Show Them What to Do With It
Today’s blog features a tremendous post from @mark.brackett on instagram (see above). This one fits perfectly in this space because after parents and peers, who is better positioned to model for boys what it looks like to move through the world while feeling?
Think about how often young men are on practice fields, in gyms, or in the weight room with a coach present. In those moments, whether it’s intentional or not, something is being shown about how to interact with the world while holding whatever emotion is there.
That’s the part I think gets missed.
TeamsOfMen exists, in part, to open coaches’ eyes to the fact that how they show up each day is not neutral. It’s an input. Over time, those inputs shape how young men carry themselves, how they respond, and how they understand what it means to be a man.
If you take the Mirror Training concept seriously, it doesn’t just change what you say. It starts to affect how you move. There’s a level of consistency that has to come with that. When it’s real, players feel it.
One thing I would add to Brackett’s point is that modeling alone isn’t always enough. We also have to name what’s happening while it’s happening. That can be as simple as saying out loud what you’re carrying and how you’re choosing to handle it.
I’ve tried to lean into that at times:
“Fellas, let me say up front I’m having a rough day. I’m going to do my best to not let that affect how I coach today.”
Or:
“I’m feeling the same stress and worry about what happened as you guys are. I don’t feel like screaming about layups today. How are you feeling?”
It’s not about making the moment bigger than it needs to be. It’s about making the process visible. Because if we don’t show them what to do with a feeling once it shows up, they’re going to find their own way. And we don’t always get to choose where they learn that from.
Coach Prompts
What are your players learning from how you handle your emotions day to day?
Where might your actions be contradicting what you’re asking from your team?
How often do you make your thought process visible in real time?
What would it look like to be more intentional about what you’re modeling?
Player Prompts
What have you learned about handling emotions from the adults around you?
How do you usually respond when something doesn’t go your way?
What does it look like to stay present without ignoring what you’re feeling?
Who in your life shows you how to handle difficult moments well?
The Pressure to Prove It
When you have 3 minutes today, this clip of honesty and vulnerability from former NBA player Michael Beasley is well worth your time. Yes, it is from Club Shay Shay, and from a TeamsOfMen perspective, host Shannon Sharpe is not exactly a figure we want our players taking cues with women from. That said, this clip is full of Beasley’s raw emotion about growing up black, light skinned, with green eyes and long hair, and what those traits caused him to experience from other black men.
“I grew up in Chocolate City. I was a light-skinned guy. Yeah. And my mom had barrettes in my hair, so I was like a boy and a girl. I got green eyes. “
“Because… you dark—don’t like light-skinned people. But you’re not hearing what I’m saying. Like literally, Black only matters to Black when Black is Black. The one percent minor don’t matter when a n***a got green eyes, because you think I’m better.”
I am a brown skinned, half Samoan 46 year old man. I am not black. I can only claim proximity to the experience of a black man in America, not the actual lived reality. I DO relate, though, to the idea of being “lighter” than you’re supposed to be, and to the idea that you are not “fully” what you claim to be. [NOTE: I may have mentioned this before in this space, but I’m aware of a shortcoming I carry: I am always willing to be a messenger, but that doesn’t always make me the right one. Writing on this today, I know some may see this as one of those moments. If that’s the case, I’m open to being called out on it.}
What landed with me, and perhaps with many players in your locker room, is the emotion tied to trying to find belonging while also navigating identity.
“So I was just always mad, because everybody asked me if I was a boy or a girl.”
“I see myself as you…But my whole life, you didn’t…so I just had to beat your ass.”
“So n***a, they asking me if I’m a girl, calling me white boy… I used to beat the shit out of n***as. A lot.”
I don’t know the makeup of your locker room. I don’t know which identities are represented or how they show up on your roster or your staff. I DO KNOW that I’ve heard and witnessed colorism in team spaces I been in and led. I DO KNOW that young men who display traits others deemed “feminine” or “gay” can become targets of not not just derogatory comments, but also for isolation and outright violence. These are real things. Beasley gives language to what that can feel like, and how it can shape behavior when it goes unchecked
I’m not sure there’s a clean answer here for coaches, especially if the question is “How do I avoid this in my team?” A more useful place to start might be asking how we address the beliefs that fuel it, and how we respond to the impact it has on the people who experience it.
Coach Prompts
Where have you seen players’ identity questioned, even subtly, in your team space?
What language or jokes get dismissed as normal but actually target someone’s identity?
How do you respond when a player’s behavior is rooted in something deeper than the moment?
What space do you create for players to talk about experiences that don’t fit the team’s “norm”?
How do you address both the behavior you see and the beliefs underneath it?
Player Prompts
Have you ever felt like you had to prove something about who you are just to be accepted?
What kinds of comments or labels get thrown around in your group?
How do you respond when someone is singled out for being different?
What does it feel like to not fully belong in a space that’s supposed to be your team?
What responsibility do you have when you see someone else being targeted?
The Call Is Coming From Inside the Locker Room
We have all heard the old adage “The call is coming from inside the house,” and it’s calling to mind Drew Barrymore’s character in Scream realizing the terrorizing voice on the phone was coming from inside her home. The article above—recently published by William Bigham in his university’s student newspaper and shared with me via our partners at Partnership for Male Youth—should land as that same type of chilling moment for coaches of male athletes.
With statements like “Men are taught throughout their entire athletic careers that they need to be quiet about their feelings and they are considered weak if they express vulnerability,” and “Toxic masculinity from locker room culture is a contributor to the mental health problem affecting male athletes today,” all coming from a CURRENT member “of the trenches”—as is so often assigned to line play on the gridiron—this becomes more than an opinion piece. It’s a window into the lived reality of the very spaces we oversee.
This is a clean bridge into what TeamsOfMen has long pushed toward: norm change inside locker rooms. When you pair Bigham’s perspective with the statistics he cites around U.S. college student-athlete suicides, and the documented spikes in anxiety around competition windows, the connection isn’t hard to see. There are threads running between the climate of the place athletes are supposed to call “home” and the way they end up feeling, coping, and behaving within it.
