Buddies Become Brothers: Build a Team for All Seasons of Life

Every team ends. The great ones change shape instead.

A couple of weeks ago I ran three Captain's Workshops in four days. The first was at my alma mater, Marymount University. The last two were in Boston. Then I stayed a few extra days with a dear friend: my college roommate and my co-captain from our senior year of lacrosse.

We had not seen each other in person in seven years. Our final season ended more than 18 years ago. By every textbook definition, our team adjourned.

Within one minute, he was giving me guff.

I had pulled into his neighbor's driveway. His whole family watched me unload every bag I brought and close the trunk. Then I heard it from across the yard, right in front of his 4-year-old: "We're over here, stupid." I had been to that house before...

Nothing had changed. We shared a lot of meals that week. The conversation moved from fun to serious and back again, the way it always did.

That is not a team that ended. That is a team that changed shape.

The stage nobody coaches

In 1965, Bruce Tuckman watched groups at work and saw a pattern. Forming: everybody is polite. Storming: conflict and power struggles show up. Norming: roles get clear and trust builds. Performing: real interdependence, and the team runs itself.

In 1977, Tuckman and Mary Ann Jensen added a fifth stage. Adjourning. Some call it mourning. The task ends, the group disbands, and people feel some mix of relief, sadness, and inside jokes that only make sense in the circle.

Nearly 50 years later, it is still the most widely used model of team development. A 2023 UF/IFAS Extension paper on leading teams makes a point every coach should hear: teams sometimes skip adjourning altogether. That is the stage where a team celebrates what it did and reflects on what it could do better. The authors note it hits hardest for the people who built the strongest relationships.

The same paper warns that teams that skip a stage get stuck. A team that never really forms struggles to get out of storming. I would add this. A team that never really adjourns struggles to let the next season of life begin.

Newer researchers push back on Tuckman for being too linear. Real teams loop and backslide. I love that critique here. It means adjourning is not a door that closes. It is a loop. You re-form. Different setting. Same people. New season.

We coach the first four stages hard. Then we hand out a banquet plaque and say good luck. But every athlete you coach will adjourn. The question is not whether your team ends. The question is what survives the ending.

Here is the twist. What survives adjourning gets built in storming. You cannot mourn what you never built. Teams that skip the hard conversations adjourn as strangers.

Build the bond now

This was the message I pushed hard in all three workshops: hold each other accountable now. Not later. Not when it is convenient. Now. Four things build the bond.

Accountability. You show up when you said you would. When a teammate does not, you say something. This is the friend versus leader tension every captain feels. Being a friend feels safe. Being a leader means saying the hard sentence. The best friends I have are the ones who said it.

Banter. Banter is not just jokes. It is proof of trust. You only roast the people you know can take it. You only take it from people you know have your back.

Candor. Candor is telling the truth when the truth costs you something. It is the film session where a teammate says, "That was on you." You nod, because he is right.

Conflict. Most teams treat conflict like a fire and put it out fast. Healthy conflict is the forge. It is where the bond gets heat-treated. The research agrees: trust starts in forming, but it builds in storming through healthy conflict. That is where teammates learn they can disagree and still belong.

The key word is healthy. Healthy conflict attacks the problem. Negative conflict attacks the person. Coaches, name the difference out loud. Captains, model it in the huddle.

I fought plenty of teammates in college plenty of times. Those fights did not break us. They are the reason we are still talking. Knocked each other to the ground then, now standing in each other's weddings.

Here is the line I gave every room to close the workshops. The bonds you build right now will make you a better team this season. And they will keep you together when the season ends.

The honest mirror stays up

So what does adjourning look like for a team that did the work? It does not end. It evolves. The jersey comes off. The group chat stays on. The practice plan becomes a career, a marriage, kids, loss, big decisions at 2 a.m. Three things carry over.

The honest mirror stays up. The guy who told you to move your feet on a ground ball is the same guy who tells you when you are drifting as a husband, a father, or a leader.

The banter continues. Twenty years later he still brings up the thing you did. That is not cruelty. It is a receipt. It says, "I was there. I know who you are."

