Recognizing & Celebrating Resilience: The Key to Making this Season Matter

Back in the Summer of 2021, a time no one really remembers because time in this pandemic has truly been a flat circle, without much context within it, only recollections from before and some sense of the now as things seemingly have progressed, I wrote a series of articles on five mistakes that coaches, athletes, and parents should respectively avoid making as sports were resuming in earnest. This time out I offer five suggestions for everyone to make this season and year more meaningful and avoid self-inflicted mistakes.

Sports have carried us through many of the worst of times. They are a symbol both of what we value in our lives and of our normalcy when events offend those values. When sports pause, we collectively know something is seriously wrong. The late National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle always stated his great regret at allowing NFL games to go forward on the Sunday after the murder of President John Kennedy by an assassin’s bullet the prior Thursday in November of 1963. Most American sports stopped for a period after 9/11, 21 years ago and their return cheered and help unify us in the wake of that incalculable tragedy. The death of Queen Elizabeth II, this month, even stopped sports in the United Kingdom at least during an official period of mourning.

The seemingly accelerating and unfettered return of sports this fall, now largely free of pandemic protocols and restrictions that caused confusion and disruption, even while helping to keep most of us and our youth safe, is something to be both savored and endeavored to be understood. However, our concern for our young people may create a misinterpretation of their present state. Yes, the last two years have been developmentally challenging for kids, in all ways. Their progression has been far from even, but to dwell on the gaps, risks missing the incredible resilience our youth have shown, which needs to be recognized, celebrated, and directed as sports moves ahead.

The last two years has made athletes and their parents increasingly vocal and impatient about the shortcomings of their children’s coaches, even under the most difficult circumstances demanded by the pandemic. Coaches, too, have questioned the dedication and resolve of their athletes. This is a trend I’ve experienced firsthand. Even as sports moved forward in 2020 and 2021 under severely limiting protocols, parents have expressed increased anger at coaches and the slowed progress of their children. It has been as if the pandemic rather than prompting more patience has decreased it in every context because the opportunities to play were more limited and the anticipation and meaning of each chance exponentially heightened. Just ask any flight attendant if this phenomenon isn’t observably true as tales of unruly air passengers have become a staple rather than isolated events. Many coaches will echo that this was reflected in athlete evaluations, team switches, even in the creation and use of the transfer portal in college sports.

But what we risk missing in focusing only on the shortcomings and gaps in progress is the resilience every youth athlete, really every single kid, has demonstrated in the last two years. The sacrifices they’ve made and what they’ve come through isn’t easily matched in modern history- yes, the children of the London Blitz, the displaced survivors of World Wars, the Greatest Generation- likely do, but you get my point. We’ve all been through a lot and not recognizing that we made it through is a crucial mistake.

If we focus only on the gaps, we miss celebrating the adaptability, strength, and resilience our youth have demonstrated in abundance over the last two years. The return to a new normal will be uneven, but every kid has earned enough decals in patience, making do, and adjusting, to cover both sides of any football helmet. Recognizing this incredible resilience is the key to helping this generation of young athletes overcome any unevenness or developmental shortcomings.

So, the plan of action for athletes, coaches, and parents to keep at front of mind this fall season, to make it more meaningful, is to: 1) know that where every athlete begins this year will not be where they will finish; 2) there will be frustrations, they are inevitable, do not attach too much significance to any of them or overreact when they happen; 3) place the focus in all activities on skill building to help smooth out developmental gaps- this is a year where everybody should get better rather than a few dominating; 4) never be punitive; build a culture of safety and fun for all; 5) remember everyone you are interacting with, athletes, coaches, and parents alike, but especially the athletes who have no context for what they have come through, are survivors of one of the greatest disruptions most of us have ever experienced and capable incredible resilience. This resilience alone is the kind of attribute every winning team wants to cultivate and achieve.