How Coaches Can Create Environments Where Athletes Thrive

Culture, Trust, and Accountability

Good coaches are hard to come by. Being a great coach is a constant grind in self and player development. Read more about that here. With the increasing pressures of money influencing athletes, parents, and coaches' decisions at every level, it feels like we as an industry have lost sight of what sports are supposed to do for players, families, and their communities.

Coaches have options to make it better. Mental and physical well-being are at an all-time risk, and coaches have a unique position of advocacy, mentorship, and place of impact in their communities to help make it better for their players.

Coaches should fall back on the foundation that makes sports so great: Culture, Trust, and Accountability.

Culture: Building a Shared Team Identity

Culture and football are integral to how your team operates as a team, in the classroom, and in their communities. Believe it or not, there are a significant number of programs that have a lack of ‘identity’ or culture. Culture is the fail-safe to show your athletes the right thing to do and how to do it—the little and the big.

Culture is the driver to take people and organizations from good to great. Not meant to make people feel good; it's meant to transform them into better.

Culture can be a variety of different words, mantras, stories, or team bonding that create that shared identity. The values must be understood, shared, and upheld.

At Wisconsin, we had a mantra: "The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack."

Our culture was built on a shared identity of the Wisconsin-way. Brotherhood and teamwork were strong under Paul Chryst. This allowed us to punch above our weight often. We had a foundation and a history of resilience and grit. We had a culture of grinding and embracing a strong work ethic. We had the automatic reactions of respect, resilience, and discipline in the face of adversity. This was all constructed by our head coach and reinforced daily.

You could feel that culture. No matter who you were. It was important.

Trust: Honesty and Vulnerability

Every coach knows (or should know) that trust from their athletes is built through relationships and follow-through. Emphasis on that last part. Follow through on what you say, or as many know, your actions speak louder than what you say.

I know many coaches who preach a great philosophy, goals, virtues, and rules, but fall short when they themselves break it, or they lack the leadership to discipline everyone on their team (including staff and fellow coaches). Your word is your word; it builds your reputation, and to go against it is to forgo your honor.

If your players (and staff) do not trust you, the wheels will fall off. No one will buy into the vision because they do not trust you enough to think it is important or something worth fighting for. Building trust means creating strong bonds, but also saying the hard part out loud. Disciplining when it's uncomfortable. I have been around numerous programs, and the ones I would fight for to be a part of again always did the right things—not because it was easy, but because it was simply the right thing to do.

Additionally, trust in any kind of relationship is built through honesty. One of my favorite books, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***" by Mark Manson, highlights this very well.

"When our highest priority is always to make ourselves feel good, or always to make our partner (he is using a true relationship as an example) feel good, then nobody ends up feeling good."(Manson, 177).

Coaches, we are not in the feel-good business. I want my players to understand that. No one should trust a "yes"-coach (my play on a yes-man).

Manson puts it well, "...during that trust-building period, things are likely to be pretty shitty. So both people in the relationship must be conscious of the struggle they are choosing to undertake". (Manson, 179).

If a player is to be coached by me, they should not expect sunshine and rainbows in terms of my feedback. I encourage them to use their voice. I will also use mine.

An example was a player I had this year who was not used to discipline. I pulled him from the game for violating a core value of my offensive line. He was livid. At the end of the season, he told me that in that moment, he "hated" me. But then he said, "I now respect you for it. If you leave, I don't want to play without you".

I had to remind him that he shouldn't base his aspirations and dreams on where I go or what I do, but what he was trying to emphasize was the strong bond we had formed. I was glad he felt he could be honest with me, and I never regretted pulling him from the game.

Finally, trust also starts by allowing your athletes to be vulnerable and guiding them through tough times. One of my favorite exercises that I do with all of my rooms is Hero, Hardship, and Highlight. We did this exercise at the University of Wisconsin with the football program every year. This was a chance for coaches to be an example of vulnerability and show the players how to share these important things, confidently.

This year, with the Cleveland Heights offensive line room, I had to make a statement I did not think would need to be made. I told the players, "I need you to be confident to f*** up in front of me". The room I inherited felt that they needed to be perfect all the time. This hindered their growth on and off the field. One day, I just ripped off the band-aid. They were playing scared. I needed that mentality to shift in them - let's play to win and not to lose.

So I said the quiet part out loud. I told them mistakes are welcome at practice, that is the point of practice. There are in high school! This is an opportunity to grow. I explained my job as a coach is to guide them through mistakes; if they were perfect and knew it all, then I should not be here. I said that not only could they learn from me, but I was also learning from them. Mistakes were going to happen on both sides, and they needed to know it's okay.

The phrase we use in the midst of learning is "Now you know, and you will execute it correctly next time". Because there is a next time. It is not the end of the world. I want them to build that response when they encounter adversity.

This allowed us to create a space where players could trust that there would be discipline, follow through, but most importantly, trust that they could share that not everything was ok. We did not expect them to be perfect. Our actions, words, and the space we created showed that.

"Now you know...."

Ashley Cornwell with the Bucknell Football Tight End Room in 2024.

Accountability: Guiding Growth and Development

We touched upon it in trust. Accountability shows intention and love. That's our job as coaches in a nutshell. We have this unique relationship where we help take players and our fellow staff somewhere they cannot take themselves (somewhere they cannot go alone).

This, to me, is an extension of your own actions. It's the actions you allow from others who are a part of your team.

To nip harmful behaviors in the bud is loving to that individual and protective of the health and function of the organization overall. Part of creating growth for players and staff is direction.

Accountability is like the bumper bars to keep the ball headed toward the pin. As they develop into leaders, they won't need it often or at all. At the end of the day, I view my job as helping them create independence on and off the field for their next chapter in life.

What helps accountability is creating a space where mistakes are ok! As touched upon previously, I try to encourage them to be their full, imperfect self. I lead by example and name my mistakes, so they know it is a normal part of life. I also hold myself accountable for my own with pushups or sprints.

It stems from you. That should be your biggest takeaway. Players thrive in an environment that gives way to clear expectations, strong morals and values, and a leader who acts out the expectations for the program they set into place.

You do not need a fancy acronym—you need something true to you, an organization that will embrace it, the opportunity to execute, and the discipline to uphold your staff and players to the expectations.

An environment will be created that allows growth from mistakes and success when adversity strikes. That will carry lessons and change that extend far beyond just the football field.

Ashley Cornwell with the Bucknell Football Tight End room at the end of the year banquet in December of 2024.

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Proverbs 22:6