Youth football finished up last week in my hometown. For most of us parents, it was met with a sigh of relief. We can return to family meals that take place before 7:30, consistent bedtimes, and less urgency when it comes to laundry—at least until the start of the next sports season. This was my 5th year coaching football. But it was the first time I realized the influence a coach has to build up or tear down throughout the game. 

The huddle is where discipleship happens, where ministry takes place. In between moments of elation and disappointment, we have 45 seconds to care for, teach, and encourage before the next play. And when that play is over, we repeat the process. Very few avenues of life afford us such a strategic space to minister to the hearts of young kids than being in the huddle with them. 

As we huddled up together in practice and in the games, here are 7 things I tried to impart to the kids.

It’s okay to cry

On the first day of practice, one of the boys got hurt and he started crying.

A parent chimed in from the sidelines: “Really? This is the first day of practice and he’s already crying. This is football, come on!” 

The parent was frustrated and probably embarrassed that their kid was making a scene, so they overreacted a bit. I get it. I have for sure been there before. 

As we huddled up at the end of practice, I had the kids take a knee and look me in the eyes. I communicated some version of this:

“Because football is a contact sport, there will be times this year when you get hurt. When that happens and you feel like crying: Cry. It’s perfectly normal to cry when something hurts. Come find me, let me know what happened and we’ll figure out the best path forward. Just know that it’s okay to cry when something hurts.”

And someone got “hurt” every practice and every game. There were lots of tears this year. Hopefully, these kids learned in the huddle that it’s okay for boys to cry in sports—and in life.

Take five deep breaths

If you have never heard the term dysregulation before, now is a great time to learn what it means. Dysregulation is an inability to control or regulate one's emotional responses, which can lead to significant mood swings, significant changes in mood, or emotional lability. Essentially, it means something is going on that’s preventing you from acting in a way that you normally would act. 

In the home, parents use different strategies to deal with the craziness. When you’re playing sports, you don’t have the luxury of time to re-regulate and get to a place of normalcy. So, as a coach, what do you do in those moments when you know your young athletes are dysregulated and spiraling?

Here is what I did this year: Five. Deep. Breaths. 

When young athletes are hurt, flustered, anxious, or angry, I would pull them aside and put my arm around them. And then I would invite them to take five deep breaths with me. Most of the time, by the third breath, they had calmed down. By breath five, they were ready to re-engage. This isn’t magic, it’s science. It’s how God designed our bodies to work. 

Our autonomic nervous system has two components: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The first controls our fight-or-flight response. The second controls our rest-and-relax response. Deep breathing like the one I utilized this season brings calm to the sympathetic nervous system, reducing feelings of stress or anxiety. 

Does this help them on the field? Yes (though our record this year may disagree with that statement). But what I am trying to do is teach them how to regulate their emotions in life as well. As we navigate our mental health crisis, this generation needs to learn tools and skills to prevent themselves from spiraling. Sport is a great laboratory for the development of skills and character—and the huddle is where we teach these lessons on the fly.

We show respect to our opponents by giving them our best effort

For 5th and 6th graders, I use the word honor instead of respect. At the 3rd and 4th grade level (where I was at this year) they don’t have a category for thinking about something like honor yet. I’m after two things when I make the statement “We honor (respect) our opponents by giving them our best effort.” 

1. I want to remind them to give maximum effort.

2. I want to teach them that the opponent is not an object for us to destroy, kill, or demolish.

In the huddle for the first play of the game, I ask “How do we show respect for our opponent today?” And everyone says in unison “By giving them our best!”

When we’re up by three touchdowns with one minute left I ask the same question and get the same answer. FYI, when we’re up big, respecting our opponent doesn’t mean running a double reverse flea flicker. It means we’re going to run a very “vanilla” play, but give it everything we have. 

When we’re down by three touchdowns with one minute left (which happened often this year), I am encouraging them with the same question. Does the score matter? Yes! We’re trying to win. But the scoreboard should never dictate the effort the kids bring for each play. 

We honor others by giving them our best, regardless of the circumstances. It’s easy to forget that in the heat of competition. The huddle provides a space for us to take a breath and remember to give maximum effort with the end goal of honoring our opponent. 