The candor becomes the most valuable truth you have. Out in the real world, people will try to label you. They will weave stories about you. Some will try to put their shame on you. You need people who knew you before any of that. People who can say, "That is not who you are. I was in the huddle."

That is the gift of a team that adjourned well. Their truth is louder than the noise.

I can't count how many times my co-captain and I have called each other with "Dude, help me out here." What comes back is a reality check, or a hard question delivered with love. That is what I mean when I say buddies become brothers. It is not a slogan. It is a stage of development, and it is earned.

The adult layer: compassion

There is one more layer, and you do not get it at 19. Banter, candor, and conflict get built in the locker room. In adulthood, a fourth layer sits on top of them: compassion.

Banter keeps it light. Candor keeps it true. Conflict keeps it strong. Compassion keeps it human.

At 19, compassion means picking a guy up after a bad game. At 40, it means picking up the phone when his marriage or business is struggling, his dad is sick, or he has left the job that defined him.

Beyond food, water, and a roof, every one of us has basic emotional needs. Former teammates are uniquely built to meet them. Here are six, drawn from my conversation with Tim Fletcher on Ep. 144 of the Captains & Coaches Podcast.

Acceptance. Respect, nurture, comfort, even love, despite different personalities, how we look now, or our limitations. Your knees go. Your teammates still see the guy who played through it. They accept you because they already saw you at your worst and stayed.

Belonging. Deep, meaningful friendships and inclusion. Adult men especially lose friends after sports end. It happens slowly, then all at once. The group chat that keeps tagging the guy who went quiet is belonging in action.

Safety, security, and fairness. Consistent, loving boundaries. A real teammate does not just tell you what you want to hear. He holds the same line he held in college. Because you know he will be straight with you, you feel safe with him.

Purpose and significance. The truth about what we are good at. When the athlete identity disappears, many people lose their sense of worth. Teammates remember what you are good at. Not the stats. The real stuff. "You were always the guy who held us together" can carry a man through a hard year.

Rest. Plan it into the day. Teammates give you permission to stop. That was Boston for me. Three workshops in four days, then a few days on a couch with my brother. No agenda. It was rest I did not know I needed.

Beauty. Art, sunrises, sunsets, family. In college, I was the one who noticed the sunrise at 6 a.m. practice on the back field, mostly while being loud enough to wake up the dorms. Now it is coffee at sunrise with my friend's family, getting schooled on Paw Patrol powers by a 4-year-old. (Ninja Turtles would win. I respect her opinion anyway.)

These needs are what adjourning grows into when you do the work. Not just a group of guys who used to play together. A support system. A brotherhood that meets real needs.

You cannot fake this at 40 if you did not build it at 20. Compassion without a history of candor feels hollow. Compassion with it feels like home.

Four moves for captains and coaches

So how do you coach the stage nobody coaches?

1. Stop rescuing your team from storming. Coaches, when conflict shows up, shape it. Don't shut it down. Give them the tools and let them work. Captains, have the hard conversation this week. Not at the banquet.
2. Name the long game out loud. Tell your team, "Some of you will be in each other's weddings." Say it in preseason. It changes how they treat each other in February. Then show them. Bring alumni back. Invite your old teammates out.
3. Coach the ending on purpose. Don't let the season just stop. Build a real close. Recognize people by name. Tell the truth about what the team did well and what it didn't. Then give them a reason and a way to stay connected.
4. Practice compassion now. Teach your team to check in, not just check up. Ask the teammate who went quiet how he is actually doing. The habit you build at 17 is the phone call you make at 45.

Adjourning done right is not a goodbye. It is a handoff to the next season of life.

Build it now so it holds later

Back to that couch in Boston. We are not teammates anymore, not by Tuckman's definition. The task is done. The group disbanded years ago.

But the mirror is still up. The banter never stopped. The candor still lands. And underneath all of it now is compassion. That is the team. It just changed seasons.

Sports don't teach lessons. Coaches do. So teach this one. Build the bond now so it holds later.

And go call your old teammate.

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Source: Muscato, A. F., Bush, S. A., Greenhaw, L. L., & Baker, C. N. (2023). Leading Teams #2: Stages of Group Development. UF/IFAS Extension.

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