Most college athletes have spent fifteen years being coached. Very few have spent a single afternoon coaching. When they finally do, usually because someone asked, they show up with the only model they have: the one that got them to college.
That model was built for a roster where minutes are earned, the depth chart is public and the scoreboard is the point. It works when everyone in the room chose to be there and is fighting to stay. It isn't built for a team of ten-year-olds, half of whom are still deciding whether sport is for them.
I've argued on this blog that former athletes should change their role in sport instead of leaving it (Stop Telling Former Athletes to Move On), and that youth sport badly needs them to (The Answer to the Officiating Shortage Just Played Its Last Game). This post is about what comes next: what makes a former college athlete good at coaching kids, and what gets in the way.
What kids say they want
In April, the Aspen Institute released its national survey of 3,827 kids ages 10 to 17. Asked about their favorite parts of playing, current players picked “having fun” (48%) and “playing with friends” (47%). Only 12% named a college scholarship or roster spot.
They were just as clear about coaches. On a five-point scale, current players rated teaching sports skills as the most important part of a coach's job (4.69), followed by developing life skills (4.39). Winning games came in at 3.90. On playing time, 57% wanted it shared, either across all players or equally. Only 11% thought it should go only to the best players.
Amanda Visek and her colleagues at George Washington University got to the same place from a different direction. They asked 142 youth soccer players, along with their coaches and parents, what makes sport fun, and mapped 81 answers. The ones that mattered most clustered around being a good sport, trying hard and positive coaching. Winning ranked near the bottom.
None of that means kids don't care about winning. Anyone who has watched a U10 game knows they do. It means winning isn't why they come back.
Where college instincts misfire
Here's the hard part. The things kids rank lowest are the things a college program is built around.
Think about how college athletes are coached. Minutes are earned. Mistakes get pointed out on film. The best players play. That's a reasonable system for a varsity roster, and plenty of athletes thrive in it. Put it on a youth team and it does something else.
In the same Aspen survey, the top reason former players gave for disliking sport was “I'm not good enough,” at 29%. Bad coaching was second. On average, the kids who quit did it at about 13. My read: a lot of them weren't pushed out by a bad person. They were pushed out by a system that told them, every Saturday, exactly where they stood.
What former athletes bring
Now the good news. Look at what kids rank highest: a coach who teaches skills. That's the one thing a former college athlete has more of than almost any other volunteer. You know how to break down a jump shot, a first touch or a ground ball because someone spent years breaking it down for you.
You also remember. You remember the coach who made you want to show up and the one who made you dread practice. You've been on the receiving end of good and bad coaching at every level of your sport. That's an advantage, if you use it on purpose.
The fix is smaller than you think
The best evidence here is encouraging, because the change it asks for is small. Ronald Smith, Frank Smoll and Sean Cumming gave youth basketball coaches in Seattle a single 75-minute workshop on what they call the mastery approach: define success as effort and improvement rather than the scoreboard, and respond to mistakes with encouragement and instruction instead of punishment. Over the season, kids with trained coaches reported less performance anxiety, while anxiety went up for kids whose coaches weren't trained. In the University of Washington's account of the research, 11% of kids with trained coaches quit during the season, compared with 26% of the others, and the effects held after accounting for team records. As Smoll put it, “Winning will take care of itself.”
It also helps to know how coaches actually learn. When Karl Erickson, Jean Côté and colleagues interviewed 44 coaches working with developing athletes, the top sources of knowledge were learning by doing, talking with other coaches and formal coach education. The coaches said they wanted more guided learning and less trial and error. That's a strong case for bringing former athletes into coaching together, with a mentor, instead of handing one of them a whistle and a bag of balls.
Four things to change
If you played in college and you're about to coach kids, here's what I'd keep in mind.
Grade effort, not outcomes. Praise the sprint back on defense and the kid who tried the new move and lost the ball. That's what the mastery approach measures, and it's probably what your own best coaches did.
Teach one thing at a time. You know fifty things about your sport. A nine-year-old can hold one. Pick the one for today and repeat it.
Share the minutes. Most kids want playing time spread out. You don't need a depth chart at U10.
Make being a good teammate the point. Kids already rank it at the top. Call it out when you see it, the way your college coaches called out the extra pass.
Where we fit
This is the idea behind the coaching clinics The NOVA Foundation is building with Reggie Williams, a two-time NCAA Division I scoring champion at VMI who played seven NBA seasons, has coached, and serves on our board. Reggie talks about why coaching matters. Then college athletes from every sport coach kids from a local youth program, in that program's gym and under its rules. The goal isn't one good afternoon. It's more athletes who keep coaching after they graduate.
Next Game connects former athletes of any age with opportunities to coach, officiate, play and stay connected to sport in their city. Volunteers join through each partner organization's own volunteer and safeguarding process, and the social side comes naturally after the games.
If you're a former athlete, join the Next Game community. If you run an athletic department, a league or a youth program and want people who know the game coaching your kids, email us at partner@thenovafoundation.org.
Sources
Aspen Institute Project Play. (2026). Aspen Institute National Survey of Youth and Sports: 15 key findings. https://projectplay.org/news/aspen-institute-national-survey-of-youth-and-sports-15-key-findings
Erickson, K., Bruner, M. W., MacDonald, D. J., & Côté, J. (2008). Gaining insight into actual and preferred sources of coaching knowledge. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 3(4), 527-538. https://doi.org/10.1260/174795408787186468
GW Today. (2014). What is the top ‘fun’ factor in youth sports? George Washington University. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/what-top-fun-factor-youth-sports
Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., & Cumming, S. P. (2007). Effects of a motivational climate intervention for coaches on young athletes' sport performance anxiety. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 29(1), 39-59. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.29.1.39
University of Washington News. (2007, March 8). Having fun, mastering skills outscore winning-at-all-costs for young athletes. https://www.washington.edu/news/2007/03/08/having-fun-mastering-skills-outscore-winning-at-all-costs-for-young-athletes/
Visek, A. J., Achrati, S. M., Mannix, H. M., McDonnell, K., Harris, B. S., & DiPietro, L. (2015). The fun integration theory: Toward sustaining children and adolescents sport participation. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 12(3), 424-433. https://doi.org/10.1123/jpah.2013-0180