It is worth not only reading, but grappling with the way our spaces contribute to the day-to-day experience of simply being a part of our program. We love to hide behind the idea that “our cultures” of hard work and discipline are stand-alone inputs to growth. But either through naivete or willful ignorance, we ignore the climate of existing in our program. The language. The tone. The moments we let slide.
Until we as coaches embrace the idea that you can, in fact, have hardworking, successful teams without leaning on old tropes of power and dominance—courtesy of Manbox-influenced thinking—we will keep seeing these numbers and outcomes move in the wrong direction.
Coach Prompts
What language is “normal” in our space that we no longer even hear?
Where have I confused discipline with silence?
If one of my players wrote this article about our program, what would hit too close to home?
Player Prompts
What gets said in our locker room that people laugh at—but probably shouldn’t?
When was the last time you held something in because you didn’t think it would be received well here?
What would need to change for this to feel like a space where you could be more honest?
How Is “Swagger” The Priority Here?
I was pretty stunned listening to this segment from Albert Breer during an appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub yesterday.
It was in response to a question about how the ongoing reports regarding an alleged six-year affair between Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini might affect the organization. What followed felt like a clear example of how quickly we default to protecting a version of a man we’re comfortable with, rather than dealing with the reality in front of us.
Breer’s comments leaned heavily on familiar language. He repeated versions of “I know Mike,” talked about him being a good guy at his core, someone who has done right by people. That framing shows up a lot when someone in our circle crosses a line. Proximity becomes proof. Personal experience becomes the filter for what we’re willing to believe. We’ve seen that same logic used to soften or dismiss all kinds of behavior—infidelity, racism, homophobia. The pattern doesn’t really change.
What really caught me, though, was the emphasis on getting Vrabel’s “swagger” back. That being framed as the priority felt completely off. Because if we’re being honest, the bravado being described there might be part of the problem, not the solution. The belief that you can move however you want without consequence, that you’re insulated from the impact of your choices—that’s not something to rebuild. That’s something to examine.
Instead, the conversation drifted toward timelines, training schedules, and whether this would carry into the season. There was a lot of focus on football readiness.
Very little on the people affected—his wife, his children.
Very little on accountability.
Very little on what actually needs to be repaired.
At one point, Breer mentioned that the players would have his back. That assumption deserves a pause. Not because support is wrong, but because it raises the question of what kind of support we’re talking about. Is it support that helps someone face what they’ve done and grow from it, or is it the kind that helps them move past it without really addressing it? Those are not the same thing.
What stood out most in all of this is how narrow the lens can become when everything is viewed through a football context. The situation gets reduced to impact on the team, on the season, on performance. But this isn’t just a football issue. There are real people involved. Real relationships. Real consequences that extend well beyond a facility or a schedule. That part can’t be brushed aside in favor of getting someone back to a version of themselves that feels more comfortable to everyone else.
Moments like this are a reminder of how easy it is to slip into defending instead of reflecting.
Coach Prompts
When someone in your circle messes up, what’s your first instinct—protect or confront?
How do you separate who someone has been from what they’ve done?
What does real accountability look like in your program?
Where have you seen performance prioritized over people?
Player Prompts
What does it mean to have someone’s back in a tough situation?
How do you respond when someone you respect makes a bad decision?
What’s the difference between defending someone and helping them grow?
What kind of teammate do you want to be in moments like that?
Let Them Have the Moment
I chose this one today to bring a little bit of light into the conversation.
Watching Keldon Johnson be surprised by his teammates after winning Sixth Man of the Year is the kind of moment that sticks with you. The reaction, the energy, the way the group shows up for him—it’s a clear example of men expressing joy and appreciation for one another in a way that feels real.
NBA rosters span a wide age range, from teenagers to veterans in their late 30s or early 40s. In a lot of ways, they are exactly what we talk about in this work: teams of men. They’re operating at the highest level of their profession, with all the visibility and pressure that comes with it. Every moment is magnified, whether they want it to be or not.
That’s why this kind of clip matters.
It shows a version of connection that doesn’t always get the same attention. Teammates celebrating one another without hesitation. A player allowing himself to receive that moment instead of brushing it off or immediately moving on to what’s next.
In a time where so much messaging pushes the idea of constant grind and the next goal, it’s refreshing to see someone pause and actually enjoy what just happened, surrounded by people who are genuinely happy for him.
There’s something in that for all of us.
Men are capable of this kind of presence, this kind of support. It doesn’t have to be reserved for big stages or award announcements. In coaching, we talk all the time about reinforcing what we want to see more of. Moments like this give us something worth pointing to. Not as an exception, but as a standard we can continue to build toward.
Coach Prompts
How often do you create space for players to celebrate each other without redirecting to the next task?
What does authentic support look like in your program?
Are players comfortable receiving praise, or do they deflect it?
Player Prompts
Are you comfortable celebrating someone else without comparison?
What does it feel like to be recognized by your group?
Do you allow yourself to enjoy your own accomplishments?
Where Music and Sports Sound the Same (and Why We Need Both to Change)
I’m not going to claim in today’s blog that every player on your roster is a fan of Toosii. I would imagine his name is at least known in your team space, and any time we can use something that already lives in their world to frame a conversation, it’s worth considering.
What struck me about this post (and let’s, as always in 2026, acknowledge this is an alleged quote) is how it stands on its own. It doesn’t need much added to it or reworked to make a point land.
The message is simple: stop using “gay,” “fag,” or “faggot” as insults. He talks about wanting to create a world where his son doesn’t have to ask him about that language.
That matters.
Because we know those words still show up in the spaces we coach in. They’re used in frustration, in competition, sometimes without a second thought. Add in “bitch” or “hoe,” and you start to see how common it is for players to reach for language that’s meant to tear someone else down.
It’s worth asking what those spaces could feel like without it.
Not just from the perspective of someone watching from the stands, but from the standpoint of the athletes who have to exist in that environment every day. There’s an opportunity here that goes beyond correcting a word in the moment. It’s about what we are allowing to be normal.
And whether we’re willing to help build something different with the group in front of us.
