By Derek Riedel, PHD
Dr. Derek Riedel has been the head track and field and cross country coach at University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) in San Antonio, TX since 2005. In his 21 years at UIW, Derek has led his men’s programs to two Heartland Conference and eight Southland Conference championships and the women’s squads to numerous runner-up finishes. His men’s 2022-2023 team earned the first Southland Triple-Crown in 38 years, winning the XC, Indoor, and Outdoor titles. His program has also been outstanding in the classroom, achieving numerous 3.5+ GPAs. Derek earned his PhD in education with an emphasis in organizational leadership in 2012.
Team building is a challenging process. And in a social media-driven, me-first society, building a strong, cohesive team isn’t getting easier. Athletes want attention and don’t want to wait for it. The doctrine about being patient and working in anonymity no longer seems to hold the same reverence as it once did. Why wait for success when your peers are experiencing it?
The NCAA transfer portal gives coaches the ability to quickly build a team. You don’t have to be patient and wait for athletes to develop when you can recruit experienced athletes capable of producing immediate results. High athlete turnover makes it more difficult to build buy-in.
This begs the question: how can a coach build a successful and cohesive program when a patient, development-minded approach isn’t as valued as it once was? It is still possible to build a true team in the face of high athlete turnover. A skilled coach will be able to balance results-driven success while instilling a culture of team-first mentality, loyalty to the name on the front of the jersey, and slow, methodical development. At University of the Incarnate Word, we focus on the holistic approach to athlete development and team culture, which includes several factors.
TEAM COHESIVENESS
Cohesiveness develops with time and attention. At UIW, cohesiveness happens organically. Instead of spending valuable time planning a team-building program and forcing athletes to spend time together, the athletes are often motivated to be together outside of sport, spending time exploring the city and sharing their interests with each other. As much as we want our men and women to be a well-oiled competitive and cohesive machine, we can’t force it. When it happens naturally, the results are outstanding and longer lasting. Instead of micro-managing, we bring intentionality to our team interactions and drive our team to lead from within. Our athletes know they are expected to have a leadership mindset. Research has shown that the role of the athlete as leader on a team, either formal or informal, has a significant impact on a team’s functioning and effectiveness, as well as on teammates’ general health and wellbeing (Cotterill et al., 2022).
One way to maintain cohesive communication is to put all cell phones away when eating together. That way everyone can be in the moment and focused on each other, listening to each other, making fun of each other, and laughing at each other’s jokes. The athletes are present in the moment, away from the distractions of the cell phone. This might cause some pain in the beginning, but the openness that comes with it is priceless. How can you challenge your team to live in the present? When you bring intentionality to your team’s interactions, you’ll see results that lead to a stronger team culture and, subsequently, better competitive results. Athlete-led teams are stronger teams.
We also prioritize volunteering in the community. There is no better bonding activity than helping those in need. Our team puts its vulnerability aside when we serve the community together. When we serve the community, we see the bigger picture, and we have opportunities to learn about each other. We have learned that some team members experienced childhood trauma, food insecurity, and family tragedy. In our service, we build a tight bond that outlasts the challenging times. Who is going to consistently show up? Who is going to take the lead in a new, uncomfortable environment? As coaches, we want to challenge our athletes and see how they react when they are uncomfortable. After all, anyone can be his or her best when he or she is comfortable, but who can be counted on when facing a challenging situation? These are times when coaches learn the most about the team. We look for these characteristics when we recruit athletes—tough, gritty, committed, dedicated. We should continue to learn about our athletes once they are on the team. Our learning curve and adjustment period never ends.
ATHLETE BUY-IN
A key component of having a strong culture and maintaining it is to have athlete buy-in. Coaching is a challenging profession; you don’t get as much credit for success as you should and you can get an unfair amount of the blame when athletes don’t perform to their expectations. Coaches are best served by intentionally spending time helping their best athletes become their best leaders. Research has shown that coaches place a high importance on intentionally developing the leadership capabilities of their athletes (Cotterill et al., 2022). When your most talented athlete is both your hardest worker and your best leader, your program is in an enviable position to win championships. Championship teams tend to have better buy-ins. Winning tends to have that effect on people.
