When and How to Provide Help to Athletes

No matter how approachable or how readily available you make yourself – Waiting for someone to ask you for help is a flawed game plan. Inherently people put their head in the sand to embarrassed to ask. It’s why great leaders don’t just offer support, they just do the supporting. #DailyMight

Over the years I’ve tried several different tactics and processes to offer my support, encouragement, knowledge, and strategy to the players that I’ve coached. Although some tactics work better than others, I’ve been doing this long enough to give you some tips on effectively providing help when it’s needed (even when they won’t ask) to your athletes.

Being a coach brings with it the inherit responsibility to make yourself available to help your athletes, coaches, and parents. Sometimes that is in direct response to the prompt to do so, but most of the time it’s not. No matter how approachable or how readily available you make yourself for someone to approach you asking for help – inherently they will put their head in the sand to embarrassed to do so. Help anyways, here’s how.

What is your skills set

Being in charge is a delicate dance of aligning resources for support and being the support. As you pick up on the need for support from athletes, it’s important for leaders to self evaluate how best to provide said support. If the needed support is in your wheelhouse and experience level – by all means offer that support. If it is not, and it is a potential area of growth for you, it is OK to enlist the help of someone or something that can provide the support that’s not you. And if needed, learn along with the athlete.

What is the relationship

Providing help and support to your athletes will be relationship-based. If you have diligently worked on creating strong and helpful bonds with each of your athletes, then providing support and encouragement comes naturally and easily. If it’s early in the season, or you have a newer athlete to the team, don’t be afraid to ask for help to support an athlete. Give the relationship time for you to develop the relationship needed for you to provide that needed support.

Removing embarrassment

Some of the hardest words that you, I, or an athlete must say is I need help. Strong and consistent coaches have a sixth sense about them when help is needed. Because asking for help can pose such a challenge for athletes (for all of us really), having conversations, and building the required relationship to be able to provide support without being asked can help remove potential embarrassment of the athlete to ask for help. Coaches have a unique opportunity to provide help and support. Use it. And use it often.

Great coaches don’t just offer support, they just do the supporting. By leaning into your skillset (and even farming out what you yourself need help with), building athlete relationships worthy of being allowed to support, and by doing it in a way that removes the embarrassment of the ask – You allow the support relationship to happen.

Give everything your everything. And then some.