Coach Prompts
What language shows up most often in emotional moments with your team?
How do you address slurs or degrading terms when they happen?
What have you allowed to continue because it feels “normal” in sports?
What would it take to shift the language in your program?
Player Prompts
What words do you use when you’re frustrated or trying to get at someone?
Where did you learn that language?
How does it affect the people around you, even if you don’t mean it that way?
What would it look like to compete without tearing someone down?
This Is What They’re Swimming In
In one way or another, you were probably made aware over the weekend of CNN’s undercover report on what they are calling “online rape academies,” which were visited 62 million times in just one month.
If you don’t have time to read the full report, here’s the best attempt to summarize what’s being uncovered:
A recent investigation revealed a sprawling international network where men trade detailed tutorials on how to drug, manipulate, and sexually assault women. These communities operate in hidden digital spaces and treat sexual violence like a skill to be learned, offering step-by-step guidance while also sharing ways to avoid detection. The reporting was sparked in part by the trial of Dominique Pelicot in France, which showed how these forums are not just theoretical spaces, but connected directly to real-world harm.
Why should this matter to you as a coach of male athletes? Because this is the environment our young men are growing up in. Even if you believe the best about the guys in your locker room—and I do too—this at minimum shows what they are surrounded by. It reinforces something we’ve said for a long time in this work: if we are not consistent, intentional sources of interruption, the echo chamber of society will bathe them in manbox ideology.
You could push back and say, “62 million views doesn’t mean 62 million men.”
That’s true.
But it also becomes a familiar deflection. The focus shifts away from what is actually happening and onto a numbers debate that doesn’t change the reality of the behavior. I could ask what number would make it serious enough, or what it says about repeated visits to spaces like this, but that conversation usually doesn’t go anywhere useful. At some point, we have to stop negotiating with the existence of the problem. What matters is whether we are willing to face it. That means accepting the environment our players are navigating and recognizing the influence we have within it.
Coaches are not bystanders here. We have daily access, language that carries weight, and a setting where beliefs get shaped and reinforced. That’s where the responsibility sits. This has always been the core of the work with TeamsOfMen, and it’s not changing.
“Not all men” doesn’t move anything forward. “None of our men” is a better place to start.
Coach Prompts
What messages about women and power are your players exposed to outside your program?
How often are you intentionally interrupting harmful narratives versus assuming players will “figure it out”?
Where have you seen deflection show up when these topics are brought up?
What responsibility comes with the daily access you have to your players?
Player Prompts
What kind of content about women and relationships shows up in your feeds?
How do those messages influence what you think is normal?
What responsibility do you have when you see harmful behavior being normalized?
What kind of teammate do you want to be in moments where something isn’t right?
Safe for Who?
Today’s blog comes from a post by @responsive_parenting that made me stop and sit with something I’ve wrestled with for a while. The phrase in the post is simple, but it carries weight: “I’m not a safe place for your racism.”
It pushed me into a tension that shows up a lot in this work.
We talk often about creating “safe spaces” as a way to combat racism, misogyny, and other forms of harm. The intention makes sense. People need environments where they feel seen, respected, and protected. At the same time, I struggle to point to many examples where a heavily controlled or overly cautious space actually led to meaningful growth. In my experience, change usually comes with some level of discomfort.
In coaching, we already build environments that are supposed to matter. We hang signs, we name our spaces, we talk about the team room as a home. That language carries responsibility whether we say it out loud or not. So it makes me wonder what we really mean when we call a space “home.” Because if it is, then it can’t just be about comfort. It has to come with expectations for how people treat one another.
That’s where this idea shifted for me.
Instead of focusing only on whether a space feels safe, what if we were clearer about what it refuses to hold?
A team room that doesn’t allow racism.
A locker room that doesn’t tolerate misogyny.
Not as a slogan, but as a lived boundary. That doesn’t mean people aren’t welcome. It means certain behaviors and ways of thinking don’t get to stay unchecked once you step inside.
I think a lot of us hesitate right there. We start thinking about the reactions that could follow. A parent who pushes back. A conversation with administration. The possibility that taking a stand creates more problems than it solves.
Those concerns are real. Coaching doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
But it does raise a harder question that’s difficult to ignore. If we avoid setting a clear line in the one space we actually have influence over, what are we protecting? For some, the answer might be job security or avoiding conflict. I understand that. At the same time, there’s a cost to letting harmful behavior pass through a space that is supposed to develop young people. There’s also something to be learned about a program or an institution that won’t support you when that line is drawn. That kind of clarity isn’t always comfortable, but it matters.
This isn’t about creating a perfect environment. It’s about being honest about what belongs in the space and what doesn’t.
And then being willing to stand on it.
Coach Prompts
What expectations in your team room are clearly stated, and which ones are assumed?
Where have you held back from addressing something because of potential backlash?
How would you explain the difference between welcoming people and allowing harmful behavior?
Player Prompts
What does it mean to share a space with others in a respectful way?
Have you ever brought language or behavior into a group that didn’t belong there?
How do you respond when someone calls out something you said or did?
When Good Work Gets Run Through the Manbox
Today’s blog is both a share of a must-follow voice in the work of reimagining manhood and an examination of how easily that work can be distorted by manbox-influenced thinking.
If you are not already following @mrjasonowilson on instagram, he is essential viewing.
The clip begins with about 30 seconds of Wilson’s work with a young boy on the martial arts mat. Much of his work lives in that space on social media, where he has transformed the mat into something far bigger than a training surface. It becomes a sanctuary, a place where physical discipline serves as a vehicle for emotional stability, proving that a man’s power is measured by his ability to govern his heart as skillfully as he governs his hands.
Then the clip gets interrupted.
Trey Tucker, while promoting his own book, appears to believe his work is aligned with Wilson’s. But almost immediately, the analysis gets flooded with manbox script language. Statements like “boys don’t need to talk it out,” “this is exposure therapy,” “purposely triggering fight or flight,” “aim emotions,” and “his power is built through resistance” start to take over the frame. And that’s where this becomes maddening.