It’s okay to make mistakes

It’s much more fun to live and play from a position of freedom instead of fear. Sport should be an avenue where kids learn how to play through trial and error, not caution or hesitancy. If we expect and communicate perfection as a high value, kids will inevitably hesitate or freeze because they are afraid to make a mistake. 

The huddle provides an opportunity to consistently reinforce this—because kids are always making mistakes. I will even tell kids before the game that mistakes will be made and that it’s ok. It’s how we learn and get better. I do this for three reasons:

1. This infuses the Gospel into the world of sport. Mistakes happen. Athletes need to know that my opinion of them does not change based on their performance. Now, I still coach them and tell them how to get better, but my tone hopefully communicates patience and love instead of exasperation and anger.

2. It builds team comradery. When someone jumps offside, what is the natural response? “Joey! Why did you jump?” “Come on Joey!” “Are you kidding me, Joey?” Reinforcing this in the huddle from day one gives the team language for a grace-based response. Athletes I coach know that I will be harder on the teammates who criticize than I would ever be on the ones who make the mistakes.  

3. It frees them up to risk in practices and in games in ways they wouldn’t if I encouraged perfection as a high value. Better said: I think phrases like “it’s ok to make mistakes” actually make them better athletes.

Again, sport is a laboratory for life. The hope is that they would understand that mistakes don’t define them. If I am able to show them love that’s not contingent on performance, perhaps it will be easier for them to experience the grace-based love that God offers them as well.

Tie your shoes

Meeting physical, tangible needs in the huddle is one of my favorite parts about coaching young athletes. I love snapping the chin straps onto their helmets. I love helping them tie their shoes. I love folding the jersey back over the shoulder pad and using a towel to get mud off their faces when the field is soaked from rain. 

“Coach, can you help me…” is music to my ears. Should they be able to do these things themselves? Probably. Am I enabling them by doing these simple acts of service for them? Maybe. But with all of the complexities surrounding sport, tying a kid’s shoe is such an easy win because it builds connection and trust.

Don’t retaliate 

“He grabbed my facemask!”

“He punched me!”

“He pinched me!”

“He pushed my helmet into the ground!”

The young athletes bring every act of injustice committed against them into the huddle. How do we respond? We only have seconds to address what’s unfair in the huddle, but seconds turn into moments that end up shaping their trajectories. I try my best not to waste them by just ignoring the problem and calling the next play.

This is my rehearsed response when this happens. And it’s rehearsed because it happens during almost every other play.

“Tell me what happened, quickly.”

“I’m really sorry that happened, that’s not right, is it?”

“Take a couple of deep breaths—and whatever you do, don’t retaliate.”

“I’m on your side, ok?”

Some version of that. I want to listen, affirm, empathize, and then call them to a greater path forward, a path Jesus lays out in Matthew 5:38-39 when he implores us to “turn the other cheek.” This is discipleship in action, right there in the huddle, in a matter of seconds.

My hope for the young athletes is that choosing self-control over retaliation on the football field will build the muscle memory needed for that same virtue to carry over into the rest of their lives.

Thank the refs

The last thing I say to athletes as we huddle up after every game is “Go thank one of the refs.” The team sprints off, shakes a ref's hand, thanks them for their time, and then they grab their Gatorade and post-game snacks. I don’t do this to get favorable calls (I can already tell you it doesn’t work). 

I do this to help humanize the refs—for me and for the kids. I do this for the parents too. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder that while we may get worked up and frustrated by some of the calls, the kids choose to rise above it by thanking the refs. Again, I am trying to build muscle memory of gratitude and humility. 

Whether you liked them or not, they served the team that day with their presence—and they were probably underpaid in the process. I want the kids I coach to recognize and show dignity to the people in sport culture who participate in thankless jobs. 

I’m a work in progress

What I shared above is where I have tried to be intentional over the last few years as a youth sports coach. But I still fall most days. I tried to correct a ref while at a middle school game (within the last month), which became a catalyst for more parents to speak up from the stands. I encouraged one of our lead blockers to “lay out” one of the competitors who kept tackling our backs in the backfield. After losing our last game of the season, I found myself mulling over various coaching “decisions” while I was singing worship songs in church. Despite my best efforts to leverage the huddle, I still fall short. 

What I love about youth sports is that opportunities abound to grow, learn, and hopefully, get better from it.