Friday, we talked about knowing your why. Today I want to talk about what happens to that why the moment a kid calls you “coach” for the first time.
Because that word isn’t neutral. It’s not a job title like “manager” or “supervisor.” The second a kid hangs that word on you, something shifts. They’ve handed you permission to shape them. And most of us never stop to think about what we’re holding.
I want to talk to three different coaches today, because I know all three of you are reading this right now.
The first-year head coach who just got the job and is equal parts excited and terrified, wondering if you’re actually ready for the weight of the chair.
The brand-new assistant who’s about to walk into a locker room for the first time, still figuring out whether you belong in the room at all.
The year-15 coach who used to love this, who’s watched the fire burn down to embers, and who’s wondering if it’s still worth it.
All three of you need to hear this.
A Podcast, A Question, and a Punch to the Gut
One of my go-to podcasts is Mike Linch’s Linch with a Leader. In a recent episode, Mike sat down with David Pollack, the College Football Hall of Famer, three-time All-American at Georgia, former first-round NFL Draft pick, and now an ESPN college football analyst. David’s career ended early with a neck injury that could have taken more than football from him. It could have taken his identity, because for years, football was the identity.
Mike asked him a question I haven’t been able to shake:
“Coaches play a massive role in kids’ lives. What would you tell a coach about the weight they carry?”
David’s answer is one I want every coach reading this to sit with:
“Some words weigh more than others. Your words weigh more. When you have the word coach, that means I need you to be successful. In order for me to be good, I have to listen to you. And so, what power that you have. And you see so many new kids. What an awesome opportunity to influence, to motivate, to inspire, to show them what it looks like to follow Jesus.”
Read that again. “In order for me to be good, I have to listen to you.”
That’s not David describing a nice compliment coaches get. That’s David describing a transfer of trust that happens the moment a kid steps onto your field, your court, your mat. They are handing you their willingness to be shaped. Not because you earned a diploma or won a championship. Because you carry a title that, in their mind, means you know the way to good.
Football Became a Terrible God, And He Found Out the Hard Way
Here’s what makes David’s words carry even more weight. He’s not talking theory. He’s the guy who admits football became what he calls “a terrible god” in his own life, the thing he built his identity around before it was violently taken from him with a career-ending injury.
He didn’t discover the weight of identity from a leadership seminar. He discovered it in a hospital bed, wondering who he was without the game that had defined him since Shiloh High School.
That’s the part I want the year-15 coach to hear especially. David will tell you that adversity became one of the greatest classrooms God ever gave him. Not because suffering feels good. It doesn’t. But because it strips away everything you were leaning on that wasn’t actually load-bearing, and shows you what was underneath the whole time.
If you’re 15 years into this and the fire feels like it’s out, maybe it’s not that coaching stopped mattering. Maybe you built too much of your identity on the scoreboard instead of the influence, and the scoreboard finally let you down like scoreboards always eventually do. David would tell you that’s not the end of the story. That’s the classroom.
To the First-Time Head Coach
You are not ready. I want to say that plainly, because nobody is fully ready the first time a locker room full of kids looks at you and waits for you to lead. Readiness isn’t the qualification. Willingness is.
What David is describing isn’t a level of readiness you achieve. It’s a stewardship you accept. Those kids are going to listen to you, not because you’ve proven yourself yet, but because of the word stitched across your polo. That’s terrifying if you think about it as pressure. It’s an incredible gift if you think about it as opportunity.
To the First-Year Assistant
You might feel like the low man on the staff right now, the guy running drills nobody else wants to run, the one whose name the kids barely know yet. Hear this: you already have the power David is talking about. The word “coach” doesn’t wait for seniority. The moment a kid calls you that, they’ve already started listening for what you believe about them, and about what’s true.
Don’t waste that season thinking your influence starts once you get promoted. It started the day they gave you the title.
To the Coach on Year 15
You’ve heard “coach” ten thousand times by now. It’s easy to let a word stop meaning anything once you’ve heard it that often. But David’s point stands whether you’re in year one or year thirty: the weight never goes away, only your awareness of it does.
Ask yourself what you’d tell a rookie coach about why you do this. Then go do that thing again, today, with the same kid who’s driving you crazy this preseason. That kid doesn’t know it’s your fifteenth year. They just know you’re “coach,” and they’re listening.
What an Awesome Opportunity
I keep coming back to David’s last line: “What an awesome opportunity to influence, to motivate, to inspire, to show them what it looks like to follow Jesus.”
Notice the order. Influence, motivate, inspire, and then, only after all of that trust is built, show them what following Jesus actually looks like. Not preach it at them. Show them. Kids don’t need another lecture from an adult with a whistle. They need to watch someone who has the word “coach” attached to their name live like the words in red actually mean something.
That’s the weight. That’s the opportunity. Same word, same moment, every single practice.
Coming off Friday’s conversation about knowing your why, here’s the follow-up question. Now that you know why you coach, do you know what it’s costing the kids in front of you if you forget it this season?
You carry more than you think every time you put on that whistle. Carry it well.
Greater Together
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