Because woven into the commentary are a few decent reframes — the idea that men often train their bodies while neglecting their emotional world, and the truth that every boy deserves to be fathered. Those are worthwhile thoughts. But that does not give any of us — and I include myself in this — the right to interpret, repurpose, or frankly bastardize Wilson’s work to fit our own preferred masculinity script.
This clip is a glaring example of that.
It takes something deeply intentional and re-routes it through the old language of toughness, resistance, and emotional suppression. That is not what Wilson is doing. He is not training boys to override emotion. He is teaching them how to move through it without being ruled by it. There’s a massive difference.
It’s the difference between emotional fluency and emotional armor.
Coach Prompts
Where have you seen emotional growth reframed as “mental toughness” in ways that actually erase the emotional work?
How do you distinguish resilience from suppression in your team room?
When players hear “be strong,” what do they think that means?
Player Prompts
What’s the difference between controlling your emotions and ignoring them?
When have you been told to “toughen up” instead of being helped understand what you were feeling?
What makes someone truly strong in a hard moment?
Breadcrumbs to the Truth
Today’s blog is a spot-on example of what my colleague @Professor_Neil calls “using cognitive dissonance” to disrupt manosphere-influenced thinking.
This clip comes from a conversation between former NFL quarterback Cam Newton and Demetri Wiley (posted by Forrest Laurent). If that feels like a roundabout way of getting to the source, welcome to trying to properly cite people’s work in the era of social media.
The clip is gold for any coach trying to understand how questions can move us closer to truth behind what motivates our guys actions and beliefs..
Wiley asks Newton why he doesn’t have any female friends, and what follows is such a clear example of how the right questions can expose the stories we tell ourselves. As Laurent points out so deftly later in the clip, what gets uncovered is often less “truth” and more the excuses we use to avoid ownership.
One of the most powerful moments comes when Wiley asks, “What that mean?” and then follows with, “When you’re attracted, what then happens?”
Cam’s answer: “Sex.”
Then Wiley responds, “Oh, damn Cam.”
That moment hits because in that second, the questioner fully realizes what has just been unearthed, while the person answering seems almost oblivious to what he has just admitted about himself.
I think a lot of our players would hear Cam in this moment and immediately respond with, “He’s just keeping it real, Coach,” or “That’s facts.”
And that’s exactly why the questioning matters because if we simply jump straight to Laurent’s later point about manipulation being disguised as virtue, I don’t think it lands nearly as well. The breadcrumbs matter. The interrogation matters.
Young men often need to hear how one assumption leads to the next until the logic collapses under its own weight. Because if the script becomes, “Well, if she’s attractive, I’ve got to sleep with her — that’s just nature,” then what we’re really confronting is not nature at all, but a learned excuse system that protects harmful thinking from scrutiny.
That’s where coaches have to step in. Not always with the answer. Sometimes with the next question.
Coach Prompts
Where in your team room do players use “that’s just how guys are” as a shield from ownership?
What questions could you ask instead of immediately correcting the statement?
When have you seen “keeping it real” actually mask harmful assumptions?
Player Prompts
What beliefs about attraction, women, or masculinity have you accepted without ever questioning?
Have you ever defended something as “just nature” that was really learned from peers, media, or culture?
What happens when someone keeps asking you why?
What Happens When Boys Don’t Trust the Data?
Today’s blog comes out of an anecdotal observation from engaging with young men last week.
In one of our Positive Masculinity Club sessions, we posed a simple question to the room: Are you moved by statistics? In other words, if I give you numbers that support a claim in any realm, does that help you believe it?
The answer in the room was a pretty resounding no.
What followed was a general distrust of math itself, and that sat with me for the rest of the day. I won’t pretend this is representative of all young men in the country. It’s one room, one moment, one set of voices. But it raised something that feels bigger than that particular session.
In the hats I wear — coach, educator, father, facilitator — numbers often serve as validation. Sometimes they confirm what I already believe. Other times they force me to change my mind. Either way, the point is that the data has a chance to move me.
Math be mathing.
It is, in so many ways, a universal language. So what do we do if boys don’t believe numbers they don’t like? Because this isn’t just about academic trust in statistics. This spills directly into coaching. If a quarterback doesn’t believe his touchdown-to-interception ratio tells the truth about decision-making, where do you go next?If a player refuses to believe the plus-minus, the shot chart, the turnover numbers, or the film breakdown, what are you actually dealing with?
I’m not sure the issue is math.
I think the issue may be what the numbers threaten.
Sometimes stats don’t just communicate performance. They challenge identity. They tell a young man something about himself that he may not be ready to hold. That he’s not as efficient as he thinks. That his shot selection hurts the team. That his effort comes and goes. That his version of himself and the evidence on the page are not aligned.
And when that gap shows up, disbelief can become self-protection.
So maybe the work is not simply convincing boys that stats don’t lie.
Maybe the work is helping them understand that changing your belief in light of valid information is not weakness. It is growth. It is what development actually requires.
I did a brief search to see if there is research specifically on young men’s distrust of numerical evidence, and while there is plenty on declines in educational outcomes and male participation rates, I didn’t find much that directly speaks to this exact question. I’m going to keep digging.
But for coaches reading this, I’d love your thoughts on when the numbers don’t move your athlete, where do you turn next?
Coach Prompts
When do your players resist what the numbers are telling them?
What part of their identity feels challenged by the data?
What other tools do you use when stats alone don’t create movement?
Player Prompts
Have you ever rejected feedback because it didn’t match how you saw yourself?
What feels harder: being wrong or changing your mind?
How do you know when numbers are helping you grow?
Platform, Volume, and the Performance of Certainty
This is the second weekend in a row I’ve found myself moved to write out my angst from something happening that I just couldn’t process without the keyboard.
Last week it was Geno Auriemma’s meltdown on national television. Today it’s a recently released sit-down on Stephen A. Smith’s “political” show Straight Shooter, this time interviewing one of my favorite follows, Joshua Doss (@doss.discourse on Instagram).
