as it is, not as we wish it to be. And the world they experience follows them into the locker room.

Sure, you don’t hand out playing time based on voting choices.

But coaches have to be willing to create space for players from different backgrounds — race, religion, socioeconomic status, lived experience — to express what they see as non-negotiables in their relationships with teammates and coaches. If I’m in a Black or brown body and someone publicly aligns themselves with rhetoric or people I experience as hostile to my humanity, I’m probably going to feel a certain way about it.

Ignoring that feeling doesn’t make it disappear.

Coaches can’t claim “sports teaches life” and then, the moment life delivers discomfort into sports, suddenly pretend the two aren’t tied together.

Life is messy.

Life is disagreement.

Life is struggle.

And sports only become a meaningful mirror if we are willing to let them reflect the hard things too. If players emerge from difficult conversations still able to compete together, trust each other, and move forward, great. But it can’t be because we demanded everyone pretend they don’t believe what they believe.

Coach Prompts

• What topics get labeled “too political” in your team space and who benefits from avoiding them?

• What does healthy disagreement look like in a locker room full of different lived experiences?

• Are you creating real space for players to process difficult moments or simply asking them to move on?

Player Prompts

• Have you ever felt like something happening in the world followed you into sports?

• What makes it hard for people with different beliefs to actually talk to one another?

• Can teammates disagree deeply and still trust one another? What would that take?

Your Guys Are Really Close…But Are They Brave?

A couple things really struck me from this clip from @mandiptalkspredators on Instagram.

“Girls, if you’re in middle school or just starting out in high school…” is her opening warning to the audience, and it should immediately matter to those of us in coaching who WORK with that same age group of BOYS. So yes, coach, she is warning young women about the current lack of courage and bravery many boys have when it comes to standing up to one another.

Her statement that “boys are more insecure and hyper focused on maintaining their friend group and maintaining their cool in their friend group” is exactly the worry we have here at TeamsOfMen when coaches proudly tell us, “Our guys are really close. Our culture runs deep.”

Because, far too often, what sits underneath that closeness is a culture of silence and complicity around harmful language, laughing at someone else’s harm, or ignoring what teammates are doing right in front of one another.

Then she lands on this:

“They might not participate, but the best you can expect is that they will be quiet or leave [when harm is happening to you].”

That right there is the specific courage ask we constantly make of young men in TeamsOfMen sessions. Nine out of ten young men will never commit acts of harm toward women. But those same guys too often fail to interrupt the one person in their group who IS creating harm.

That is where courage actually lives.

This clip is a must-watch for coaches and male athletes. You need to grapple with the defensiveness it might bring up in you. You need to wrestle with the uncomfortable reality of WHO IN YOUR GROUP immediately comes to mind as she talks — both the person causing harm and the people standing silently beside it.

Then the conversation has to move toward:

• “What CAN I say?”

• “How do I STOP my guy?”

Because I genuinely believe there is a desire in many young men to be better. What often gets in the way is not malice. It’s “I don’t know what to do right now.”

Coach Prompts

• When coaches say “our culture runs deep,” what behaviors are actually being tolerated underneath the surface?

• Are your players being taught how to interrupt harm or simply told to “be good guys”?

• What phrases or interventions do your athletes have access to when something feels off?

Player Prompts

• Have you ever seen something wrong happening and not known what to say in the moment?

• What makes it hard for boys to challenge their own friends?

• What would it look like to stop your guy without losing your group?

“He’s Deadly, He’s Kind”

I wouldn’t call myself a “big poetry guy.” I also wouldn’t try and tell coaches of male athletes to try and engage their young men with poetry via the Hollywood trope of “It’s just rap music on paper guys.” But, I do think @lucassjones puts out hard hitting prose that often grapples with the subjects TeamsOfMen wants you to be talking about with your players.

