“Relax” is not a coaching strategy
The Athlete Who Wants to Be Great
I know an athlete who can be great, and wants to be great. He’s played for a long string of second-rate teams, and a lot has gone against him along the way: club and representative politics, favouritism, and his own rich—but sometimes distracting—inner world. He knows what he can do. He wants the opportunity to express it on the field of play. Too often, he hasn’t been able to, or hasn’t been given the freedom to try.
Despite that, he strove. He worked. He pushed. He willed his way forward. As I write this, he is living inside the thing he chased.
A Program Built on Winning
He went to play high-level sport at a program steeped in success. The head coach has been there for twenty years. Banners hang from the rafters. He’s been to the dance more than once. Around the conference, he’s revered as a proven winner.
He’s also animated. Constantly jumping on the sideline. Screaming at referees—sometimes to the point of suspension. Gesticulating wildly. Getting in his players’ faces (or trying to; he mostly reaches their sternum).
A Team That Never Settles
This season, the team has struggled. Youth. Inexperience. A fair amount of selfishness. Line-ups are in constant flux. Players are subbed, reshuffled, benched, returned, benched again. From the outside it looks chaotic, though I’ll grant I’m not in the huddle.
The athlete is one of the most elite players on the roster—easily the most naturally talented. His season has been wildly inconsistent: moments of brilliance followed by stretches of misery.
Two Versions of the Same Player
When It Works
He starts well. He feels confident. He enters flow. He plays freely.
The coach lets him go.
He plays well.
The end.
When It Doesn’t
He makes a mistake—often a loud one. The coach yanks him from the game. He sits on the bench for five minutes, stewing in his own juices. Five minutes later he’s sent back out. Now he’s self-conscious. He still wants to be great. He still wants to express himself in the game he loves. He tries something.
Another mistake. Back to the bench.
This time the coach is standing over him, yelling. Probably calling him names. The athlete takes it. This is the dynamic that’s been normalised. He’s been taught to take it. He stews again—only now the pot is overflowing.
From there, the decline is steep. Poor decisions. Hesitation. Shrinking. If he’s lucky, mediocrity. If he’s unlucky, embarrassment—and the increasing ire of a furious coach.
“They Just Need to Relax”
The other day I was watching a particularly bad game online. The player was on the bench. The coach was literally jumping up and down in front of him, finger pointed inches from his face. At that exact moment, the commentators said—without irony:
“I went and listened to the locker room talk, and coach was saying the guys look tight out there. He says they need to relax and have fun.”
I nearly spat my drink out.
Everyone Wants the Same Thing
Let’s be clear about the supposed end goal.
The coach wants the player to relax and have fun.
The athlete wants to relax and have fun.
So how does the coach go about it?
By creating an environment of shame, embarrassment, fear, and punishment.
How the Loop Works
And this is where it starts to eat its own tail.
The coach wants control, so he tightens the leash.
The athlete wants freedom, so he hesitates.
The coach wants to trust the athlete,
but the athlete—now tight, cautious, and self-conscious—underperforms.
The underperformance confirms the coach’s fear.
See? He can’t be trusted.
So the coach benches him.
More control.
The athlete feels even less trusted.
He plays smaller. He plays safer. He plays worse.
The coach sees this and tightens further.
Shorter leash. Quicker hook. Louder feedback.
Round and round it goes.
The coach says, He needs to relax.
The athlete thinks, I can’t afford to make a mistake.
This Isn’t a Mystery
This isn’t mysterious. It makes sense academically, but also from mere common sense.
Punitive coaching reliably produces anxiety, hypervigilance, and fear-based compliance. When mistakes are punished publicly and unpredictably, athletes stop playing to express and start playing to avoid. Risk-taking disappears. Creativity collapses. Decision-making slows. Flow becomes impossible.
And yet, control is often justified in the name of accountability.
What Actually Helps
Autonomy-supportive coaching looks very different.
It doesn’t mean permissiveness. It doesn’t mean unaccountability. It doesn’t mean we stop valuing resilience. It doesn’t even mean the absence of friction or tension. It means clear expectations paired with psychological safety. It means mistakes are treated as information, not moral failure. It means athletes understand why decisions are made. It means feedback is specific, timely, and proportional—not explosive and personal.
Most importantly, it means the athlete experiences trust before perfection.
Autonomy-supportive coaches still coach. They still correct. They still challenge. But they do so in a way that keeps the athlete’s nervous system in a challenge state, not a threat state. The athlete stays present. They stay expressive. They stay in relationship with the game.
Moreover, they learn and teach a player HOW to relax.
You Can’t Shout Someone Into Flow
Relaxation, in this context, is not demanded. It emerges.
You cannot shout someone into calm.
You cannot punish someone into freedom.
You cannot micromanage someone into flow.
If your athletes look tight, anxious, and afraid to make mistakes, they are responding perfectly to the environment you have created.
Congratulations, coach. You didn’t build a joyful, relaxed, autonomous player.
You built a robot (a sad, frustrated one, at that).
Some athletes manage to survive systems like this through sheer stubbornness and talent. Many don’t. And when they leave—quietly, frustrated, or burnt out—we often call it a lack of resilience, rather than questioning the environment that made resilience necessary in the first place.
