Do your player have to like you?

You have to have a balance. If you're my coach or teacher and all I'm thinking about is what an a*shole you are, I'm not learning from you.

Respect is all that matters.

Bad thing in pro sports is players don't have to respect their coaches in a lot of places. The Pats are an exception, but lots of places in pro sports players can get a coach fired if they want to.

I think it depends on your situation also. At some schools they have to like you or they won't play. I think you can be liked and be hard on the kids.

The example that coachg gave previously is something that I do all the time, but I know the kids like me because I don't hammer their a$$ for every little thing.

Kids want discipline IMO but you can carry it to far into the being an "a$$hole" realm

I would say it important to be liked. I'm a younger assistant guy and have a hard time pulling off that bada$$ coach persona just because it's not my personality. I do most of my coaching in the weight room. An an easy way to earn some respect as a younger coach in my opinion is to lift with your players. In between sets you can build that relationship, show you are a person, and grunting out reps with them goes a long way with the younger kids. I'm quite a bit stronger than most of the kids ( by no means Mr Olympia) and when I tell them I've trained this way my whole life, it helps buy in with the weight program. After 4 years of subtle brainwashing onto my guys in a non threatening way, we are on the same wavelength and are usually operating how I want them.

Coach, that is what is important at the end of the day. Kids do no come out to be lectured, made to feel good. They have other venues to get to those emotion, feelings, words. They are at practice to be football players. I believe a lot of what they think of you is based on the purpose of why they are out at practice. Did you make them better football players and on a daily basis. That has carryover to everyday living that goes way beyond the football field. As a coach you are doing what you talk about, and they can hear the words and see it in your actions.

They absolutely need to respect you. In the process of gaining that respect they may not like you at times, but if they know you have the team and individual's best intentions in mind most will see themselves as a piece of something bigger and more important. If you get them here, they'll deal with tough decisions you make in a more receptive manner.

I have found that (even with good intentions) coaches fail to reach their players in three ways:

-Sarcasm
-Being untruthful
-Favoritism

Sarcasm is a slap in a kid's face. If you coach/communicate this way- stop...it makes you look like an a$$hole.
Being truthful to kids about where they stand is a priority for me. Be transparent in your thinking. If they do good, tell them; if they don't pull their weight- tell them. An example is I post a "MIA" (Missing in Action) list on our website of all kids who are unaccounted for during the offseason i.e. not playing a sport AND not in the weight room. It's posted for all to plainly see. If you are MIA your status on the team is in jeopardy. No secrets within the family...no favoritism. If a starter goes MIA he'll suffer the same as a non-starter.

As others have stated- create healthy coach-player relationships with solid boundaries and you can't go wrong.

I think by nature when working with 50-100+ young men you are going to run into some kids that like you and some kids that do not like you.

I think you can be successful without kids like you, but I don't think it's very much fun nor as rewarding. My first head coaching job was in baseball. I took over a team that had won no more than 8 games in a season the previous 10 years. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I had been an assistant coach in both baseball in football for about 4 years each when I took the job. Right away I had to make a lot of tough decisions (letting players go, sitting kids for various reasons). I almost retaliated felt like I was in competition with the players. I was a hardasss for sure. My first year we only won 4 games. I sucked and team sucked, mostly because of my coaching and a lack of talent. I told them all we were going to work our way out of it. I worked them hard. And not one kid on that team liked me. When they didn't drill hard enough or consistent enough I ran them A LOT. Our second year our two best players transferred but we won 10 games. I told them we were going to work even harder and I yelled as much as they ran (I was clueless). Since we won a few more games maybe a kid or two liked me. Our third year we turned a corner. I still worked them hard and yelled too much but we got pretty good. We won 16 games (most in 12 years at the school) and beat two state ranked teams to get to the sectional championship game before concluding our season. A few kids liked me at that point; probably not many more respected me.

To conclude a long story: sometimes they don't like you nor respect you but they love themselves and the game enough to override it all. I think that team got a ton out of their talent and had relative success. I improved greatly from the experience as well and I know I didn't really like them all that much. I am not sure if we could have gotten more out of if we all liked each other or not, but I did learn and change as a coach because of it.

I value my players and their opinions a lot more a decade later. I do now want them to like and respect me because I think it makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable.

One final thought: Since I had my son I have always tried to coach every kid the same way I would want my son coached. I tell them all I don't need you to like me I have enough friends. I also stole this from George W. Bush and tell my kids this "I am not going to stop loving so stop trying to make me." I love my players and did even when I was an A-Hole, but now I am better at the balance part.

I think it is better to start out stern and get loose as the year goes on. That way the kids know when you mean business you MEAN business.

I enjoy it much more when I have players that enjoy who I am. I had a couple this year that I could have done without. I am sure they felt the same way.

The rest of the guys were great. we had a lot of laughs together.


respect matters and the kids character matters .....these things are a two way street.

I will add that holding them accountable, discipline, ownership of choices - those things have to happen, every time and I go nuts when my assistant coaches prefer to be "boyz" with one of the kid instead of behind his coach.

While they don't have to (I've had mutual hate for a select few over 9 years)

A kid plays a lot better when he starts playing "for you"

I think this question gets asked a lot and I don't like it. "Do your players have to like you?" No, not necessarily. But, we all get along better at work when our boss isn't a total a$$hat. The same goes for football. You should never change the way you are so that you're more liked by teenagers, but you should never change being authentic ever.

If you have the respect of a kid it's because you have his best interest at heart, you have the team's best interest at heart, you are fair, and you are good at what you do. If you do all those things, then the kid WILL like you ... even when you bump heads. I feel a kid, deep down, has to like you to respect you because he respects what he likes about you. I do not think that a kid has to respect someone to "like" them. Kids like pushovers. That's a different kind of "like". Kids like us because we're genuine. That's something they respect.

Inversely, if you're a DBag just to be one, kids probably don't like or respect you very much at all. Just like you shouldn't go out of your way to be overly liked, don't go out of your way to be "macho, extra tough, super hard a$$ man". Kids hate that and will not do a damn thing for you.

In short, be yourself bro. If they like you, fantastic. If they don't, you're probably not meant to be best buddies somewhere down the road ... WHO CARES! Kids will like most men that they respect.

The kids don't have to like you, but they'll play harder if they do. This doesn't mean that you should be their friend, they have plenty of those. It means being someone they can look up to as a mentor. It means being a man of your word, that you wouldn't ask them to do something you wouldn't be willing to do. Leaders LEAD the way, they don't show the way.

On another note, I DEFINITELY play favorites as a coach. I favor the kids who bust their tail in practice and don't act like fools in the school or in public. I tell the kids if they're unhappy with their playing time, to earn it in practice and if they don't put in the work all week then they won't get to show what they can do in the game.