When a conflict arises between an athlete and a coach, your mediation skills are put to the test. The right approach is key.

By Kevin Hatcher

Kevin Hatcher, EdD, is the Senior Associate Athletic Director for External and Internal Relations at Colgate University and a former Associate Athletic Director at the University of Texas-El Paso. He can be reached at: khatcher@mail.colgate.edu.

One of our most important jobs as athletic administrators is to support our coaches. We want to do everything we can to ensure their success and longevity.

Another one of our most critical tasks is to support our student-athletes. For today’s athletic administrator, creating a positive experience for student-athletes is right up there with fundraising, graduation rates, and compliance with NCAA rules.

The problem is that the interests of our coaches and our student-athletes sometimes collide, with one or the other showing up in our office ready to explode. What do you do then? Do you risk damaging your relationship with a coach whom you might work with for the rest of your career, or do you protect the sanctity of the student-athlete experience? Here are a few tips to help you survive such a situation:

Facilitate Communication: As tempting as it is to quickly resolve any conflict, your initial strategy should always be hands-off. You must first ask if both parties have discussed the issue together.

It doesn’t matter whether the coach or the student-athlete has approached you with the dispute. The two should try to mediate the situation themselves. I’ve been supervising coaches for 13 years and I’m still surprised at how many conflicts haven’t gone through “the process.”

If the dispute has been discussed, encourage both parties to engage in meaningful conversations that attempt to further clarify the issue. Maybe the coach needs to better explain the reason for his or her actions. Maybe the athlete needs to better define his or her complaint.

In many disputes, emotions can take over and the discussion breaks down. It’s important to make sure the issue has not been complicated for this reason. Sometimes, you need to encourage both parties to start the discussion again, with an emphasis on leaving any hurt feelings outside the room.

Listen: If either party is unwilling to engage in meaningful conversation or if peace talks are unsuccessful, set up a meeting where you help them work through the issue. During the meeting, your role is to listen, and talk only when necessary.

You will most likely have the urge to settle the dispute after you’ve heard the two sides. But this conversation is important to the coach-athlete relationship. If they are able to solve the disagreement on their own, it might make future interventions by administration unnecessary.

So, what is your role? Sometimes, just being a calm presence is help enough. By modeling careful listening and patience, both parties will engage in more empathetic conversation. It can ensure things won’t get out of hand, which is critical for more open and honest communication.

Compromise: When the coach and student-athlete still remain at a standstill, you need to take a more active role by steering the conversation toward a mutually acceptable solution. Sometimes, it’s tough for people to back down and yield to the other party’s ideas. If you can, as a neutral party, suggest a few compromises—it can ease the tension and help both parties “save face.”

However, be careful with your suggestions. The compromise must not jeopardize the integrity of the team or your school’s rules and regulations.

Support the Coach: If your suggestions still aren’t working and an immediate resolution is needed, I most often support the coach in any situation. Why? Because it’s critical to reinforce his or her authority in the relationship. If you don’t, it will create an atmosphere of mistrust between you and your coach. It will also put a strain on the coach-athlete relationship and might result in visits from the student-athlete anytime he or she has a misunderstanding with the coach.

In cases where you feel the student-athlete has been wronged, speak to the coach one-on-one about the situation. Explain how you feel the coach may have been out of line. Then, allow the coach to explain the resolution to the student-athlete. This way, justice can be served without the coach’s authority being compromised.

Follow Up: Even when a problem has been resolved, anger or hurt feelings might still linger. It’s important that these emotions don’t stick around too long. Give each party time to cool off, then follow up. If there are any residual effects, continue to intervene until there is a full resolution. The athlete-coach relationship is key to success on the field, so make sure the issue has merely interrupted, and not permanently strained, communication.

Of course, the best scenario is to limit coach-athlete conflicts as much as possible. Here are two key ideas on being proactive and reducing the amount of conflict that comes your way:

Lay Out Clear Expectations: Through several mediums, make sure both coaches and student-athletes know the expectations of proper behavior. Use codes of conduct, workshops, and discussions to explain everyone’s roles. At the same time, make sure they understand the protocol for resolving disputes.

Eliminate Barriers: Encourage your coaches to build personal relationships with their players. Student-athletes must feel that a coach cares about them. It’s easier to take criticism from someone who takes time to get to know you than from someone who hasn’t shown an interest.

While we’d like to think every dispute will run its course and we can continue with the business of winning, there may eventually come a time when your only choice is to remove one of the parties from the situation. If this happens, make sure you’ve covered yourself by documenting the situation.

It is also important to let your supervising administrators know of the incidents as they occur. The worst thing an administrator can do is blindside a superior with a situation that has already grown out of control.

As with any relationship, communication is the cornerstone of success. Trust only comes through open and honest communication. And once established, it will make conflicts easier to resolve, and eventually result in fewer crossing your desk.