RAW: 2 Players Quit After We Won State

Two players quit after a state championship 🏆—and it forced me to completely rethink how I coach. Here’s what I changed 👇 Be sure learn more at our in depth training for coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com

This one hurt. After one of our most successful seasons ever, two players quit the team. As a long-time coach, I could’ve blamed them. Instead, I looked inward—and what I uncovered changed the way I build team culture forever.

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre – a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a longtime head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion. 

In this episode, I’m opening up about what happened after the wins, what I realized about my own leadership, and the 3 specific things I changed to prevent team drama, foster trust, and develop confident, connected athletes.

🕓 Key Moments
00:00 Introduction: Reflecting on a Coaching Challenge 
01:07 The Importance of Role Clarity 
02:37 Regular Check-ins with Athletes 
04:25 Focusing on the Mental Game 
06:26 Building Team Connection and Trust


🎯 You'll learn:
The #1 reason athletes quietly disengage (even on winning teams)
The impact of clear role definition on player retention and buy-in
How to run biweekly 5-minute check-ins that build trust fast
Why insecure athletes cause the most drama—and how to fix it
How simple mental training tools can completely shift your team culture

✨ If you’re a high school or middle school coach who’s felt blindsided by players quitting, struggling with team drama, or just looking to build a stronger, tighter culture—this is for you.

📌 Want to take your team’s mental game to the next level?
🔹 Grab our FREE training for coaches → https://coachfreetraining.com
🔹 Follow us on IG → @elitecompetitorcoach
🔹 Check out our plug & play elite mental game info → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg 

 👇 Coaches - comment below: What’s one thing you wish your athletes better understood about their role?

