I was having a conversation with a group of my athletes the other day and they were lamenting to me the struggles of trying to lead a few of their team mates that did not want to be lead. These few athletes were not bought in, they skipped reps, were late to practices, and gave little to no effort when they were present. I shared with them my thoughts on how to deal with athletes that are not bought in and would like to share them with you as well. 

We will never get 100% buy in or participation. At best we can hope for 90%. As a fault we as coaches try to get 100% all the time so that leaves us spending 100% of our time trying to motivate and convince the 10% that are not bought in. This in my opinion is a waste of time, those 10% will more than likely never buy in.

So that leaves us with two options, we can continue to pour into the 10% that does not care ignoring the 90% that does. Or we can invest 100% of our time in the 90% that has bought in. When we stop investing in the 10% and investing in the 90% two things usually happen. First, the 10% sees they are no longer getting attention by being not bought in and notice that the 90% that is bought in is getting the attention; so they decided to buy in. Second, they quite and go seek the attention they crave elsewhere. This is obviously is not the goal, but is more often than not a result of this type of coaching. In the long run your team is stronger and better with the investment of the 90%.

Speed is a Learned Skill,

Jaxson