The Stress of Winning Can Lead to Burn Out

As a youth coach, you want to see your kids perform to the best of their abilities at all times. It can be devastating to see a goal that your team worked so hard for all year elude them at the conclusion of the season. Losing can take a toll on young athletes, and they will express a desire to win. It’s simple - winning feels good, and losing, often, does not.

But your job as coach is to strike a balance between competitiveness and temperance. You want to help the team win, but not at the cost of tainting the kids’ pure love of the game or running them into the ground. Too often, coaches push their kids harder and harder, not realizing that the athletes will do anything to rise to the challenge to become better competitors. There is more to the game than that, and you have to be the one to enforce the balance. Using team websites can help you broadcast your stance.

Young athletes have a long way to go

If you push your kids too hard, they will burn out and either get injured, lose interest, or peak early and never reach their full potential as athletes. None of these are desirable outcomes, and they would reflect poorly on your abilities as a coach.

Frequently, high school cross country coaches will recommend dangerously high mile volumes for the athletes. Sure, the ones that don’t get injured and can handle the strain will perform excellently in high school - but many go on to under-perform in college and lose interest in the sport. The rare few that turn out to be gifted do not justify the majority who fall off and become disillusioned.

Find the silver lining

Reinforcing a culture of winning as the only measure of success trains kids to carry that attitude throughout their non-sporting lives. But even in loss there are lessons to be learned and progress to be made. Young athletes are impressionable, and should learn that winning is great but not the only thing that matters. Losing can hurt, but does not indicate failure. The important thing is to take every experience as an opportunity to grow and move forward. Your athletes will appreciate your attention to the big picture, especially as they get older.

In order to teach your athletes that there is more to sports than winning and losing, build a sports team website through which you can publish your goals.