Win Now, Not at Life: Researching Gaps & Assumptions in Sports

Six months into a doctoral program in Educational Leadership and Organizational Innovation, and the research is starting to ask harder questions than the coaching did.

In this episode, Tex breaks down research questions from the doctorate worth every coach's attention and reintroduces Social Emotional Learning. Not the K-12 buzzword version. The real framework, five competencies that define how human beings function inside groups under pressure. And he makes the case for why college athletics, built for performance and reshaped by the transfer portal, is not the environment for SEL development and a place that needs it most.

The episode closes with three research questions driving his dissertation in practice: what captains actually know about leading, what program conditions make or break them, and what coaches assume their leaders are ready for that they aren't.

Sports don't build leaders by accident. This episode is about why and what we're going to do about it.