By Dave Dougherty and Brad Strand
(September 14, 2026)

Serving as the head coach of a high school sport team carries with it many duties, responsibilities, and challenges. He or she has to determine an offensive and defensive scheme, teach technical and tactical skills, and implement mental skills training. But perhaps more importantly, a coach has to establish a coaching philosophy, define what success looks like, select team members, make critical decisions, accept responsibility for those decisions, build trust, balance team needs with individual athlete needs, foster relationships with parents, and still maintain a loving relationship with one’s family. In reality, these activities have little to do with the teaching of technical and tactical skills of a sport and might be called the other X’s and O’s of coaching. This article explores five of these X’s and O’s, defining success, decision-making, acceptance of responsibility, fostering trust, and standards of discipline.

Defining Success

In sport, success can be evaluated in several ways. First, and perhaps the easiest measure of success is based on the number of wins and losses. But even with that, sometimes an individual may win and yet the team loses, or conversely, one loses, yet the team wins. For example, in wrestling or track and field, an athlete wins their match or event, yet the team does not finish in first place.

If an individual or a team does not win enough matches or games, is that season a failure? A team with mostly underclassmen is more often than not going to be challenged to win more so than a senior-heavy team, even though they may have had the same preseason goal, i.e., winning the conference championship. Does not winning the championship equate to a lack of success, or were preseason expectations unreasonable? Consider a team that does not have much success, but individually, some athletes shine. Is this then considered a successful season? 

A second, and perhaps better way to evaluate success, is the achievement of team and individual goals. However, if an athlete does not reach his or her goals, is the season a failure or, even worse, does that athlete feel like a failure? Of utmost consideration is what went into setting one’s goals, and in fact, were they even reasonable? A key aspect in goal setting is the achievement of team and individual needs. Goals should be used to create a positive, inclusive environment and to build self-esteem in athletes. Using these as measures of success and fostering honesty, integrity, responsibility, fairness, and altruism, athletes will want to participate in the program.

An often-neglected aspect of measuring success is how one faces adversity. An important aspect of participation in sports is developing the ability to meet adversity head-on. Sports should be used to teach athletes the skills needed to overcome sport challenges but, more importantly, life challenges. A challenge for coaches is to anticipate adverse situations and to help prepare athletes for them.

And finally, success can be tied to a commitment to something bigger than oneself. Every athlete is important, but everyone else is important too. Coaches need to encourage athletes, their parents, and the fans to embrace this concept. All can learn to celebrate victories but at the same time, display empathy for their opponents in defeat.

Decision-Making

As a head coach, the number of decisions one has to make on a daily basis might seem overwhelming. Things such as how to structure practice, who to keep in the starting rotation, how to tell someone they have been cut or dropped from the team, and where to eat after an away game are just some examples. Where does one turn for help in making those decisions?

First off, all final decisions start and stop with the head coach. He or she is the one who has to answer for and explain why decisions were made. This being said, a head coach must trust himself or herself in making the decisions. However, a head coach does not live in a vacuum and at times must turn to his or her coaching staff for counsel and advice. Assistant coaches interact with athletes differently than head coaches do and those interactions provide a perspective that head coaches may not have. Failing to involve assistant coaches in information gathering leaves the head coach with a knowledge gap that may result in a poor decision.

At times, coaches also need to seek input from their athletes. It is often easy for a coach to assume that a team is “his team” when in reality it is really the athletes’ team. In many instances, athletes will only put out as much effort as they want to put out, no matter what a coach may do to try to encourage and motivate them. Knowing this, it is important to give athletes a share of ownership in the team. This can be done by having an athletes’ council that meets with the head coach on a weekly basis, during which time coaches and athletes identify positive and negative components of the previous week and share their perspectives on them.

An overlooked source of input in decision-making is the parents of athletes. Far too often coaches tend to avoid interactions with parents for fear of criticism of their decision-making. But keep in mind, parents have entrusted their athletes to the coaches with the confidence that the coaches will treat them fairly. As such, coaches must be open to parent communication, which is vital for parents to see themselves as a part of the team. Parents can contribute in several ways, including current family dynamics, medical issues, emotional issues, and school issues, etc., that may be adversely affecting the athlete. While coaches should be open to communication with parents, they must be prepared to keep the conversation on point and not feel the need to defend their decisions. They should direct parents to the pre-season handbook identifying goals, expectations and philosophies and remind the parents this is what guides their decision-making. They should never discuss any other team member.  

