What Coaching In High School Taught Me That College Never Could.

When I transitioned from a collegiate training setting into high school, I originally  had no idea what to expect. Little did I know that my time working in a high school would do more for my coaching ability than any previous experience ever could have. 

Going from coaching 18- to 24-year-olds to 13- to 18-year-olds was an absolute shock on day one. Cues that had always worked with college athletes had no effect on some of the high school athletes, and I had to completely switch how I ran a group, connected with athletes, programmed, and so much more. But it was exactly what I needed in my life and career for me to grow in the best way possible.

The High School Weight Room is Controlled Chaos

Coaching at the high school level means you are constantly adapting to the athlete and the situation. On any given day, you might be coaching a 13-year-old freshman going through puberty who has never stepped foot in a weight room before, and within that same lifting group, an 18-year-old senior who is getting ready to go off and play in college. The wide array of athletes kept me on my toes at all times. 

I was very fortunate at St. Ignatius to have had phenomenal resources, great sport coaches to work with, and an administration that was always behind me. Not everyone is so lucky—I know countless other high school strength coaches who are the only ones in charge of nearly  500-1000 athletes throughout the day. All I hope to accomplish through this article is to inform you that there are very high-level coaches in the high school setting and to advocate for all young coaches to spend time at a high school in their career.

Simplicity Wins

The predominant weight room I worked out of was considered an “auxiliary” weight room; it consisted of 4 racks, 5 benches, 5 barbells, 1 set of dumbbells (5-100), a couple of pulldown machines, med balls, plyo boxes, and a turfed area right next to the weight room. Like I said before, I was very lucky with what I had, and we got better every time we walked through those doors. But within that space, there were typically 35-40 athletes training at once. 

Learning how to control a smaller space with a large number of athletes really makes you structure training with a “What matters the most today?” approach. That was something that took me a while to figure out. For a while, when I first started there, I tried to cram a lot into a little amount of time. As time went on, I learned to take a “Keep It Simple, Stupid” approach.

Adapt And Overcome

I told you about the main room I worked out of, but there is another one. The school’s main weight room was, I’d say, about three times  the size of the auxiliary room—which is huge. It had great equipment and plenty of room, but it also had upwards of 100-110 athletes in there at any given time. As you can imagine, there was overlap from time to time. 

Not every day is perfect. There were many days that everyone was supposed to be on a rack for an exercise, but that couldn’t happen. Some teams would get staggered starts to ensure everyone could be where they had to be, while others began in the middle of the lift and worked backward. Working in an environment like that, you learn how to figure it out.

On another hand, having 100-110 athletes in there at once really makes it hard to ensure everyone gets ample coaching and attention. You learn how to have eyes in the back of your head and give meaningful coaching. Moving from athlete to athlete had to be fast most of the time—there wasn’t time to give very long explanations. That really taught me how to give short, meaningful, and effective coaching cues to fix the issue and quickly move on to the next athlete. 

They’re Called The Basics For A Reason

You learn how good of a coach you really are when you try to teach a freshman how to hinge. Teaching a group of young athletes how to squat or hinge requires you to make sure your language is precise. I found out very quickly that if you aren’t careful, they will either take your words way too literally or look at you like you have 3 heads.. 

Beyond just the coaching aspect of the basics, you learn a lot about programming. First and foremost, you’re working with high schoolers—there is no need to do a bunch of fancy stuff or change the program on a weekly basis. Their training age is so low that they will adapt to anything. When working with college athletes a lot of that still reigns true. This field is full of people trying to reinvent the wheel, but if you look around the world, you’ll see the best programs do a lot of the same stuff. Everyone squats, benches, and deadlifts in some variation, but how you hammer and coach those basics determines how successful the program will be. They’re called the basics because they always have and always will work.

People Matter

The most important lesson that working with high schoolers taught me is that you are most of these athletes’ introduction into training. Whether you realize it or not, you can help a kid develop a healthy relationship with training, or you can be the reason they hate stepping foot in a weight room. Showing these kids you care not just about how they develop athletically, but as  human beings, is the most important part of coaching at every level. I’ll go out on a limb and say the majority of us didn’t get into coaching just to win. We got into coaching because we either had a good or a bad coach at some point in our lives. Be the person that you wish younger you had during those formative years of your life. The most rewarding part of coaching isn’t just seeing athletic growth—it’s watching athletes become completely different people from who they were when they first walked into your weight room. My favorite part of working at a high school was seeing that shy, nervous, lanky freshman 1-2 years after consistent training. Their smile was a little brighter, they stood a little taller, and their voice was a little louder. I think treating athletes as people,not just players, gets lost at times. Yes, they are an athlete in your weight room, but they are also someone's child, sibling, significant other, or niece/nephew. Be their harshest critic, but also their loudest cheerleader.

Final Thoughts

If you are given the opportunity to spend time and coach in a high school, you need to take it. The reps you get teaching movement, managing chaos, and building trust are the same skills that make you great at any level. Being a high school strength coach made me better—not worse—when I moved back to the college level. I still fall back on the lessons I learned in that setting every single day. Because no matter what level you coach at, it still comes down to this: Can you build relationships? Can you adapt? Can you coach?