One Document That Prevents 90% of Playing Time Conversations

Playing time drama isn't about entitled kids. It's about unclear roles. Here's the 15-minute system that eliminates it! Join the Championship Program Membership → champions.elitecompetitor.com for more tips and resources! 

In this episode, I'm breaking down why playing time drama happens (spoiler: you're probably creating it without knowing) and the exact Player Impact Plan system I use with all 12 varsity athletes.

Here's what you'll learn:
✅ Why "open door policies" don't work with 14-year-olds 
✅ The confusion cycle that creates resentment and drama 
✅ How to document roles, expectations, and playing time in one meeting 
✅ Why this 15-minute investment saves you hours later 

This isn't theory. It's the system I've used for years as a four-time state champion coach. 

👋🏼 Hi, I'm Coach Bre, a 4-time state champion high school volleyball coach with 14+ years of coaching experience. I'm also a Certified Mental Performance Coach and co-founder of The Elite Competitor, where I help coaches build mentally tough, confident girl athletes who perform when it matters most. My signature frameworks (like the Snapback Routine and 3-2-1 BRAVE) are used by thousands of coaches to teach mental training without adding hours to their schedule. 

The Player Impact Plan (PIP) gives every athlete crystal-clear answers to: 
👉 What's my role? 
👉 How much will I play? 
👉 What are my strengths? 
👉 Where do I need to grow? 
👉 What does my coach expect from me? 

When everyone's on the same page from day one (including parents), the drama doesn't start. Grab the PIP template here: https://elitecompetitor.kit.com/6639eaaf9f 

🕓 Key Moments:
0:00 The Root Cause of Playing Time Drama
00:42 Why Players Get Confused
01:17 Common Coaching Mistakes02:10 The Player Impact Meeting Solution
02:54 What's in the Player Impact Plan
03:56 How to Make Time for These Meetings
04:29 Get the Free Template 

💬 Coaches - comment below: How do you handle athlete communication and expectations? 

📌 Free Tools & Next Steps
🔹 Grab our in-depth FREE training → https://coachfreetraining.com
🔹 Follow us on IG → @elitecompetitorcoach
🔹 Follow us on TikTok→ @coachhergame
🔹 Championship Program Membership: champions.elitecompetitor.com
🔹 Player Impact Plan: https://elitecompetitor.kit.com/6639eaaf9f 

🔔 Subscribe for More → Never miss an episode of Coach Her Game!

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:
⚡67% of high school athletes report unclear expectations from coaches as a top source of stress (Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 2022)
⚡Athletes with clearly defined roles show 34% higher team commitment and 28% lower dropout rates (Sport Management Review, 2021)
⚡Proactive communication reduces parent-coach conflicts by 41% compared to reactive approaches (National Federation of State High School Associations Research, 2023) 

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge. 

