What Are Your Team Rituals Actually Teaching?
@PierreFleury_ is someone I’ve reposted often on IG, and one of his recent posts (screenshot above) shares a video I think every coach should watch and grapple with. It shows what appears to be the pregame hype routine for a youth football team. More specifically, Pierre takes issue with the chant the ADULTS appear to be leading the kids in.
Press play yourself and then ask your staff, “Would we want these kids—or your own HS or college guys—launching into a ‘B***h WHAT’ chant before we kick off, tip off, or start running?”
Seriously, if you watch this video, you will see the glee the adults are having alongside the kids. The family members in the background JOINING IN, and even younger siblings echoing the chant. What are we even doing here?
We are not seeing a space ABSENT of life lessons. To the contrary, we see a space normalizing language and ritual around sport that clearly involves problematic language and ideas. And this isn't language sneaking past the adults. The adults appear to be helping lead it. We see the architects of this being the adults who are responsible for establishing what is normal in this team space.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: “Team rooms are not neutral. They are either spaces of unlearning and growth OR they are spaces of perpetration and harm.”
Coach: You have enormous influence over where your space lands. What are the rituals you’re allowing—or actively leading—teaching your guys?
Coach Prompts
What pregame, locker-room or team rituals have become so routine that your staff has stopped examining what they actually communicate?
What language would you immediately correct from an athlete but currently tolerate when it's wrapped in competition, humor or hype?
If younger athletes copied every behavior your staff currently models and celebrates, which ones would you be proud to see replicated?
Player Prompts
What are some things you've learned are "normal" in sports simply because older players or adults did them first?
Does language become harmless because everyone is laughing or using it to get hyped? Why or why not?
What team traditions would you want younger athletes copying from you someday?
If today's post made you wonder what your team's everyday rituals are teaching your athletes—whether you intended those lessons or not—don't guess.
Click here to run the free Decision Confidence Analysis™ and discover where your program is reinforcing healthy decision-making—and where hidden gaps may still exist.