A colleague of mine who works in gender violence prevention sent me some Doss clips a year or so ago, and since then he’s been good for at least two or three posts a month that feed my appetite for both more Black and Brown men giving a damn and nuanced data breakdowns on topics I care deeply about. So naturally, I was excited to see him invited onto the bombastic SAS show.
Full context: in his previous life as an up-and-coming beat writer in Philadelphia covering Allen Iverson and during his first stint at ESPN, I was a big fan of Stephen A. Since then, with his transformation into the tent-pole “I have an opinion on everything” voice and face of the network, I do not consume much of his content. He is too proudly confident that he doesn’t have much left to learn on any topic, from sports to politics, and his debate-shouting style has become the norm in discourse everywhere.
In many ways, he represents Manbox culture dressed up in a suit. He is willing to talk about anything at a surface level, willing to shout about it, and because he makes a lot of money doing that, he seems to have decided it is his intellect — not his volume and company privilege — that makes him important in the world.
I won’t try to dissect all aspects of their conversation. Instead, I want to focus on a very specific back-and-forth around the 45-minute mark.
Doss was his usual intentional, measured, precise self. SAS was, well, loud.
Doss was probably too quick to launch his pushbacks with disclaimers like, “I agree here,” or “I can see why you’d think that,” but when you appear on someone else’s show, it’s probably a requirement to placate that person just enough to maintain access to the space and maybe move the needle, even a little.
Smith, for his part, kept paying homage to Doss as a “quantitative and qualitative data expert,” but for some reason didn’t want to give Joshua his bona fides as a representative political and gender-equity voice.
That framing aside, I’ll let you find and watch the entire discourse, though I hesitate to lend more views to SAS numbers, lest we encourage more ridiculous lines like, “Let me state for the record, you should have a damn ID… To the progressive left, shut the hell up,” along with his predictable assault on “wokeness” and his championing of the MAGA-favorite bootstrap mythology around wealth accumulation.
The moment I want to hone in on came after Doss challenged him to recognize that his buddying up to Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and others was problematic because those voices have long functioned as mouthpieces for white conservatism, a force that has historically physically harmed Black people.
SAS then launched into the tirade in the graphic below. I had to stop the playback numerous times just to scream into the ether.
Why?
Because I do not accept his premise from the start.
I do not accept the idea that because the “voice of the Republican base” selected the monster that is Donald Trump, they are somehow a better landing spot for Black and Brown bodies to have their voices heard.
Trump is a known racist. People selecting him is not evidence of representation. It is a huge blinking sign to run from that group of people if you are a body of culture.
His brazen approach to the topic, complete with the bluster and the “I’m so taken aback by this affront to my character” mannerisms, is a classic Manbox script. It teaches that biggest and loudest is always better than measured and tactical. It also allows him to skate past lines like “it’s on record” or “don’t get me started on that” while never actually stating what that is.
Notice: I’m not here defending Democrats.
They are a mess themselves. They have proven feckless in the face of the authoritarian takeover of our federal government, and I refuse to cape for them.
But for Smith to tell us on one hand he’s “not here to settle for the binary at the polls,” while then doing only enough historical diving to utter phrases like “Dixiecrats” and “Oprah had him on her show,” is just another version of what allows him on First Take to give us one sentence on LeBron James and then pivot to something about Lewis Hamilton in the next block.
He is a willing messenger on everything, but rarely the right messenger on anything.
I purposely paused before Doss had a chance to respond at this point because I did not want to parrot his words in this rant. But I am hoping, when I return, to hear a more direct push on Smith than we’ve gotten thus far.
Because throughout the show Smith framed his upbringing in Queens as liberal at the polls but conservative at home, took a dig at trans kids with the “Stephen one week and Stephanie the next” line, and earlier claimed, “Hannity and I get along, just not on politics.”
That is a ridiculous claim in 2026, when nearly every societal pain point we are living through is rooted in, or worsened by, political policy and the enforcement of it.
In summary, you should watch, listen to, and follow Joshua Doss. Not just because of this episode on a blowhard’s show, but because he consistently makes you pause, reflect, and leave with a new action directive.
Once you know, you cannot go back to living as if you do not.
Take my usual work around the brainwashing of the Manbox and apply it not only to Stephen A., but to every other platformed voice in these dark times.
Coach Prompts
Where in your team room does volume get mistaken for leadership?
Think about your own communication style: when do you use certainty as a shield instead of curiosity?
What messages are your players receiving from sports media personalities about what it means to “be a man” in conflict?
Player Prompts
When someone is loud, confident, or famous, do you automatically assume they are right? Why?
What’s the difference between speaking with conviction and shutting down conversation?
Have you ever stayed quiet because someone else’s tone made it feel unsafe to push back?
If This Is the Opponent, What’s Your Response?
Today’s blog hit me with both an Oh my God and a why doesn’t this move men to immediate action? response.
A post on LinkedIn by Sharna Bremner stopped me this week as she highlighted findings from a study of nearly 3,000 men ages 18–34 in the U.S. and Canada. These were men who reported using at least one calculated strategy to get a woman to have sex when they knew she did not want sex and had not consented.
Let’s be clear about what that means.
This is not confusion. This is not mixed signals. This is not “I thought she was into it.”
The entry point to the survey is essentially this: you know she does not want sex and you are still going to try to get it anyway.
That’s why I’m framing this as a scouting report on attacks.
The first thing that jumps off the film is the sheer volume. The number is staggering: 95.1% of this sample reported recently using at least one strategy. Whether we’re talking verbal pressure, isolation, alcohol, repeated touching, or outright force, this is not a one-off bad actor issue. This is something many young men have learned how to do.
Second, they run a two-man game. Nearly half reported using a friend, partner, or group of friends to help, and a striking number reported using a female friend to make the woman feel safe and convince her. Coaches, sit with that. Sometimes the room is not neutral. Sometimes the room is part of the problem.
Third, this is a selfish opponent. The most common reasons given were because they were horny or because the opportunity was there. That is entitlement language. Desire becomes permission. Impulse becomes justification.