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

Transcript

Speaker: 1:04

A couple years ago, actually, after one of our championship seasons, I had two girls quit my team. And honestly, I was ticked. I was like, could figure out all the reasons why it was their problem, their fault, and how they could have changed things to make it better. It was a point in my coaching career that I really had to take a look at my culture, and as much as there's never one reason why somebody leaves the team, and by the way, this is the first time this had ever happened in my coaching career. So if it's happened to you or you're afraid of it happening to you, I'm just sharing a few things that I changed as a result of that, that I hope is helpful to you. But anyways, I have to look at kind of the full picture. Yes, they had their own things going on, their own backgrounds, their own parents stuff, and however. There were also some things that were lacking in my team culture. So as I'm just sitting here reflecting a little bit that I hope is helpful to you as a coach. During that off season, I kind of did a deep dive and I'm like, either I need to like step away from coaching or I've gotta figure out like what I can change here to make this better. And one of the first things that came out of that that I changed for that next season was role clarity. And if you're a coach that's like, I already do that. Good for you because I didn't, I thought it was like pretty clear what everyone's role was. It was like, you know, you, you find out pretty early on, like where you kind of fit on the team and um. And I thought it was clear, but it, it wasn't okay. It, it wasn't, and I didn't actually create good roles for people who weren't starters. And so it was kind of like, you're either a starter or you're a non-starter. And I didn't really clarify like what it meant to be a non-starter. And honestly, that's not really like a good role. A non-starter is not like. A good role. So really coming up and like being clear with like what the roles are on your team, what's the purpose for, for people on your team, what, what roles do they hold? And being intentional with not only telling them, but. Um, sharing what their, what the expectations are of that role, where their strengths are, where, what they need to be focusing on. Like, I actually now do something called the Player Impact Plan, where I sit down with them at the beginning of the season and I list all these things out and I actually share it with them and I share it with their parents, that everybody's on the same page with what their role is. And it's also something that's evolving. So we check in throughout the season. So that is something that I changed right away, made it really clear like what players' roles were, because. I mean, in these two situations, like these two girls that quit, they, they were in non starting roles and I think they felt undervalued and um, like they didn't really have a purpose on the team, so that was part of it. Um, the other thing was just regular check-ins. And again, these might sound like no brainer things, and if you're like, I already do all of that, where have you been then? Great. Okay. Hopefully this is helping a coach who maybe hasn't thought of it yet and um, is at this, this point where they're like, okay, maybe team drama is like creeping in a little bit, or I'm afraid of this. Or maybe you're in the point where I was, where like you had a couple players quit in. That was, again, that was kind of devastating to me. So anyways, um, checking in regularly with your athletes and I found that I would naturally check in with the athletes who were easy to check in with, right? The ones that, like, you just have players that are just naturally more like you just connect with them a little bit more. But I had to be really intentional about connecting with. Everybody. And so I started building in, um, biweekly meetings. There were five minute meetings, um, where I just held space for those athletes to ask questions, for me to relay any information to them. And you know what, like I always say, you're gonna spend the time either way. You're either gonna spend the time dealing with team drama or you're gonna spend the time proactively. Making sure that you are like listening to players, that they have an opportunity to voice any questions or concerns, and I would rather do it that way. So carving out five minutes per player every other week, and I did it like at the beginning of games, so. We have JV and C team games before the varsity plays. And so I would take like 15 minutes of that time to meet with three different players and that would circle through half the team on one week, the other half the next week. And then we would repeat. And it's just a great way players know, like I have this time, I have it built in. It's not like they have to somehow like schedule a meeting with you.'cause as much as you probably say, like you have an open door policy, it's like. Okay. We kind of make it intentionally a little bit difficult if you are, you know, not giving space before or after practice to talk and, and all of that. So just regular check-ins. Those touch points really go a long way. And then the third thing that I really honed in on, um, was the mental side of the game and their confidence. Because if you look at your culture and look at the, the, the, the people in your program that probably cause. I hate to say most of the problems, but like where some of the drama stems is typically from the athletes that are not confident in themselves or they're a little bit insecure or they feel threatened by somebody else or they're comparing, um, typically those players and I. It is worth it to develop your players' confidence in their mental game, just in little ways so that they feel that they belong. They have simple skills that they can use to help them. Um, I always say like a, a way for them to reset in a game. You know, using some sort of failure recovery system so that they're not spiraling after mistakes, and then internalizing those things, or shutting down and snapping at players on the court, like having actual ways for athletes to respond in those moments. Is a game changer and it impacts your whole culture and it can eliminate drama. When athletes have like more confidence in themselves, they're more secure in themselves. I say like, that's actually where it starts. And so, um, I started really honing in on the mental side of the game and I am a mental performance coach, so we naturally do more of these things. If you don't do that or you're not a mental performance coach. That's okay. Most people aren't. That's why I have resources. You can actually head to our free training. Um, it's at coach free training.com. I can, you know, I'll link it below Um, but it's just a really good place to start if you're like, I do need to start training the mental side of the game and their confidence because hurt people, hurt people, and confident players typically aren't the ones that are causing chaos. Chaos and like pulling other people down. So, um, you know, incorporating that actually made a huge. Huge difference for athletes because they know now they know their role, right? They are more confident in themselves and in their goals that they have. Um, they're more connected to the team. Like it's just, they're, they're connected to me, like it, it all made a huge difference. That, and then, you know, little things like making sure. If you coach, especially if you coach girls, like allowing them to connect with each other. You know, just scheduling. I started doing like a weekly meeting where we're doing roses and thorns, highlights, low bikes, things that aren't really related to volleyball, the coach that I sport or the co, the sport that I coach. Um, and just allowing them to like connect on that level builds their trust and, um, also makes a big difference when it comes to. That team drama or lack thereof, which is the goal. So those are things that I changed, and honestly, if I would go back, like I wish I would've done those things sooner. So hopefully this is a little bit helpful for you if you're in that boat. Or maybe you did have somebody quit, and if so, I see you like. I know it can be hard and it can be really easy to blame the, the player themselves, and you probably have every right to, in some, some cases for some things. But you also have to, as a coach, realize like, it, okay, what can I change as well? Where, where did I go wrong in this? So hopefully that's helpful, coach. Hang in there.