I care so much, but inside a stadium nobody has as much invested and on the line than the coach. Long after the stadium lights go out, a coach will lie awake replaying decisions, conversations, and outcomes. I’m not talking about just that night or that week; I mean forever.
I know that sounds like a bold statement but hear me out.
I was blessed to be able to participate in sports at the high school and even at the college level for a minute. I have coached in several different roles and sports, hired coaches, led prayer before games, fed teams, raised money, been the parent of an athlete, started programs that didn’t exist before, and currently serve as a high school principal. I just watched Alabama lose to Georgia, and my high school’s team also lost by one point last night.
As you can see, I SHOULD have picked up a few things by now. I think I have. I’ve for sure picked up a passion for sports, winning, and what they teach.
I was fortunate to have great coaches who taught the right things and held us to high standards. I can still hear them:
“It’s the little things that matter.” “Do your job.” “Play till the whistle.” “Knock them down and help them up.” “Lift up your teammates.” “Compete for the guy next to you.” I could go on. At the time, those sounded like instructions for playing a game. The older I get, the more I realize they were instructions for living a life. That’s part of why coaching gets so personal.
Cutting Myself as a Coach
One of my best friends bought me a desk nameplate when I first became a teacher and coach. It says “Coach Netherton.”
I still have it. But there was one evening when the word “Coach” almost didn’t survive.
I’ve had the privilege of coaching football, basketball, cross country, and track and field at the middle school and high school levels. This night came during my ninth year of coaching, after we lost our final middle school football game of the season by one score in the last minute.
I went back to my classroom, picked up that nameplate, and carried it home. When I got there, I pulled out my DeWalt chop saw and set it on sawhorses. I placed the nameplate on the saw. I didn’t plug it in. But I had a plan.
Inside, my wife had left supper on the island, covered with aluminum foil on a paper plate. Monday-night roast. I didn’t much feel like eating, but I found a way. I sat at that island feeling deflated, hopeless, and like the biggest idiot ever. If you’ve coached, you probably understand that feeling. I’d felt something similar as a player, but this was different.
I had an incredible quarterback and the best kids in the world. We were also a young team full of seventh graders, and in middle school football, one year can feel like the difference between college football and the NFL. We ran the spread, and man, could we score. Just not as much as the other team.
I sat there for what felt like two hours. Red face. Headache. Heartache. Reliving every call, every play, every mistake. It was about losing, but it wasn’t only about losing. I felt like I had let my kids down. Most had given me everything they had. And the ones who hadn’t? That night, I figured that was my fault, too. I should have found a way to get it out of them.
That’s what good coaches do. They find a way. And I was finding a way, all right. A way to screw up. A way to lose. Was it my playcalling? My personnel decisions? At that island, the answer to every question was yes. Looking back, I can recognize the difference between taking responsibility and blaming yourself for everything. That night, I couldn’t.
My plan was to cut the word “Coach” off the nameplate.
I believed that title meant something, and in that moment, I didn’t believe I deserved it. I went dark. Quick. Eventually, I decided against it. Partly because I figured I might mess that up, too, ruin a blade, and lose a finger in the process.
The nameplate survived. So did the coach.
A Little Perspective
Listen, my hope belongs in the Lord. A football score cannot take that away.
But faith doesn’t mean you never get discouraged. Sometimes it means remembering where your worth comes from after you’ve spent two hours looking for it on a scoreboard.
Looking back, it might seem immature or silly to put that much emotion into a middle school football game. And I certainly needed some perspective. What hurt was the feeling that I had failed people who trusted me. I felt like a shepherd who had failed his flock. A guide who was supposed to know the way and had gotten everybody lost.
Feeling that way didn’t make it true. Losing a game doesn’t mean you’ve failed your players. But when you care deeply, it can be hard to separate the two. Yes, you want to win the ones you’re supposed to win and a few you aren’t. But you ain’t gonna win ’em all.
Somebody will say, “It’s the Jimmys and Joes, not the X’s and O’s.” There’s truth in that. Talent matters. Age matters. Experience matters. The other team gets to practice, too. But coaches coach because they believe their work can make a difference. Otherwise, why put in all those hours? We all try the same things in coaching: we will outwork the other team, outthink them, care more than them, watch more film, and study more.
You want to give your team its best shot. You want your players prepared, confident, and proud of what they’ve built together. You want them to discover the self-respect that comes from keeping commitments, accepting responsibility, and earning something difficult.