Fourth, their best play is alcohol. The study repeatedly points to keeping women drunk, getting them drunk, or using substances as part of the strategy. That is not incidental. That is part of the game plan.
And finally, they are relentless. Repeated asking, continued touching, kissing, verbal pressure, and escalating physical persistence all show up as common tactics. They keep going until resistance wears down.
Now here’s the part I cannot stop thinking about: some men in the study saw themselves as better than their peers at getting what they wanted sexually, and that sense of status was linked to more forceful strategies.
There it is. This is exactly why challenging the Manbox in your space is not optional. If status in the male friend group is attached to pressure, conquest, and disregard for consent, then the team room has to become a place where a different version of status is built.
So my question for coaches today is simple:
What is your defensive game plan?
How are you disrupting the idea that dominance over women earns credibility with other men?
How are you giving your players language and courage to interrupt the two-man game?
How are you preparing them for party spaces where alcohol is the best play?
And if you read this scouting report and honestly do not know what your answer is, that is not a failure. That is exactly why TeamsOfMen belongs in your space.
Will This Survive Contact With Reality?
Today’s blog is really a question about the post above: What do you think it will take for you to have players on your team who actually go forward with that kind of boundary setting in their circles of male friendship?
I love the idea of it. Clearly, with TeamsOfMen, I’ve been working toward some version of this existing in team rooms all over the country for the better part of a decade. But like I tell my staff when we’re game planning, I’m worried this won’t survive contact with reality.
It’s one thing for our guys to nod along in a session. It’s one thing for them to agree when the coach, the room, and the moment are all aligned. It is something entirely different for them to carry that same conviction into the locker room, the group chat, the lunch table, the party, the ride home, or the friend group where the real social pressure lives.
So if we’re being honest, what do you think they need from us to make this type of comment the norm in male friend groups?
I have my opinions, and I’ve built curriculum over the past decade trying to move this forward. But you are on the ground with your guys every day. You hear the way they talk. You know what they laugh at, what they let slide, what they are afraid to challenge.
What are they lacking right now?
What are they afraid of right now?
Is it fear of losing status? Fear of being clowned by the group? Fear of being seen as soft, disloyal, or doing “too much”? Is it that they still don’t have the language to interrupt harmful talk in real time? Or is it deeper than that — that they still don’t believe the room will back them when they do?
Because that is the real test of this work. Not whether they can say the right thing in our session. Whether they can say it when it costs them something. That’s the question I’m sitting with today, and I’d love to hear what you’re seeing from where you coach.
Coach Prompts
Where does your team currently break down between agreement in the room and action outside of it?
What fears or social costs are most present for your players right now?
What tools, language, and team norms need to be built before accountability becomes peer-led?
Player Prompts
What makes it hard to challenge a friend when you know something is off?
What are you most worried will happen if you speak up?
What would make it easier to set boundaries in your own friend group?
Selective Outrage Is Still the Script
So this is an example of the social media fire lit by the sharing of images allegedly showing Patriots HC Mike Vrabel and NYT football reporter Dianna Russini spending time together at an adults-only resort in Arizona. BOTH are married to other people, and this appears to raise issues not only for those personal situations, but also around the idea of journalistic integrity.
IF the photos posted are truly showing infidelity, I suppose this type of comment is expected. (The add-on of Joy Taylor is based on allegations of her behavior at FS1 while growing her career imprint.) But this is where the TeamsOfMen conversation begins.
Why is there such a quick erasure of disdain for Vrabel — and for any other men on the other side of the “she slept her way to the top” coin? The woman becomes the center of the outrage, the villain of the story, the one whose career legitimacy gets put on trial. Meanwhile, the man involved often fades into the background as if he were simply present rather than an active participant.
Let’s say for a moment the allegations are true. He is married. He made a decision. He is also someone entrusted with leadership, judgment, and representing an organization. Those qualities are not just football words. Those are life words. So why does the public response so often erase disdain for the man on the other side of the story?
This is Manbox framing 101.
The script teaches us to blame women, repeat the same lazy tropes about men being wired to sleep with whatever moves, and then quietly erase consequence and responsibility for male action. Somehow the woman is framed as the architect while the man is cast as powerless, confused, or simply overtaken by temptation. Come on.
That framing is not just intellectually dishonest. It is dangerous.
Because if a woman is supposedly “using sex to climb,” then by definition there is a man in power who is willing to exchange opportunity, salary, access, promotion, or protection for sexual access. That does not make him invisible. That makes him equally accountable.
Our guys need help seeing this script when it shows up in the world around them. The lesson is not about celebrity gossip. The lesson is about how quickly culture defaults to shielding male agency while putting women on trial. If we don’t name that, we are reinforcing the same belief system that excuses harm in locker rooms, classrooms, workplaces, and relationships.
And here’s the part that matters most to me: this cycle almost always moves on faster for the man. By preseason, the sports world will likely tell us to focus on the next opponent and let the story die. Meanwhile, the woman may continue to face attacks on her credibility, her career, and her character long after the headlines fade.
That imbalance is the lesson.
Once our players can see the script, they can stop unconsciously living inside it.
Coach Prompts
When stories like this hit social media, whose responsibility does your team instinctively focus on first?
What language around men’s “nature” have your players been taught that might excuse accountability?
How do we help athletes separate attraction, power, and responsibility?
Player Prompts
Why do you think public blame so often lands first and hardest on the woman?
Can someone in power claim they were not responsible for the choice they made?
Where do you see this same script show up in everyday life, not just celebrity stories?
Attraction Does Not Equal Access
Let’s start today’s blog with an important qualifier: we do not know if this was actually posted by Anthony Edwards and Kevin Durant in response to Sabrina Ionescu’s Instagram post. In the age of AI, edited screenshots, and fake quote cards, we have to be disciplined enough to acknowledge the possibility that it is fabricated.
But here’s the thing: even if it’s fake, I still think it is absolutely worth sharing with a group of male athletes.
Why?
Because someone in that room is going to believe it was posted by NBA players. And even more importantly, someone in that room is going to resonate with the sexualization of a WNBA star in the comments.
That’s the conversation.
