👋 Good morning! ‘Great Teams Better Leaders’ is written by Greg Berge. Have an idea or something to share? Just hit reply. I read and respond to every message.
Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe for free below.
Missed yesterday’s CLC School Bundle webinar?
No problem.
We're running it again next Wednesday, July 1st, at 8:30 AM CST.
If you're an AD looking to give every coach in your building lifetime access to the systems that build culture and win, this one's for you.
One session. 50 spots. FREE.
Grab your seat here 👉
💭 ONE THOUGHT
Never Do These 8 Things as a Coach
In 1985, Bobby Knight threw a chair across the court at Assembly Hall.
In front of 17,000 fans. On national television.
He didn’t throw it at anyone. But it didn’t matter. That one moment followed him for the rest of his career. After that, every controversy, every accusation, every incident, people went back to the chair.
Giphy
One moment. Twenty years of damage.
That’s what this is about.
Not the big mistakes. The ones that seem small in the moment but follow you out of every gym you ever coach in.
I’ve seen coaches lose locker rooms, lose jobs, and lose kids, not because they were bad people, but because they never learned what not to do.
Here are 8 of them…
1: Embarrass a player in front of their teammates.
You can coach hard without humiliating. The moment you make a kid feel small in front of his peers, you’ve lost him. Maybe for that season. Maybe forever.
Hard coaching builds. Public humiliation destroys.
There’s no version of that where you win.
2: Confuse being tough with being cruel.
Toughness has a purpose. Cruelty doesn’t. Tough coaches push players past what they think they can do. Cruel coaches make players feel like they’ll never be enough.
Your job is to build people up through hard moments, not tear them down to prove a point.
Know the difference. Your players already do.
3: Let your worst day as a coach become your players’ worst memory of you.
You’re going to have bad days. Every coach does. A bad loss. Bad meeting. Bad call from admin.
What you can’t do is bring that into the gym and take it out on your kids. They remember everything.
The timeout you lost it in. The practice you made miserable. The moment you stopped being their coach and started being someone they feared.
Your bad day is not their problem to carry.
4: Coach your best player differently from everyone else.
The locker room sees everything.
When your best player skips a sprint, and you look the other way, they see it. When he shows up late, and nothing happens, they see it. When the standard bends for one, it breaks for everyone.
Equality doesn’t mean treating everyone the same. It means holding everyone to the same standard.
Your best player should be your hardest worker. You set that tone.
5: Let parents dictate your lineup.
The minute a parent influences a playing decision, you’ve handed your program over.
And once you do it once, word gets out. Now every parent thinks the path to playing time runs through your voicemail.
Communicate early. Communicate often. Be clear on your criteria. But never let a parent sit at your table.
6: Make promises you can’t keep.
“You’ll start by midseason.”
“We’re going to the playoffs this year.”
“I’ll get you looks from college coaches.”
Coaches lose trust one broken promise at a time. If you’re not sure, don’t say it. Say what you know. Deliver what you promise.
Your word is your program’s foundation. Don’t crack it.
7: Take credit for wins and blame kids for losses.
Players notice this faster than anyone.
When it’s going well, and you’re talking about your system, your culture, your program, they’re watching. When it goes sideways, and you’re pointing fingers, they remember.
The coaches who last own the losses first. They say “we didn’t execute,” not “they didn’t listen.”
Leadership shows up clearest when things go wrong.
8: Let one bad parent ruin your culture.
Every program has one. The parent who emails the admin. Who corners you after games. Who poisons other parents in the parking lot.
The mistake most coaches make is reacting, or worse, accommodating.
Don’t build your program around the loudest voice in the room. Build it strong enough that one person can’t shake it.
Culture is your protection. Build it before you need it.
The Bottom Line:
Coaching is hard enough without self-inflicted wounds. You don’t have to be perfect. But you have to be consistent, trustworthy, and self-aware.
The coaches who last the longest aren’t the ones who never made mistakes.
They’re the ones who learned from them and stopped making the same ones twice.
Standards win. Every time.
Good luck,
Greg
P.S. These 8 things are just the surface. Better Coach OS goes deeper on all of it. And it now includes the Parent Communication Playbook for FREE ($49 value).
AI Executive Assistant for Normies
Catch is a smart, proactive AI admin agent that handles your scheduling, inbox, emails, follow-ups, and day-to-day admin across Gmail, Outlook, Slack, WhatsApp, and phone.
No setup. No learning curve.
From swamped to sorted, instantly.
🔗 LINKS FOR LEADERS
🎧 Podcast: I joined this podcast to break down why most team culture doesn’t stick and what actually works. [LINK]
🆇 ICYMI: Scared teams find a way to lose. [LINK]
📰 Article: Cultivate Confidence
📜 GREAT QUOTE
“The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.”
👀 LOOKING FOR MORE?
My website has all my products and resources → gregberge.beehiiv.com.
Contact Greg for a Culture or Leadership workshop for your team or school.
Want deeper tools, weekly premium newsletters, and the Coach OS AI? → [Upgrade to PRO]
Contact Me: Greg Berge, [email protected]