RaiseTheFloor

There is a difference between loving a sport and loving coaching.

They can exist together, and they often do. Most coaches begin because a sport meant something to them. It gave them confidence, discipline, relationships, opportunities, or a place where they felt like they belonged.

There is nothing wrong with loving the sport.

But loving wrestling does not automatically mean someone loves coaching wrestlers.

Loving football does not automatically mean someone loves coaching football players.

Those are not the same thing.

A person who loves a sport may love competition, technique, strategy, tradition, and winning. They may enjoy watching film, designing practices, developing schemes, and being in the room on competition day.

A person who loves coaching has to love something more.

They have to love teaching. They have to care about relationships. They have to be willing to meet young people where they are and help them move forward. They have to value the development of athletes who may never become starters, champions, or even remain in the sport.

Loving the sport is easy when the room is full, the team is winning, and athletes are responding exactly how we hoped they would.

Loving coaching is different.

Loving coaching means teaching the same technique again because an athlete still does not understand it. It means helping a beginner who cannot yet get into a stance while more experienced athletes are preparing for a major tournament. It means checking grades, calling families, finding rides, cleaning up the room, resolving conflict, and having conversations that have nothing to do with the scoreboard.

It means investing in an athlete who may never score a point for your program.

The sport may be what brings us into coaching, but young people have to become the reason we stay.

Coaches often say they want to “give back to the sport.”

I understand that feeling. Wrestling has given me more than I could ever fully repay. It has shaped how I respond to difficulty, how I lead, and how I understand preparation and sacrifice. Coaching allows me to remain connected to something that has been important throughout my life.

But giving back to a sport and practicing servant leadership are not the same idea.

Giving back to the sport is centered on the sport.

Servant leadership is centered on the people.

A coach can give time, knowledge, and energy back to a sport while still making the experience about themselves. They can preserve traditions, teach technique, win matches, and build a respected program while failing to consider what the young people in front of them actually need.

Servant leadership asks a different question.

It does not ask, “How can these athletes help me build the program I want?”

It asks, “How can this program help these athletes become who they are capable of becoming?”

That does not mean coaches stop caring about results. It does not mean lowering standards, avoiding difficult conversations, or allowing athletes to do whatever they want. Serving young people is not the same as pleasing them.

Sometimes serving an athlete means encouraging them.

Sometimes it means holding them accountable.

Sometimes it means giving them an opportunity. Sometimes it means telling them they have not earned the opportunity they want.

Sometimes the most caring thing a coach can do is tell an athlete something they do not want to hear because it is what they need to hear.

Servant leadership is not soft leadership. It is leadership that uses authority for the development of others rather than the validation of the leader.

That distinction matters because coaching gives adults influence over young people. Athletes want our approval. They listen to what we say about their ability, effort, identity, and future. A careless statement from a coach can stay with an athlete long after the coach has forgotten saying it.

That influence should never be treated casually.

Young people do not exist to fulfill a coach’s competitive ambitions. They are not pieces we move around to prove that our system works. They are not statistics attached to our records, and their value cannot be determined by how much they contribute on competition day.

Our programs should be built to serve their development.

That includes their athletic development, but it cannot end there.

A coach should care whether athletes are attending class, treating people well, learning to communicate, accepting responsibility, and becoming dependable teammates. We should care about how they respond when they lose, what they do when nobody is watching, and whether they leave the program more prepared for life than when they entered it.

If our athletes improve technically but become worse teammates, we have not coached them well.

If they win championships but believe their value depends entirely on winning, we have failed to teach them something important.

If the athletes who help us win receive all our attention while everyone else becomes invisible, we are not practicing servant leadership. We are conducting a transaction.

They produce results for us, so we invest in them.

That is not service.

The real test of why someone coaches is often found in how they treat the athletes who cannot advance their career.

How do we treat the beginner?

How do we respond to the athlete who learns slowly?

Do we invest in the backup who may never enter the varsity lineup?

Do we continue supporting an athlete after an injury takes away their season?

Do we care about the young person who decides another sport or activity is a better fit?

Do athletes still matter to us when they are no longer useful to our competitive goals?

Those questions reveal whether we love coaching or whether we simply love what successful athletes can do for us.

This also requires coaches to separate their identity from the program’s results. Coaches naturally take pride in what their teams accomplish. We should. Athletes and coaches work hard together, and success deserves to be celebrated.

But when winning becomes proof of our personal value, athletes begin carrying the weight of an adult’s ego.

Every mistake feels like disobedience. Every loss feels like a personal betrayal. Athletes who struggle become threats to the coach’s identity rather than young people who need to be taught.

The coach begins serving the record instead of serving the athletes.

A servant leader can demand excellence without making the relationship dependent on achievement. Athletes should know that we will hold them to a standard and continue believing in them when they fall short of it.

Correction is not rejection.

A loss does not erase growth.

A wrestler’s place in the program should not depend entirely on what that wrestler can do for the coach.

This is difficult because sports naturally celebrate visible success. People see the wins, championships, college signings, and podium pictures. They rarely see the athlete who learned to control their emotions, became consistent in school, developed confidence, or found a place where they finally felt connected.

Those outcomes may never appear on a coaching resume. 

They still matter.

In many cases, they matter more.

The longer I coach, the more I understand that the sport is the vehicle. The young people are the purpose.

Wrestling gives us opportunities to teach preparation, discipline, accountability, resilience, courage, and service. Competition creates pressure that exposes habits and character. Winning and losing provide immediate feedback. The practice room gives athletes a place to struggle, adjust, and try again.

But those lessons do not happen automatically just because a young person participates in a sport.

They require a coach who understands that developing the person is part of developing the athlete.

A coach who only loves the sport may become frustrated when young people do not appreciate it the same way. They may resent athletes who are less committed than they were, learn differently than they did, or have goals that do not match their own.

A coach who loves coaching becomes curious.

What does this athlete need?

How do I reach them?

What is preventing them from moving forward?

How can I challenge them without giving up on them?

How can this experience help them become more capable, whether or not they ever love the sport as much as I do?

Not every athlete will become passionate about the sport. Not every athlete will remain connected to it after graduation. That does not make the time we invested in them a waste.

If they leave more confident, disciplined, accountable, and willing to face difficult things, then coaching served its purpose.

Giving back to a sport can be part of why someone begins coaching.

It cannot be the entire reason.

The sport does not need us to protect our own memories of it. Young people need adults who will teach them, challenge them, listen to them, and use their influence responsibly.

Love the sport. Whatever your sport is. 

Study it. Respect it. Teach it well. Protect the parts of it that help young people grow.

But love coaching more.

Because the sport is what we teach.

The young people are why we coach.

That is how we raise the floor so our athletes can’t reach their ceiling