This poem, this time debating whether men are MOUNTAINS or better described as the tide, is one of those I think is instantly usable. Give a group of 3-4 guys one stanza each. Ask them to “put this in terms you think our team can understand” and then turn them loose with it for 4-5 minutes. Ask them to search for words that accurately describe themselves. Words that DON’T fit who they view themselves as. Tell them to compare the idea that “he’s deadly, he’s kind” and how those two things can be true at the same time. Offer up how you view the idea that “he rains and he cries” and what that might actually mean.

Remember, often in this work there is no RIGHT or WRONG answer. There’s only the journey, the discussion and the space to share with one another.

Coach Prompts

• How often do players get invited to interpret something instead of simply being told what to think?

• What line in the poem would spark the strongest conversation in your team room?

• Are there contradictions in masculinity your players need more space to discuss?

Player Prompts

• Which line in the poem felt most like you? Which one felt least like you?

• Can someone be both strong and soft, dangerous and kind? Why or why not?

• If you rewrote one stanza to describe yourself, what would it say?

Don’t Surrender The Feed

First of all, I refuse to put the Instagram handle of this man here, because his thoughts need ZERO oxygen. He’s seen here in red screaming that “You do not need permission to access your spouse's body. Their body belongs to you. Your body belongs to them. You belong to each other now.”

What I will DO is platform this post because it is from my friend @professor_neil and his MASTERFUL takedown via a thought exercise proposal that you should show your team TODAY.

I’ve long argued that as much as coaches like to lean on the old trope of “social media bad” the reality of the world is our guys are on it constantly. Add in the fact that what they scroll through daily is influenced by the algorithms of whatever platform they are on and you have a recipe for their lives, beliefs, and relationships being directed by those “voices” instead of yours.

That reality is why we intentionally provide access to accounts like Neil’s and we have teams every year FOLLOW and LIKE with no requirement beyond that. Because if you can at least combat the algorithm with healthier content creators, you have a better chance of that coming up the next time your guy goes down a rabbit hole.

I’m not going to spend too much time restating what Neil does with his takedown, as I think the brilliance is there for your guys to engage with as is. But, I will say that his statement of “You strike me as somebody who is probably in possession of a whole lot of homophobia and very fragile, restrictive masculinity” is EXACTLY why you need to be following him and telling your guys to do the same.

Coach Prompts

• What voices are shaping your players’ beliefs about women, relationships, and masculinity right now?

• Are you intentionally introducing healthier content into your team ecosystem or simply hoping players stumble onto it?

• If the algorithm is teaching every day, what are you doing to interrupt it?

Player Prompts

• Who online most influences the way boys think about relationships and masculinity?

• Have you ever noticed how social media rabbit holes slowly start feeding you the same type of message over and over?

• What makes someone worth listening to online?

Character Or Compliance?

Well, we’re right back here today with another generalization wrapped in cliché.

I do not know @CoachBeede, and I can’t claim to have ever attended a baseball-specific recruiting event. But I did recruit for 20 years in college basketball, and I can guarantee you we were not in parking lots stalking young men as they arrived for games. So why focus on this post, especially in a blog dedicated to framing current events for coaches of male athletes trying to help them break free of the Manbox?

First, because this type of statement is bathed in policing a phony PERFORMANCE of who you are.

Even IF we decided baseball coaches were standing around in the wee hours of the morning, coffee and donuts in hand, watching young men get out of their cars (stalker behavior, by the way), they would only be able to glean meaningful information if the players were unaware of their presence. If the players simply acted the role for the coach’s eyes, it becomes performance, not proof of character or intent.

And that matters because the Manbox is constantly asking boys and men to put up a front, a veneer, a version of themselves designed to pass inspection. Posts like this rarely move beyond surface-level character analysis. Instead, they unintentionally reinforce the idea that being a “good man” is mostly about looking the part while someone is watching.

Second, because we could easily flip this on its head through the Mirror Training lens and ask: what happens if we stop making this player-focused and make it coach-focused instead?

• Do parents get to watch you emerge from your hotel room before a long recruiting day and decide what kind of man you are?

• Do players get to watch videos evaluating how you treat people who approach you in the stands?