This becomes a launch point to talk with your guys about catcalling, about online harassment, and about the dangerous leap from I find someone attractive to I have the right to comment on their body.
Attraction does not equal access.
Someone being proud of their body does not mean they are asking for over-sexualized comments in their feed.
Someone posting a picture of themselves does not create permission for you to turn their comment section into a locker room.
That’s the line.
And this is exactly where our guys are being trained every single day by the content ecosystem around them.
You can even go deeper into the comment section responses, where people start saying things like, “Sabrina’s husband would kick their ass.” That reaction deserves unpacking too, because even the instinct to respond through possessive protection can be deeply rooted in manbox thinking.
It shifts the conversation from respect for her autonomy and dignity to protection through ownership. That matters. Because now we’re not just talking about inappropriate comments — we’re talking about the scripts boys are constantly being fed:
Women’s bodies as public property
Male attention as normal
Protection as possession
Attraction as entitlement
This is the type of daily force-feeding the algorithm is giving our guys. We have to be willing to create spaces dedicated to unpacking it. If we don’t, the feed will educate them for us.
Coach Prompts
What are your players learning from the content they consume every day?
How do you talk about online harassment in your program?
Where does attraction cross into entitlement?
Player Prompts
What’s the difference between attraction and entitlement?
Why do some guys feel the need to comment sexually online?
Have you ever seen a comment section cross the line?
April Cannot Be Foreign To Coaches
Today’s blog is going to start with this image because I want to begin with a simple question: How many coaches reading this today are even aware that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month? My honest guess is that the number is lower than it should be.
I was unaware too until a sort of ha moment back in 2013 that, in many ways, launched TeamsOfMen in the first place. I’ve told that story enough times that I won’t repeat the full version here, but I do want to reemphasize something that I sometimes have to remind myself of: my education and journey into identifying the manbox, and the subsequent work to help other men escape it, was originally rooted in my horror at the thought of my players ever being involved in sexual assault.
The original question that sat in my gut was simple and urgent: How can I possibly be part of the solution here? How can we stop this from happening to women on college campuses at the hands of male athletes? That was the launch point.
As my ecosystem of support grew — mentors, experts, books, educators, advocates — I began to recognize that these harmful choices were not random. They were often rooted in allegiance to manbox thinking and in the desperate need to prove a “man card” through conquest, achievement, and control, including sexual conquest. That realization widened the work. It moved from simply reacting to harm into trying to understand the identity scripts that were helping produce it.
But if I’m being honest, I sometimes have to remind myself of where this started.
Even though I deeply believe the solution is rooted in reeducating men around what drives their identity, I do not want to lose sight of the fact that making the world safer for women was the launch and remains the goal.
In trying to grow the message, I’ve sometimes focused more on the frames I think coaches of men will gravitate toward. The second graphic above is one example. Nearly a quarter of men in the U.S. report experiencing some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime. If you do simple math and you’re coaching a roster of 100 football players, that means roughly 25 young men under your guidance may themselves be survivors. That matters deeply, and it absolutely belongs in this work.
But I also recognize the risk in over-rotating toward what feels most “coachable” or what is easiest to get buy-in around. If I’m not careful, that can miss the point that women are still disproportionately catching the brunt of the poor choices, entitlement, coercion, and violence that manbox thinking helps normalize.
I have not found the perfect balance yet.
And maybe that’s the wrong goal anyway.
This probably isn’t something solved by a neat equation of this percentage of content goes here and this percentage goes there. It is probably something I have to keep navigating, revisiting, and auditing in real time.
But as you read this during April, I want this part to land:
If we are serious about building the “good men” we claim we are trying to develop, Sexual Assault Awareness Month cannot be a foreign concept in our spaces.
Coach Prompts
Were you aware that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month?
How explicitly does your program address consent and harm prevention?
Where have you drifted from your original purpose as a coach?
Player Prompts
What messages have you received about consent and respect?
How do guys your age talk about relationships and sex?
Where do harmful ideas about masculinity show up most?
Geno, Dawn and a Temper Tantrum In Prime Time
I don’t usually write 30 Second Timeout blogs on the weekend, but what Geno Auriemma did Friday night at the Women’s Final Four — and maybe even more infuriating, the subsequent coverage of it — left me needing a place to vent.
Aside from Chiney Ogwumike and Andraya Carter rightfully taking Auriemma to task, so much of the framing around his postgame antics with Dawn Staley has followed a script we see over and over when men try to escape consequence for causing harm: DARVO — deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender.
What Geno did, in my view, was throw a hissy fit after getting his ass whipped and then immediately try to create the illusion that he was actually the one who had been wronged. He claimed he was left waiting a “whopping three minutes” for a pregame handshake, even though video showed Staley greeting him and his entire staff during warmups. He then tried to wrap his ranting in the blanket of “tradition,” as if invoking this is how it’s always been somehow transforms bad behavior into justified behavior.
And then came the apologists.
Almost immediately, people began assigning him tactical-genius foresight, claiming he had somehow “sacrificed himself” to take pressure off stars like Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong after the loss. If that sounds eerily similar to the 4D chess narratives people use to explain away harmful behavior from powerful men elsewhere (paging the White House), you’re picking up what I’m putting down.
No. Make no mistake. Geno was a sore loser Friday night.
He threw a temper tantrum in front of the world.
This is the same man who is always ready with a quote about bad body language, about how soft the world is becoming, about standards and toughness — and yet when his own team got dominated for forty minutes, suddenly all that accountability language disappeared.
The irony is staggering.
This is also not isolated behavior. The man has undeniably won at a level few ever will, and yet he has repeatedly found himself in conflict with his female peers — from Pat Summitt to Muffet McGraw and now Dawn Staley.
On Friday, when his juggernaut was on life support, his response was to rant about officiating, portray Dawn Staley as the unhinged one, and manufacture grievance. Part of that included his comments about “the language she gets to use with officials,” which lands in a much deeper and far more dangerous historical script. Too often, language like that is deployed to dehumanize Black people — and Black women in particular — by casting their passion, advocacy, or frustration as threatening, irrational, or out of control.