#playingtime #highschoolcoaching #coachinggirls #teamculture #mentalperformance

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

Transcript

1:04

Playing time, drama coaches, we've all been here and contrary to what you and I maybe have experienced, it is not caused by entitled players or helicopter parents, although. Those things are not helpful if we were to actually pull everything back. It's actually caused by confusion and a lot of us are unknowingly creating confusion for our players and making it really hard for them when it comes to this whole playing time talk. I know I was doing that and after the past 14 years of coaching, I've tried a lot of different things and there's one thing that actually is made. The biggest difference when it comes to playing time conversations, and I'm gonna talk about that in today's video. Now, here's the real problem. When it, you know when playing time drama starts to bubble up, it's that players, when it comes down to it, are confused about what their role is. Maybe it's unclear, even if you're like, I feel like I've explained it to them. If you haven't been crystal clear with it, they don't really know where they stand, what their role is, how much playing time associated with that role, what their expectations are, and when they don't know, they fill in that gap with their own story. Okay. And then parents only hear that side of the story as well, right? The emotional, the hard side. And then you're managing drama that you accidentally created. So this cycle kind of contin continues, right? No clarity. So then they get confused, they create stories, they get resentful, parents get involved, the drama explodes. And then we've got major problems now. What most coaches try to do is they will either maybe say like, this is what your role is, but it'll be something that's not actually intentional or thoughtful or they don't do anything at all. That's what I used to do. I used to just kind of put the lineup in and say, this is what it is. I wouldn't really have communication with my players about it because I figured that they knew like. It. Right. It's pretty obvious, but it's not obvious to them. And that's what I have found out, um, over and over again. Okay. Um, or we just say, Hey, this is what it is, and if you have any issues, come and talk to me. I have got an open door policy, and they don't come through your open door. They never talk to you because they, uh, don't know how they're scared. They're, you know, we're asking a 14 or 15-year-old to advocate for themselves, so it doesn't really work out. And then the confusion continues and the resentment continues and they create stories around like. Well, it's probably because, you know, my coach doesn't like me or I'm the worst one, and then their confidence gets impacted and you know, it becomes this whole thing. So what I do at the beginning of the season is something called a Player Impact meeting, and this is where I roll out something that I created called the Player Impact. Plan. Now, this is a document that I create for players at the beginning of the season. Every single one of my players, I have 12 on my varsity team that I do this with. And it's informed by some questions that I ask them at the beginning. So they get a little Google form with some questions around their goals, their expectations, what their strengths and weaknesses are, you know, through their perspective. And then I gather that information and also the information based on what I have. I do this about two weeks into the season. You know, we've had several practices. We've had a jamboree at this point, now we're headed into league play, so we kind of gotta know what these roles are, and I kind of put that all together to create their player impact plan. So they get their role on the team, and I get very specific on what this role is. Right. Is it a go-to player? Is it a backup player? Is it a six rotation player? This is volleyball, but I know it applies to all other sports, right? Um, and what I expect of them in that role in practice and in competitions and what they can expect from me, how much playing time is associated with that role, what their strengths are that they bring to the team, where their areas of growth are. All of that is documented in this document, and they sign it and I sign it that they have acknowledged and that they accept their role at that point in the season. Now, this doesn't mean that their role. We'll never change. You know, something that we do is biweekly check-ins where we're checking in on how their progress is going and what their role is maybe developing into. But at this point in the season, this is where I see you and we need to be on the same page with this. I also email a copy of this to their parents so that their parents know what their role is and what to expect as well, just in case that conversation gets a little fuzzy between the athlete and their parent. Okay. Now, this 15 minute conversation I do with every single one of my players, if you're like. How do you have time for that? I know it does take time. Okay. I usually dedicate one practice to doing this, so I, um, have a practice that my team leaders will run and it's easy for me to pull athletes one at a time to have these conversations. And I'll tell you right now, it saves me, it saves me time later because I'm having less of those playing time conversations as the season goes on or these meetings that pop up. And by the time the meetings pop up and they've worked up the courage to talk to me, or their parent gets involved and it's like. A way bigger issue than it needs to be. So this actually saves me time later. These player impact plans. Now, if you want an exact copy of my template for this, the Google form I send athletes, the template that I have that I fill out for athletes, my one-on-one questions that I use throughout the season that I, that refer back to this. We actually give this for free as a part of our championship program membership. And the championship program membership is for high school coaches who want to build the systems and structures in their program to create sustainable, um, championship programs. And what I mean by that is. Your leadership core, your captain selection process, um, your player impact plans, your parent meetings, your fundraising, all of these things as a coach that you're like, I wish somebody would teach me this. And I never knew that there was so much of us other stuff to coaching. Um, when I became a coach. And you get the templates for all of it. And then every month you get a new template and then you hop on a call with me in a group setting and you build your version of the template. So it's a really great membership to be able to not have to reinvent the wheel. You get things that are proven. I'm a four time state champ coach, um, who has. You know, proven these things, uh, these templates that you get and the Player Impact Plan is one of those that you actually get for free as a bonus when you join the program. So I will link all the information for that below if you just want a very easy plug and play way to get this template. To use, um, however you would like. All right. Now the other thing about, um, this, this is how I kick off kind of this season when it comes to talking about their roles and their playing time. But I also check in with them on a biweekly basis. And I actually have a whole video on how I do this and how it's actually reduced. Um, not just playing time drama, but just team drama in general. So if you wanna check that out next, that would be a great place to go. I will see you over there in that video.