That’s a lot to carry into a ballgame.
Three of the Reasons Coaches Care So Much
I can’t honestly tell you a coach always cares more than a parent or player. Not all coaches are the same, but for the sake of this article, I’m talking about the ones I have worked with.
I’ve been all three, and there’s plenty of heartache to go around. What I can tell you is that a coach carries a different kind of responsibility. Here are three reasons it can become so emotional and all-consuming.
First: The Coach Is the Shepherd and Leader.
A parent naturally watches for their child. A player has a position, an assignment, and a place on the team. The coach is responsible for every player, coach, water boy, and the program’s reputation, playbook, timeouts, how roster, who plays and who sits... The coach is encourager, disciplinarian, parent when needed, and sometimes friend. Good coaches must see the individual and the whole team at the same time.
They can’t control how talented the opponent is. They can’t guarantee a win. They can teach preparation, effort, discipline, and how to respond when things go wrong. One of the hardest things to watch is a player or team fall short of what you believe they’re capable of because they haven’t bought into those habits yet. You see what they could become. You’re trying to help them see it, too. Sometimes you have to say hard things to athletes and parents that don’t want to hear them.
Parents care about far more than playing time, and good coaches know that. But a coach sometimes must make a decision that disappoints one family while serving the team. That responsibility deserves understanding, even when a decision deserves questioning. Ultimately, a coach should help guide young people toward adulthood with character, humility, and a willingness to contribute. The scoreboard matters. So does the kind of person who walks away from it.
Second: The Coach Sacrifices
I’ve heard stories about coaches taking off their wedding rings at the start of summer practice because, from that point forward, the team came first. I think that’s ridiculous. You don’t prove your commitment to somebody else’s children by neglecting your own family.
Still, the demands are real. Planning. Practice. Games. Summer workouts. Fundraising. Film. Equipment. Field maintenance. Conversations with players who need somebody to listen. And then there’s all the thinking you do after you get home.
Families carry part of that load. Sometimes it looks like another evening apart. Sometimes it looks like supper waiting under aluminum foil while a discouraged coach tries to get his head right. Parents, administrators, and volunteers make real sacrifices, too. But much of a coach’s work happens when the stands are empty and nobody is keeping score.
Calling it “their job” doesn’t make the sacrifice disappear. And depending on the position, the stakes can include a coaching assignment, income, or a career. Even successful coaches know how quickly public opinion can change. Imagine trying to plan your family’s future while knowing that part of your job security rests on the performance of young people who are still learning how to handle responsibility.
That pressure is real. It’s also the adult’s responsibility to manage it without making children carry it. We can hold coaches accountable and still recognize what the work asks of them.
Third: Coaches Are Winners
There’s something in a coach’s gut that wants to win. I’m not going to dress that up. We keep score for a reason. But good coaches also want players to understand what winning requires.
Bear Bryant captured it well: “It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” Everybody likes the idea of winning on Friday night. The harder question is whether you’ll do your part on a hot Tuesday in June when nobody’s watching. Will you show up? Accept correction? Take responsibility? Do the little things when they’re boring and the difficult things when you’re tired?
Few things discourage a coach more than wanting an opportunity for players who haven’t yet decided to work for it themselves. That doesn’t necessarily mean the players care less. They’re young. They’re still learning to connect today’s choices with tomorrow’s results.
Teaching that connection is part of coaching. A coach can show them the way, set the standard, and hold them accountable. Eventually, the players must choose to meet it. When they do, the lessons can follow them into a marriage, a job, a family, and a community long after the uniform comes off.
Why the Nameplate Stayed
Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
That verse doesn’t promise an undefeated season. It reminds me to keep doing good even when I can’t yet see what that work will produce.
Coaches need that reminder. So do parents, teachers, and anybody else trying to help young people grow. Sometimes the results show up on Friday night. Sometimes they show up years later, when a former player becomes the kind of adult you always hoped they would.
I still believe the title “Coach” has real value. I just understand now that I didn’t have to win every game to deserve it. I had to learn from my mistakes, keep showing up, and do right by the young people entrusted to me.
That nameplate is still on my desk. These days, it reminds me of more than the teams I coached. It reminds me that the hard nights never told the whole story.
The deepest measure of a coach’s work is what his players carry into a life he will never get to coach.