Every coach has faced it: athletes drag themselves onto the field carrying the weight of tests, drama, and exhaustion from the weight of the world on their teenage shoulders. The temptation? Yell, run, and scream energy into them because they're not present at practice.
Here's what actually works: Tapping into their teenage tendencies to intentionally prime their bodies and minds to get their chili HOT and focus UP while simultaneously building the culture, relationships, and leadership skills they'll thank you for later in life. Maybe.
This isn't about tricks—it's about transformation. When you layer transformational leadership principles with a high mentor mindset, those first five minutes they lace up becomes something more powerful than a warm-up lap. You create a daily, lock-in ritual that shapes who your athletes become, both on and off the field.
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The Foundation: What You're Really Building
High school athletes don't need you to be a cheerleader or a dictator. They need you to create an environment where their energy naturally rises because they feel ownership, purpose, and psychological safety to make mistakes. Your role? Be the thermostat that sets the temperature, not the thermometer that merely reflects it or boils up where energy lacks.
Let's break down how to intentionally design that environment.
Strategy 1: Energy Primers That Activate Body and Mind
Physical activation is the fastest path to mental engagement. Keep these short, competitive, and fun—you're sparking a shift, not exhausting them before practice begins.
Actionable Steps:
- Music-Driven Warm-Up: Establish a "starter song" tradition where a rotating athlete selects the track. This simple choice creates anticipation and ownership before they even step on the field. The music isn't background noise—it's a signal that practice is about to be different today.
- Competition Sprints or Relays: Design 20-30 second max-effort races. Keep stakes light but real: winners earn bragging rights, losers perform a fun "team penalty" (think: creative push-ups or set up a practice drill). The goal isn't punishment—it's creating micro-moments of intensity.
- Mini-Games with Purpose: Run 3v2 keep-away, sharks-and-minnows with sticks, or quick-stick accuracy contests. Simple structure, fast pace, immediate feedback. Athletes thrive when they can win quickly and often.
- Your Transformational Leadership Move: This is idealized influence in action. You can't expect contagious energy if you're standing on the sideline with a clipboard. Be all-in. Move with them. React to the music. Celebrate the relay winners. Your energy becomes permission for theirs.
Strategy 2: Competitive Systems That Create Buy-In
Athletes are hardwired for competition and status. Use that drive intentionally to build culture, and establish your expectation of practice intensity from jump street.
Actionable Steps:
- Self/Social Awareness: Track daily energy, effort, or specific behaviors on a public leaderboard. The reward doesn't need to be extravagant—recognition itself is powerful. Athletes check that board because they care about where they stand.
- First Goal Wins: Start practice with a small-sided scrimmage/game to 1-2 points. The winning side carries that confidence and pride into the technical training block. You've just transformed standard practice start lull into something that matters.
- Captain's Challenge: Rotate leadership by having different athletes design and lead the opening drill or chant. This isn't delegation—it's intellectual stimulation. You're shifting them from passive participants to active architects of team culture. No matter their grade or status on the team.
- Roshambo Drill: Give athletes ownership over practice elements by picking the next drill. I pick two players to rock-paper-scissors it out and winner picks our skill drill. Of course I stack the deck with 1-3 drill options in line with what we need to accomplish that day.
Strategy 3: Psychological Sparks That Shift Mental State
Energy isn't just physical. You need to interrupt their mental autopilot and create novelty that demands presence.
Actionable Steps:
- Anchor Rituals: Establish a specific team clap sequence, call-and-response chant, or huddle break that signals "we're locked in now." The ritual itself is less important than the consistency—it becomes a mental switch.
- Strategic Novelty: Once established routine is strong, introduce surprises. Weakness-only drills. Switching position warm-up drills. Novelty wakes up the brain because it demands adaptation and focus.
- Quick Visualization Spark: Before the first drill, huddle tight. Have athletes close their eyes for 15 seconds and vividly imagine executing a game-winning play—the sounds, the feeling, the celebration. Then explode into action. You've just bridged imagination to execution.
- Your Mentor Mindset Move: These psychological tools only work in an environment where athletes feel safe to try, fail, and laugh. Your job isn't to demand excitement—it's to build the conditions where excitement naturally emerges. That safety fuels confidence; confidence ignites energy.
Strategy 4: Coach-Driven Purpose and Presence
Your energy, your words, and your intentionality set the entire tone. This is where preparation meets execution. If you're having a bad day, and you let them know it, then expect practice to follow suit.
Actionable Steps:
- High-Energy Greeting: Meet every athlete with genuine presence. Eye contact. Energy. Your tone in those first 30 seconds sets the climate for the next two hours. Remember: thermostat, not thermometer.
- Storytelling Hook: Share a 60-second story from pro or college lacrosse that connects to today's practice focus. Stories create emotional resonance and help athletes see themselves in a larger narrative.
- Frame the Challenge: Give practice an exciting, specific goal that elevates mundane work into a mission. "Today, we're breaking our team record for ground balls in 10 minutes" transforms a drill into a collective achievement.
- Your Transformational Leadership Move: This is inspirational motivation—connecting today's effort to something bigger than "just another Tuesday practice." When athletes understand the why, the how becomes easier.
Strategy 5: Bringing High Mentor Mindset to Life
Your approach to coaching energy reveals your deeper philosophy: are you building athletes up, or breaking them down?
Actionable Steps:
- Build, Don't Break: If energy is low, redirect rather than punish. Sluggishness is feedback, not defiance. Ask yourself: what do they need right now to shift their state?
- Reinforce Competence: During that opening ignition block, actively praise effort, communication, and leadership behaviors—not just skill execution. You're defining what excellence looks like beyond technical ability.
- Teach Through Competition: Use those mini-games to highlight how hustle, communication, and teamwork determine outcomes—not just who has the best stick skills. This reframe empowers every athlete, regardless of current skill level.
Raise the Game
What are you really building? Manufacturing excitement isn't about manipulation or superficial hype. It's about intentional environmental design that allows athletes to access their best energy, naturally. When you combine that with transformational leadership principles and a mentor mindset, something profound happens:
You're not just creating better practice sessions.
You're developing athletes who feel connected to something larger than themselves. Who take ownership of their development. Who learn to lead. Who carry that confidence, purpose, and energy into every area of their lives.
That's the ripple effect of doing this work with intention. Every practice becomes an opportunity for growth that transcends the field.
Start tomorrow. Pick one strategy. Implement it with full commitment. Watch what shifts—not just in their performance, but in how they show up as human beings.
That's the work worth doing.