At UIW, the men’s team has reaped the rewards of experiencing this. Our best athletes have also been the best leaders and, often, the hardest, most consistent workers. However, they didn’t always enter our program as the best athletes. In fact, many of them started as unheralded walk-ons. They had the drive, desire, and special leadership traits that made them special, and their teammates were the beneficiaries of their success.
Not all teams are so lucky. Many coaches struggle to find good leaders. It often feels like the motivation and leadership must come from the coach. That’s frustrating because that is never a good recipe for team success. If you find yourself in this situation, how can you change your fortunes and build strong leaders? Look for professors on your campus who specialize in leadership training. Invite them to speak to your team and teach the athletes how to communicate with each other. The information they provide may be similar to what you would say, but the different voice can provide a valuable perspective for your athletes. Research has shown that “coaches noted that to develop athlete leadership, it was critical to be athlete-centered, and this required the athletes to be involved in some of the decision-making around team matters, encouraging the athletes to take initiatives related to team activities, such as team building and community events” (Cotterill et al., 2022).
TRAINING SYNERGY
Athletes love having a say in their training. In today’s environment, there are fewer athletes who take their coaching at face value and do everything we say, exactly as we say it. Admittedly, it would be easier to show up to practice, tell the athletes what the workout is, and hear no complaints, no questions, and have complete buy-in. That’s just not the world coaches live in today. Instead, coaches must be adaptable, put egos to the side, listen to the athletes, accept their feedback, and figure out a way to apply it within the structure of the program.
Savvy coaches call this process “training synergy.” Athletes are much more educated on the nuances of athletic performance than they have ever been. As an experienced coach, you believe in your methods. You probably have many success stories to back up your beliefs. You are confident in your ability to develop an athlete. Today, that doesn’t matter. Coaches are only as good as their current athletes are successful. They must be adaptive, flexible, and willing to adjust on the fly.
Training synergy is when you synergize all parts of the training program to build a cohesive team. It works when you have athletes who have bought in, believe in your process, and are willing to stake their loyalty to the program. In the end, that’s what all coaches want—athletes who will stay loyal to the program through the highs and lows.
TEAM-FIRST APPROACH
Team success and cohesiveness are everything. It doesn’t matter how physically talented a team is if its athletes can’t operate on the same page. Culture is an overused term, but a strong and consistent culture still makes a difference. It’s no surprise that strong teams have strong cultures. A team’s habits and expectations define the culture it lives by. When a team is cohesive and synergistic athletes’ strengths complement each other, they move in the same direction. Practices are more productive and improvement is more linear as a result.
It’s helpful to meet as a team during early-season practices to discuss norms, expectations, and non-negotiables. Expectations will stay the same for that season and, most likely, into future seasons. Team norms will change as members become more comfortable in their roles within the team. Athletes need to understand the team’s non-negotiables. As the coach, it’s your job to support the non-negotiables and balance the team’s expectations against the reality of everyday highs and lows.
What can a team live without, and what do the athletes expect from each other to build the experience everyone expects? During the planning sessions, everyone should share his or her personal goals. It’s important for teammates to hear each other’s individual goals so they can hear how their goals either fit or don’t fit into the greater team goals. Coaches can use this knowledge to help athletes fit their individual goals and expectations into the team goals and expectations, making the team experience more about the greater good of the team than the greater good of the individual. In the end, utilizing this team-first approach builds a healthier and sustainable culture; a culture built on excellence and championship-minded focus.
Coaching a successful track and field program requires the ability to act like a CEO, have the fortitude of a military general, and the flexibility and persistence of a physical education teacher, all while serving as a psychologist, travel agent, chauffeur, biomechanist, sports physiologist, and motivator. A coach must be a jack of all trades—knowledgeable in many subjects, but expert in few. Coaches are required to do a lot with little help.
Although track and field coaches wear many hats, the most important one is program builder. It doesn’t matter how much technical knowledge we have or how hard we work. If the coach can’t build a cohesive and committed team, he or she won’t be successful. Athletes won’t buy in and turnover and dissatisfaction will be high. The team will underachieve. No coach wants to put in the amount of work for little positive return. As you build your next championship contender, spend time building team cohesion and athlete buy-in with a synergistic training program and team-first focus. Happy team building, coach!
REFERENCES
Cotterill, S.T., Loughead, T.M., and Fransen, K. (2022). Athlete leadership development within teams: Current understanding and future directions. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1-10.