• Do high school coaches get to assess the chaos of your notebook, your organization, or your behavior behind closed doors?

Is that all fair game too?

For once, though, the comments didn’t co-sign the silliness. The author is getting rightfully skewered for the take and, surprise surprise, doesn’t appear to be modeling the composure or rigid character standards they claim to value in young men while responding to criticism.

Coach Prompts

• How often do we mistake performance for character in the way we evaluate players?

• What standards do coaches ask of players that would feel uncomfortable if applied back onto themselves?

• Are we teaching boys integrity or simply teaching them how to look disciplined when watched?

Player Prompts

• Have you ever felt pressure to “look like” the right kind of athlete or man instead of actually being yourself?

• What’s the difference between character and performance?

• How would it feel if adults were evaluated by the same standards they use on young people?

Stress Test The Cliché

Today’s blog tackles a reframing of this post from @CoachLisle on X this week. Before going too far, I want to be clear: I’m not trying to attack Coach Lisle directly. I think a lot of coaches would (and did) repost this in support of the thought process behind it. And, to be fair, it’s not inherently WRONG. There is truth to the three bullet points. Bad players do give up. Average players do make excuses. Great players do get determined.

My issue with posts like this, always, is less about what they ask of players and more about where they START. They start with the players, not the coach himself.

In fact, before I’d even change “Bad players give up” to “Bad coaches give up,” I’d want us to sit with something even more uncomfortable. What do people feel, think, or believe about the phrase “Bad MEN give up”? Then proceed down the same road with the next two lines. “Average MEN make excuses.” “Great MEN get determined.”

It’s easy, and likely, that you’ve seen some version of this post and applied it to the way you approach coaching a season and a group of players. I think it’s just as likely that many of us HAVE NOT applied these same clichés to our coaching approach or the way we model healthy masculinity while serving as that coach.

That, for me, is really the core issue with these easy generalities. They work well in short bites. They work well as signs in team spaces. They work well as language to challenge players. But too often, they have NOT been stress tested by the coach looking inward first.

And if we’re constantly asking young men to interrogate themselves, push through adversity, and own their growth, then the least we can do is hold the mirror up to ourselves before demanding they stand in front of it.

Coach Prompts

• What clichés or motivational sayings do you regularly ask players to live by but rarely interrogate yourself?

• If your team applied your standards back onto you, where would you feel challenged?

• Are your players seeing accountability modeled or simply demanded?

Player Prompts

• What advice do adults give that feels different when they actually live it too?

• How would it change your trust in a coach if they admitted where they are still growing?

• What’s a phrase adults say all the time that deserves a deeper look?

Who You Say You Are

Today’s featured post is simple in its power, both because one of the most prominent voices in activism (James Baldwin) is the source and because it is applicable to literally any aspect of your coaching. I can imagine coaches of male athletes deploying this (or their own versions of it) comfortably when applying it to their players performance on the field or court of competition. I can see them using it when trying to stimulate growth in a player’s academic performance (and the habits they are or are not using in the classroom).

However, my challenge to our industry today is rooted in a change of scenery.

I want you to read this aloud and apply it to what you claim and what you do as a man. Further, as a human being. Are you acting to your claims? Are you behaving in a manner (as a father, a husband, a friend, a brother, a son, etc) that is in alignment with all the cliches you claim to believe and tout to your players?

Of course, I’m not demanding perfection from us. We are human after all. But I am acting for interrogation and analysis of who you are vs who you say you are. We ask this of our players day in and day out. The least we could do is turn the light on ourselves. Better yet, tell them we are doing that, why we are doing that, and admit the times the light showed you something you failed out.

Coach Prompts

• Where is there a gap between what you tell players matters and how you actually live?

• When was the last time you openly admitted a failure or blind spot to your team?

• What would change if coaches treated self-reflection with the same seriousness they expect from athletes?

Player Prompts

• Do adults in your life model the things they ask from you?

• What does accountability look like when someone older admits they got something wrong?

• What values do you say matter most, and how often do your actions match them?