How to Coach Today's Athletes Without Lowering Your Standards

Kids Have Changed. So Should Our Coaching.

"You just can't coach kids anymore."

I hear that phrase all the time.

Honestly? There have probably been moments where I've caught myself thinking something similar. Not because I don't love coaching kids, but because coaching kids today really is different than when I first started coaching over 20 years ago. And it's definitely different than when I was the athlete standing on the other side of the conversation.

I grew up in gymnastics in the 90s. Pain was often considered part of the sport. You pushed through it. You didn't ask a lot of questions. Looking back, I actually had a really supportive gym experience overall, and I'm incredibly grateful for it. Gymnastics shaped who I am in so many positive ways. It taught me so many things that I carry with me now…and have built a whole career around.

But that doesn't mean everything was perfect.

I also developed serious mental blocks that eventually led me to step away from gymnastics for several years. Looking back now as both a physical therapist and a coach, I can see things through a very different lens than I could back then. I've realized that we don't honor the great coaches who came before us by coaching exactly like they did. We honor them by continuing to learn, just like they did.

That's why I struggle when I hear coaches say things like, "You just can't coach kids anymore," or "Kids just aren't mentally tough," or "Nobody wants to work hard." I don't think those comments usually come from a bad place. Most of the time they come from frustration. Coaching can absolutely feel harder today than it did twenty years ago.

The truth is, today's athletes are growing up in a completely different world than we did. Think about something as simple as writing a school report. When I was growing up, that meant going to the library, searching through the card catalog, figuring out the Dewey Decimal System, hoping the book you needed wasn't already checked out, digging through encyclopedias, and then sitting down to type everything yourself. Today's kids can have information in seconds with a Google search.

Can you imagine how differently your brain develops when you've never had to wait for information like that?

That doesn't make this generation lazy. It doesn't make them incapable. It means they've grown up in a different environment, and different environments shape people differently. If we can accept that the world has changed, then I think we also have to accept that coaching has changed.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned over the years is that whenever I find myself getting frustrated with an athlete, it's usually a sign that I need to get curious instead of critical. That's a mindset shift I've had to make as a coach, and honestly, it's made coaching a lot more enjoyable.

Instead of immediately assuming an athlete doesn't care, I try to ask myself what I might be missing. Are they overwhelmed? Are they confused? Have I actually explained why this matters? Am I communicating in a way that helps them learn, or am I assuming they'll respond the way I would have at their age?

Those kinds of questions don't lower my expectations for athletes. If anything, they raise my expectations for myself. They remind me that coaching isn't just about teaching skills or correcting mistakes. It's about figuring out how to connect with the athlete standing in front of me. Every athlete learns a little differently, and I think that's part of what makes coaching so rewarding.

Now, I know what some people might be thinking. "So are you saying we should lower our standards?"

Not at all.

I still believe in discipline. I still believe in accountability. I still believe athletes should learn resilience, responsibility, and how to do hard things. In fact, I think those qualities are more important than ever.

The difference is that I don't believe those qualities magically appear just because we expect them to. They're coached. They're modeled. They're reinforced over hundreds of small interactions throughout a season. Research on athlete motivation consistently shows that athletes are more engaged, more confident, and more likely to stick with challenges when coaches combine high expectations with clear communication, supportive relationships, and specific feedback. Becoming a better communicator doesn't make you a softer coach. It makes you a more effective one.

One reminder I come back to often is this: we ask athletes to accept feedback, learn new skills, adapt when something isn't working, and improve every single season. Why wouldn't we expect the same from ourselves?

One of the reasons I feel so strongly about this is because I've lived it as a PT.

I graduated from physical therapy school in 2008. If I still treated low back pain the exact same way I did back then, I honestly don't think my athletes would get the same results they do today.

Did people get better? Absolutely. Many of them got back to gymnastics, and I truly believed I was helping them. But looking back, a lot of those athletes continued to have recurring back pain throughout their careers because I simply didn't know what I know now.

Over the last 15+ years, I've completely changed how I treat back injuries. The exercises I prescribe are different. My philosophy on managing stress fractures has evolved. The way I progress athletes back into sport has changed. Even the conversations I have with athletes and parents are different than they were when I first started practicing.

None of those changes happened because I was a bad physical therapist in 2008. They happened because I kept learning.

And because I kept learning, my athletes are better because of it.

So why would coaching be any different?

If we expect medicine to evolve, rehabilitation to evolve, and strength training to evolve, why wouldn't we expect our coaching to evolve too?

I hope I'm coaching differently ten years from now than I am today. Not because I think I'm doing a bad job now, but because I hope I never stop learning. I hope my athletes continue to teach me. I hope I keep asking better questions. I hope I become a better communicator. Coaching isn't just teaching gymnastics, or soccer, or baseball, or whatever sport you coach. Coaching is leading people, and people are always changing.

I've also realized that so much of coaching comes down to the words we choose. A simple phrase can change how an athlete experiences an entire practice. I've become much more intentional about the language I use, and honestly, that's a conversation big enough for its own article. There are several common coaching phrases I've worked hard to leave behind over the years, and I've found that changing just a few words can completely change the conversation. I'll share more about that in my next post because I think it's one of the simplest ways any coach can immediately become more effective.

If we want to change gymnastics culture, and really youth sports culture as a whole, it won't happen because athletes suddenly become different. It will happen because coaches continue to grow.

That's also why I created my 10 Questions Every Coach Should Ask Their Athletes. They're simple questions, but they've completely changed the conversations I have with athletes. Instead of assuming I know what they're thinking or feeling, I've learned to ask, often anonomously. More often than not, their answers surprise me, and they make me a better coach because of it.

At the end of the day, I don't think our goal should be to coach athletes the way we were coached.

Our goal should be to coach today's athletes as well as we possibly can.

I hope ten years from now I'm reading this article and smiling because I've grown even more. I hope I've learned from more athletes, listened more than I talked, and continued to challenge my own assumptions. That's not abandoning the coaches who shaped me. It's honoring them.

Because the best coaches I've ever known were never done learning.

Your athletes shouldn't be expected to stay the same. Neither should your coaching.