You Can’t Coach What You Won’t Practice

Today’s blog is about a 2-minute compilation video titled something like “coaches doing things you have to see to believe” — and it’s exactly what you think it is.

It’s packed with moments most of the coaches shown (many at the D1 MBB level) would want back: emotional rage, physical outbursts, verbal tirades, heat-of-the-moment comments… the kind of stuff that, if a player or staff member did it, the same coach would say, “That can’t be who we are as a program.”

The TeamsOfMen POV is simple:

We can’t beg and plead with young men to have poise and emotional control… while we constantly go over the line, refuse the pause, and then excuse it with “I’m a competitor” or “it was the heat of the moment.”

I’m not arguing coaching isn’t high-stakes and high-tension. It is. It’s a profession laced with pressure and constant hits to your nervous system. No debate.

But here’s the question I can’t get past:

With how much time we spend preaching preparation to players — “do the work,” “train for tough moments,” “stay poised when it’s tense” — why aren’t we doing the same thing?

Why aren’t we investing in therapy? De-escalation skills? Calming techniques? Breath work? Tools that help us stay in control when the stress spikes?

We are the adults in the room.

We don’t get the same “he’s just a young man finding his way” pass our players do.

We have to be better — and we have to be willing to show our guys how we’re trying to be.

Coach Prompts

• Where do you use “competitor” as a cover for behavior you’d never accept from a player?

• What’s your tell right before you go over the line (tone change, pacing, blaming refs, sarcasm)?

• If your worst sideline moment went viral, would it reflect your stated values?

• What tools are you actively building for regulation (therapy, breath work, de-escalation skills)—and who on your staff knows you’re working on it?

• What’s one “pause rule” your staff could adopt this week (10-second reset, assistant steps in, no ref-chasing, etc.)?

Player Prompts

• When a coach loses it, what message do you actually receive—about control, leadership, and respect?

• What’s the difference between being intense and being reckless?

• If you acted the way some coaches act, what would the consequence be? What does that teach you?

• What’s one reset you can use when you feel yourself spiking (breath, hands to sternum, walk-away, phrase)?