Before I get into the wild stories, near-misses, championships, failures, and lessons from 35 years of coaching, I think it’s only fair to tell you what kind of coach — and honestly, what kind of player — I turned out to be.
I was raised in the “rules are rules” generation.
You didn’t always like the rules.
You didn’t always understand the rules.
But you respected them.
If you broke one, you weren’t sent to a counselor’s office to unpack your feelings. You were sent home to explain yourself to your parents, which was usually motivation enough not to make the same mistake twice.
When I started coaching, I brought those same expectations into the locker room.
Baseball or basketball, it didn’t matter.
No facial hair.
Hair above the ears.
White socks or stirrups.
You looked like a team.
The Sophomore Who Wouldn’t Cut His Hair
One year, a talented sophomore walked up to me and said, “Coach, I’m not cutting my hair.”
I thought maybe there was a reason.
“Religious?”
“No.”
“Family thing?”
“No.”
“I just don’t want to.”
I nodded.
“Well, let’s shake hands and part ways. Turn in your uniform.”
Some people today would call that harsh.
I never did.
Because the haircut was never the issue.
The issue was whether the standard applied to everyone or only to the people who felt like following it.
The minute standards become optional, they’re no longer standards. They’re suggestions.
And culture doesn’t survive very long on suggestions.
Besides, if you bend the rule once, next year’s group pushes a little farther. First it’s hair. Then it’s facial piercings. Then pretty soon you’ve got somebody showing up to practice wearing Crocs and a cape.
The Clearance Aisle Exploded
And speaking of appearances, shoes drove me crazy.
Back in the day, teams wore the same shoes. Maybe not the exact same model, but close enough that you looked like a unit. You took the court together, moved together, and represented something bigger than yourself.
Today?
Kids show up looking like a clearance aisle exploded.
One kid has neon green shoes.
Another has leopard print.
Somebody else is wearing shoes that cost more than my first car.
I once had a player ask me in October, “Coach, are these shoes okay for the season?”
I told him, “Let’s worry about you making the team first. Then we’ll discuss your little fashion statement.”
The Pink Shoes in Idaho Falls
Years ago we played one of the top teams in the state up in Idaho Falls.
The whole team looked sharp.
Except their best player.
He was 6-foot-6 and wearing bright pink shoes.
Not team-issued pink.
Not awareness pink.
Not fundraiser pink.
Just look-at-me pink.
And before anybody gets upset, I have nothing against pink.
But if the entire team had worn pink, I guarantee he’d have shown up in purple.
Because standing out was the point.
That’s when I started noticing something bigger.
We’ve spent decades teaching kids how to express themselves.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped teaching them how to belong to something bigger than themselves.
It Shows Up Everywhere
The shift isn’t limited to sports.
Schools.
Concerts.
Even middle school band performances.
When I was growing up, everybody wore black pants, white shirts, and maybe a clip-on tie if things got fancy.
Today, one kid shows up in cargo shorts, another in a Naruto hoodie, and somebody else is wearing fuzzy unicorn boots while playing the tambourine like they’re auditioning for Coachella.
The concept of representing the group has taken a back seat to expressing the individual.
Even my friend Randy sees it.
Randy runs the music at our baseball games.
He plays good baseball music.
Springsteen.
Tom Petty.
AC/DC.
Stuff that gets your blood moving.
Every year, though, somebody comes up and asks, “Can you play my song?”
Usually it’s a song with 47 profanities and a bass line powerful enough to knock migrating birds out of the sky.
My response is always the same:
Quit worrying about the music and start worrying about your batting average.
It Was Never About the Haircut
The older I get, the more I realize this isn’t really about haircuts, socks, shoes, or walk-up music.
It’s about identity.
For generations, kids were taught that being part of a team meant sacrificing a little individuality for something larger.
Today, many kids are taught the opposite.
The team exists to showcase the individual.
That’s a very different philosophy.
And eventually, life pushes back.
Because marriages require sacrifice.
Families require sacrifice.
Workplaces require sacrifice.
Communities require sacrifice.
Every meaningful relationship asks us to occasionally put “we” ahead of “me.”
The best teams I’ve ever coached weren’t built on self-expression.
They were built on shared standards.
Shared expectations.
Shared sacrifice.
That’s what creates trust.
That’s what creates culture.
The Grocery Store Uprising
One of my favorite modern parenting moments happened in a grocery store.
A little kid was having an absolute meltdown.
Not a minor tantrum.
A full-scale uprising.
He was knocking cereal boxes off shelves like he was overthrowing a government.
His mom finally gave him one firm swat on the backside.
Poof.
Instant peace treaty.
The rebellion ended immediately.
But what happened next was the interesting part.
She immediately looked around the store like she’d just committed a felony.
Then she spotted me.
I gave her a little nod.
The universal signal for:
Carry on, soldier.
We both knew what had happened.
A boundary had been established.
The world kept spinning.
The cereal survived.
And nobody needed a trauma specialist.
Not an Argument for Going Backward
This isn’t an article about going backward.
Every generation gets some things right and some things wrong.
But I do think we’ve drifted away from something important.
We’ve become very good at celebrating individuality.
We’re becoming less comfortable teaching responsibility to the group.
Meanwhile, job applications still say the same thing they’ve always said:
Must be a team player.
Funny how that hasn’t changed.
Maybe because deep down we know something.
The world still rewards people who can work with others.
People who can sacrifice for others.
People who can put the mission ahead of themselves.
Maybe that’s why teams still matter.
And maybe that’s why the lessons they teach matter even more.
Eventually nobody cares what color your shoes were. They care whether people could count on you.
And that’s a lesson worth keeping.
This story first appeared on Matt’s Substack. Read the original post — “When Being Part of the Team Stopped Being Cool” — and subscribe to the newsletter for short stories and practical lessons like this one every week.