And finally, coaches must be open to suggestions from other important stakeholders such as school administrators (AD, principal), support staff (custodians, secretaries, bus drivers), other teachers who are not coaches, and coaches of other school sports. Every one of these stakeholders has a different perspective to share that might lead to better decision-making.

Acceptance of Responsibility

As previously stated, a head coach is responsible for all aspects of the program. This includes negative actions by coaches, negative actions by athletes, and decisions by others that may affect one’s program. For example, your assistant coach believes an opposing athlete tried to hurt one of his or her athletes and responds by yelling at the official. The official then responds by handing out a technical foul in basketball or taking away a point in wrestling. The head coach ensures the assistant coach takes responsibility for his or her actions. A consequence might be that the assistant coach will not be allowed to be on the bench for the next game or match.

Coaches must also take responsibility for negative actions of their athletes. In the heat of the moment when emotions are running hot, an athlete might say or do something that adversely affects the athlete or team and the coach must take ownership of addressing the situation in a professional manner that adheres to the team/school philosophy regarding sportsmanship, and accept that he or she (the coach) may not have effectively established the expectations for team behavior before this incident.

There are many decisions made by others that also affect one’s program. Things such as cuts in staff, restrictions on scheduling, and mistakes by officials must all be explained, defended, and supported.  The head coach must take responsibility for these decisions. Not responsibility for making them, but for leading the team through these difficult decisions based on their philosophies for building a positive environment, meeting adversity head-on, and protecting all individuals’ self-esteem.

Fostering Trust

All positive and reciprocal relationships are built on trust, and once trust is lost, it takes a long time to restore. A key aspect in building trust is displaying consistency in decision-making. If a coach has a ‘team first’ philosophy, his or her decisions must be based on that principle, even if that means punishing a team leader or star player if they have done wrong; and doing so on a consistent basis.

Likewise, athletes and coaches want to trust that the head coach has their backs in all situations. This does not necessarily mean that a coach will automatically support what they did, but it does mean that the coach will do what he/she can to make sure they are treated fairly. The coach will move forward in a positive way and will provide second chances. And ultimately, athletes need to trust that the coach’s decisions are based on what is best for them as a person, and not just as an athlete. A coach must be willing to put other aspects of an athlete’s life ahead of individual performance and even the team. An example of this is removing a star athlete from competition if he has taken a shot to the head that has the possibility of a concussion, even if it might mean the team has lost an opportunity to win the contest.

Standards of Discipline

Discipline and consequences cannot simply be black and white because cause and effect are rarely identical. Two athletes miss practice for two different reasons. Or, two athletes are not working hard enough in practice, and there are different reasons. Treating situations with black-and-white discipline may be motivated by a coach’s pride or a desire for power. It may also be laziness on the part of the coach or wanting to pass the responsibility for one’s decision on a rule violation. The easy, but not the just, answer to discipline is to treat every violation the same, no matter if the causes may be different. For example, two athletes are late for practice: one was visiting with his girlfriend, the other was meeting with his/her teacher at the teacher’s request. Same action, different causes.

The chosen consequences for violations must take team needs versus individual needs into consideration. If the team consequences are too severe, is the coach then able to administer different individual consequences than what may be expected for that individual and still be fair for the team? The severity of the consequences must be measured against the severity of the violation. Discipline that is not black and white must still be consistent. In all instances, process and consistency are key. A coach must be able to defend his or her decisions to those stakeholders who feel the consequences were too hard or too easy, and to be comfortable knowing his/her decision was correct when others don’t.

The often-overlooked ‘other’ X’s and O’s of coaching are just as important, if not more so, than the technical and tactical X’s and O’s. The other X’s and O’s are the centerpiece of real and lasting relationships and should be the foundation of coaching at all levels.

Editor’s Note: All articles in Sport Coach America are authentic and original work by the author(s).