At a coach appreciation night in Washington, D.C., former U.S. Men’s National Team captain John Harkes stood before a room of youth coaches and told a story about the kind of mistake every coach hopes to avoid.
“Something else is there. Don’t assume,” Harkes said, before making a small but important correction: “I assumed.”
The lesson came during an ordinary day at practice, when a player showed up late, angry and difficult to reach. Harkes thought he was dealing with a bad attitude. But the problems that follow us home into our kitchens and living rooms, the ones we turn over for hours, are often the ones trying to tell us we got something wrong.
That night, Harkes told his wife he didn’t think he had handled it well.
“OK,” she replied. “What are you going to do better?”
The next morning, Harkes greeted the player at practice. Instead of opening with an interrogation about the young man’s behavior, Harkes began with an admission about his own.
“I wasn’t fully in here for you yesterday,” he told him.
Then he followed advice his father often repeated: Two ears, one mouth. Listen more.
The player told him what had been weighing on him: school, work and the pressure of trying to raise money. He had been running on fumes long before he touched the field, and Harkes had read all of it as a bad attitude.
“Now I see you,” Harkes told him. “I won’t let you down again.”
That was the lesson Harkes carried back to the coaches in Washington, D.C. “Humility as a coach,” Harkes said. “You are not perfect. You are going to make mistakes. But if you are genuinely trying to do the best for this child, then you are a good coach.”
Coaching the person, not just the player, is part of what National Coaches Day was created to honor. When President Richard Nixon proclaimed October 6 a day to recognize coaches in 1972, he wrote that even athletes who never “achieve athletic distinction” can become better citizens because of the lessons their coaches teach and the examples they set. He described coaches not only as specialized teachers, but as “friends and counselors” who help young people develop teamwork, discipline and a healthy attitude toward competition. More than 50 years later, that still feels like the heart of the day: recognizing the adults who help young athletes carry what they learn beyond the field.
Harkes learned some of that from Bora Milutinović, who led the U.S. Men’s National Team during its defining 1994 World Cup run. The documentary Summer of ’94 revisits that team and the coach whose belief helped change what American soccer thought was possible.
Bora made every player understand “how valuable you are,” no matter his role on the team. He had a gift for unlocking each player’s potential and helping them see what they could bring to others. It was a lesson in belonging as much as soccer, one that turned a group of players into something larger than the sum of its parts. The story behind that team traces how far that belief carried them. 14 out of the 22 players on Bora’s 1994 team went on to become coaches themselves.
Before a player can give everything to a team, they have to feel like they belong there. And before they can trust a coach, they have to believe the coach sees them belonging there, too.
Anees Merzi, one of the coaches in attendance that night in Washington, understands that sense of belonging from both sides of the coach-player relationship.
Before he founded 703 Warriors, a nonprofit that provides free youth soccer and mentorship programs in Northern Virginia, Merzi was a young athlete whose life was redirected by a coach who saw a different path for him, one that eventually led him to West Point and the military.
Years later, after leaving the service, Merzi found himself looking for what the Army had given him for so long: a team, a mission and a sense of purpose larger than himself. Coaching began almost accidentally, when his child’s team needed help. But what started as filling a gap on the sideline gave him a way to rebuild the structure and connection he had been missing.
Through 703 Warriors, Merzi now tries to give young players the kind of support that once changed his life. But that kind of coaching asks a lot from the adults willing to do it.
A youth coach may be teaching footwork, positioning or how to move without the ball, but they’re also learning when to correct and when to connect. They’re often close enough to see the first signs that a young person is overwhelmed, discouraged or carrying more than they know how to say.
Bryana Kappadakunnel, LMFT, a children’s mental health specialist and author of Parent Yourself First, says anyone involved in the life of a child needs to remember that children “learn and grow in relationship.”
“When a relationship starts with curiosity, connection and understanding, a child is actually more willing to cooperate, collaborate and put themselves in positions where they might make a mistake,” Kappadakunnel says. “For coaches who are trying to figure out the best way to support their athletes, the best way is going to be figuring out, ‘How can I be in relationship with this child in a way that feels safe, encouraging and nurturing first?’ Then I can dial up the heat and ask this kid to work a little harder, because they have a sense of safety and trust with me.”
Coaches are not being asked to become mental health professionals. But the role carries more emotional weight than the scoreboard can show, and the adults who take it on need support for the parts of coaching that can’t be taught with a whistle and a drill. That’s where Yes, Coach! comes in. Launched by the U.S. Soccer Foundation alongside Stand Together, the initiative aims to train 100,000 coach-mentors by 2030 and reach 3 million young people.
The goal is not to make coaches perfect. It’s to give them tools to meet young people with the curiosity, consistency and care that will help them feel seen, supported and safe enough to keep trying.
Harkes knows, as so many good coaches do, that correcting a player sometimes begins with correcting yourself.
“Self-reflection is key,” he said. “You’re not always going to be that perfect coach. None of us are.”
But when coaches are willing to do that work, their players receive something bigger than instruction. They get the experience of being noticed, listened to and believed in. They learn that they are worth showing up for, in the game and in life.
The lessons coaches teach don’t stop when the season does. They are the ones children carry with them long after they have left the field.
Every kid deserves a coach who helps them feel seen, supported and worth showing up for. Sign up for the free one-hour Yes, Coach! Training, and learn how to build trust, connection and confidence both on and off the field. If you’d like to host a screening of Summer of ‘94, learn more here!
