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?