In this moment, it felt less like a neutral observation and more like an attempt to paint Staley as the volatile one while he positioned himself as the wronged party. That framing matters. It taps into a long-standing cultural reflex to read Black emotion as aggression and white male emotion as intensity or competitiveness. He wanted sympathy over a “ripped jersey” that replays appeared to show his own player had done to herself. He stormed off instead of walking the handshake line after the buzzer. His players stayed. They did what leaders in their own right do: they honored the moment and the people who beat them.
Then, somehow, he still positioned himself in the postgame as the steadying presence, the shoulder-rubber, the paternal figure beside Fudd as she struggled to process the loss publicly.
Why does this belong in a TeamsOfMen blog?
Because it is a case study in what lengths men deeply rooted in the manbox will go to in order to excuse behavior they willingly chose. It shows how quickly a culture built on old myths and tropes bends reality to preserve the image of a powerful man as misunderstood hero rather than accountable adult.
And, as Chiney Ogwumike so eloquently pointed out, it once again shows how our ecosystem so often requires women — and especially Black women — to stand ten toes down in their dignity while simultaneously rescuing men from their own emotional illiteracy.
That, too, is part of the script.
Coach Prompts
How do you respond publicly when things don’t go your way?
What accountability standards do you apply to yourself after a loss?
Where have you seen DARVO show up in coaching culture?
Player Prompts
What does respectful losing look like?
How do you react when you feel embarrassed or exposed?
Have you ever seen someone reverse blame after doing harm?
Winning Is Not Behavioral Proof
At this point in the blog, and with this being the fourth or fifth post featuring something Dan Hurley did, we should almost require everyone reading to ask themselves one question:
Is Dan Hurley’s on-court success something I would be willing to experience in exchange for behaving like him?
That, to me, is the actual reflection point here. Winning cannot become an automatic eraser of everything attached to how it was achieved.
There are so many false equivalencies wrapped into this statement — and I should probably tag this as allegedly by Dan Hurley, because in today’s internet culture quotes are often cleaned up, paraphrased, or outright misattributed — that it is honestly hard to know where to begin. The first one is the “100% genuine and authentic” line. On its face, that sounds admirable. Of course we want coaches and men to be genuine. But authenticity becomes a problem the moment it is used as a shield against growth. The phrase “that’s just who I am” has too often become permission for men to stop evolving. If someone is quick to rage, emotionally illiterate, or verbally abusive, labeling it as authenticity does not suddenly make it healthy. Authenticity without evolution is just stagnation with better branding.
The second false equivalency is the leap from Hurley’s sideline demeanor to the idea that this is why his teams play hard. That part is where I recoil most. I do not have the accolades Coach Hurley has. I can acknowledge that without hesitation. But I have coached teams that have been repeatedly complimented on how hard they compete, how fiercely they defend, and how relentlessly they play for one another — and I do not conduct myself like a raging lunatic on the sideline. The idea that hard play must be born from hard conduct by the coach is lazy thinking. Sometimes teams play hard because they are talented, deeply connected, accountable to one another, and bought into a shared standard. To reduce that to “they only play this way because coach acts like a maniac” is an easy narrative, but it is not proof.
Then there is the “fight or fright” framing, which really loses me. Beyond being a false binary for coaching conduct, it also badly misuses the language of trauma response. Fight and fright are not motivational styles a person consciously selects in the moment. Trauma responses are involuntary nervous system reactions under perceived threat, and there are more than just two. We know the broader framework includes fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and flock. These are not coaching identities to choose from. They are human responses that require awareness and processing. To casually turn that into a coaching philosophy gives far too much cover to outdated tropes about domination, aggression, and intimidation.
Honestly, this kind of quote becomes fuel for coaches who already want permission to double down on old methods because one highly visible coach won banners with it. That is the danger. One coach, one system, one roster, one set of circumstances gets elevated into doctrine. We have to stop treating every successful coach’s public comment as if it were testimony from on high on how to coach young men. Winning is not moral proof. Success is not behavioral validation. And one coach’s path to championships does not need to become the blueprint for how all coaches treat people.
Coach Prompts
What parts of your coaching style do you defend as “just who I am” that may actually need growth?
Where have you mistaken intensity for effectiveness?
Do your players compete hard because of fear, connection, clarity, or culture? How do you know?
Player Prompts
What kind of coaching helps you compete at your highest level?
Is there a difference between being pushed and being disrespected? What is it?
When does intensity from a coach help you, and when does it shut you down?
The Language Of Legitimate Praise
Today’s blog has to do with this post, originally by @teachwithbronte on Instagram, and it immediately caught my attention because in reimagining manhood, we have to level up our ability to authentically and honestly praise one another. For too long, we’ve settled for the quick “good job” or the high five, and while those are fine, too often we stop there. We haven’t built the habit of sharing genuine reasons we are impressed by one another, and going deeper has too often been framed in male spaces as “soft” or worse.
As coaches, we can fall into this trap too. We can underfeed our players legitimate praise—not fake hype, not empty compliments, but real, specific acknowledgment of what they are doing well. This is not to say these nine examples are perfect must-uses for you and your staff tomorrow. That’s not really the point. The point is that just skimming them should at the very least get your brain moving. What actually fits your voice? Which of these sounds like something you would genuinely say? Which could become a launchpad for phrases you create yourself?
I also think there’s something valuable in the shock value of using one of these with your guys for the first time. You say something like, “I love how you explained your thinking,” and you may immediately get, “What the heck does that mean, Coach?” Honestly, that’s perfect. Now you have a conversation. Now you’re not just praising effort, you’re teaching language, reflection, and meaning.
That’s modeling emotional growth. That’s connection building. That’s helping young men get more fluent in how they see and speak value in one another. Easy win-win.
Coach Prompts
How often is your praise specific instead of generic?
What kinds of growth do you notice but rarely say out loud?
What phrases sound authentic in your voice?
Player Prompts
What kind of praise actually means something to you?
When has someone named something specific you did well?
What’s harder for guys: giving praise or receiving it?