How to Keep Youth Sports Coaches from Quitting

In the past I have written quite a lot about what I see the issues are as they relate to youth sports, making our children little professionals, the growth and non-regulation of youth sports as a whole and in particular travel, elite and specialized training programs, the outrageous costs parents are paying for their children to play in these travel and elite youth sports programs, violence against youth sports officials, etc.  Well today I have a different perspective, why coaches “throw in the towel” and quit coaching youth sports.

            I recently came across an article in Soccer Parenting entitled “Why Coaches Throw in the Towel in Youth Sports and What We Can Do About It”.  In the article, Brad Bonic discusses why coaches burn out and leave the coaching ranks and gives ideas on how to help educate coaches, so they have the necessary tools to be successful coaches and make the youth sporting experience for all.  An article like this would have been a godsend for me some 30 years ago when I first started coaching my daughters recreation soccer team.

When we registered my daughter to play soccer I energetically checked the box asking if I wanted to coach. A few months later I received a telephone call asking if I were still interested in coaching, and if so there would be a coaching meeting in about a month.  A month later I attended a meeting, received my team roster and uniforms, and was told to “have fun.”  Now, I had played soccer from the age of seven through high school and some intermurals in college and while I knew the game, I had NO CLUE how to coach the game as I always had coaches who did the coaching and I was so far removed from my youth playing days so it was not like I would remember what we did at practices when I was a 7-year-old.  Keep in mind that this was long before the internet age where you can type in “youth soccer practice suggestions” in a search engine and get reams of information on how to run a practice.  Now, you could go to the library, if you had the time and inclination, to do the necessary research on how to coach youth soccer, but I doubt many new coaches did.  Ultimately I reached out to one of my old youth coaches and he gave me some ideas and coaching lesion plans, and I was on my way.

The moral of this little history lesson is that no one in the league thought it prudent to have a coaching class for the new coaches coming into the league and since a number of coaches never even played soccer as a child, in my opinion, they were being set up for failure.  Now I started coaching youth sports over 30 years ago when the landscape was totally different.  While there were still parents who thought their children were “superstars” who were future professionals, the numbers were much lower than they are today, where everyone thinks that their child is on a professional athlete track and will be playing professional sports one day.

            Mr. Bonic states that 69% of the youth sports coaches surveyed in a 2022 National Coach Survey reported they were stressed and while the reasons varied, a few major themes were driving them out of the game.  Some of the themes were as follows:

·       Parent conflict and burnout

·       Lack of training in parent communication, and

·       Toxic sidelines and negative culture

Let’s take a quick look at these reasons:

·       Parent conflict and burnout – the survey claimed two thirds of the coaches stated parents were regularly criticizing their coaching as well as the performance of game officials and this emotional toll can lead to coaches to burnout and eventually quit.

·       Lack of training on parent communication – most coaching education focuses on tactics, drills and player development but rarely do coaches receive formal guidance on managing parent relationships, even though that is one of the most time consuming and stressful parts of the job and 73% said they were moderately concerned about the abuse they take from parents of their players.

·       Toxic sidelines and negative culture – coaches want to make a positive impact, but when the environment is negative that becomes nearly impossible. In the survey coaches stated they coach because of the love of the game and passing on knowledge to the younger generation; however, when they are constantly confronted by parents , having all of their coaching decisions questioned, being criticized from the sidelines, getting late night email complaint emails, coaches get worn down and just want to quit.

The survey goes on to state once coaches took “Parent Engagement for Coaches course” it changed their approaches and once they held a pre-season parent meeting they were able to set clear expectations and opened up a channel of respectful communication and they were shocked at how quickly the tone shifted.  Further, the coaches stated tension eased, parents became allies, and the sideline behavior improved dramatically.  Mr. Bonic stated when coaches quit, everyone suffers:

·       Players lose trusted mentors and continuity in their development.

·       Clubs scramble to fill roles, often lowering standards or overworking remaining staff.

·       Parents grow frustrated with inconsistent messaging and a lack of leadership. 

·       And most importantly, the kids feel the impact in their experience, enjoyment, and growth.

I have to agree with Mr. Bonic’s conclusions and his suggestions that coaches engage the parents early on so they can have a smooth and successful season.  While I was a member of my youth soccer association I argued that we needed to have a preseason coaches training session to give new coaches a roadmap for what they needed to do to be successful; however, I was shot down time and again as the argument was “if someone wanted to learn, they will go to the library and check out a book.”  Many times, we lost coaches because they did not know how to run a practice, coach in game situations or deal with the parents leading to parents becoming angry and the next thing you knew the coach would quit leaving us to have to find new coaches for the next year.  My first few years, my team meeting consisted of giving out the uniforms and setting up a practice schedule; however, once I decided to expand explaining my coaching philosophy and setting the expectations for the children and parents and what they could expect from me coaching became much easier.  I would highly recommend to anyone who coaches a youth sport that they have this all-important preseason meeting in order to set up a successful season.       

In conclusion, if we depend on coaches to go out and do their own training we are very mistaken, it is up to the administrators of your sports leagues to either develop programs or take advantage of the numerous programs that are already developed by a number of reputable youth sports training organizations to get the coaches the training needed to succeed and improve the youth sporting experience for everyone.