What to Say in the First Five Minutes After a Rough Game

You can usually tell from the walk.

He comes off the field with his helmet under his arm instead of on his head, looking at the grass about six feet ahead of him, moving slower than he needs to. Nine–three. Three of them you could argue were his, and he knows exactly which three — he's known since they went in.

You've got about five minutes. The sideline, the walk to the car, the first quiet mile. What happens in that window can matter more than anything you say about lacrosse all season.

And almost none of it should be about lacrosse.

The short version

In the first five minutes, your job isn't to coach, comfort, analyze, or fix. Your job is to be unmistakably glad to see him.

Say one warm, true sentence that has nothing to do with the scoreboard, then stop talking and let him decide whether to open the subject. If he opens it, listen more than you talk, and if he doesn't, the conversation can happen tomorrow — and it'll go better tomorrow.

That's the whole thing. The hard part isn't knowing it, it's doing it while your own stomach is still in a knot.

Why five minutes, and why silence

He isn't ready to hear anything yet. Your young athlete walking off a field after a loss is still lit up — heart rate elevated, stress hormones still circulating, the last goal replaying on a loop. In that state he isn't receiving information, he's defending. Anything you offer in the first few minutes, however gently you mean it, arrives as a verdict rather than a thought. What happened on the third one? is a genuine question in your head, and in his it's you saw it too.

The position makes this harder than it is for anybody else out there. When a midfielder turns the ball over, it's gone in ninety seconds and nobody writes it down. When your goalie gets beat, it goes up on the scoreboard, it stays there for the rest of the game, and the whole field turns around to look at him. He gets a public, permanent, numbered record of every mistake he makes, and no other kid on that field plays under that.

So by the time he reaches you, he's already run the full review. He doesn't need a second one, he needs to find out whether anything changed between you and him because of how he performed.

And here's the thing about that scoreboard. It's a target. It is not the target, and it isn't even the most important one we're aiming at. Development is — the hands that are a little quicker than they were in March, the feet that finally stopped crossing over, the ten-year-old who stepped toward a shot this week that he'd have flinched away from last season. Those are the things that compound. The score is a snapshot of one Saturday, taken in bad light, with nine other kids in the frame.

A parent who treats the scoreboard as the headline teaches a goalie to treat it that way too, and a goalie who measures himself in goals allowed will quit this position eventually. Every one of them does. The ones who last measure themselves in better than I was, and that's a habit they learn mostly from watching what their parents get excited about.

The sentence kids actually remember. Two longtime coaching educators, Bruce Brown and Rob Miller, spent years asking college athletes a simple question: what did your parents say that you liked hearing most? The answer that kept coming back was six words — I love watching you play. It isn't a controlled study, and I won't dress it up as one, but it's survived two decades of being repeated to parents in gyms and cafeterias, and it's survived because of what it does structurally. It contains no evaluation, it can't be failed, and it's the one sentence that means exactly the same thing after a shutout and after a nine–three.

You're already coaching him — this just isn't the moment for it. Let's be honest about what you actually do. Five or six days a week, you're the one making sure the session happens. You're the tossing partner, the timer, the person who notices he skipped Thursday. In this program, that's real coaching, and it's most of why he'll be good.

Game day is different. On game day he has a coach on the sideline and nine teammates and a whole set of eyes on him already, and what your kid doesn't have — unless you provide it — is one person whose regard for him doesn't move with the score. Dom Starsia, four national championships at Virginia, writes about the coach's job as building an environment where a player can risk being bad at something long enough to get good at it. On a Saturday afternoon, you aren't the second coach. You're the thing that comes underneath him at exactly the right moment, so that the risk was survivable.

And it compounds. Young athletes who learn that the ride home is a review session start preparing for it. They come off the field already building the defense. Ask any high school coach about the kid who says I know, I know, I already know before anyone has said anything — that kid was taught to do that, and because of the situation you've created there, ironically, it's usually with love, and usually by somebody who just wanted to help.

Suggestions on what you can do, by age

3rd and 4th grade. Be boring and warm. Physical comfort first — water, a snack, a hand on the shoulder pad — and don't raise the game at all. At this age the scoreboard is largely your anxiety rather than his, and bringing it up hands it to him. If he raises it, match his energy and stop when he stops. That one bounced funny, huh. Want a hot chocolate? is a complete and excellent conversation.

5th and 6th grade. This is usually where the harsh self-evaluation starts, and where a young athlete begins confusing how he played with who he is. Your one sentence can separate the two on purpose. That was a rough one. Really glad you're mine. Then food. If he wants to walk you through all three goals, let him — your job there is to nod, not to rule.

7th and 8th grade. Hand him control of the topic, then honor it. Want to talk about it, or want music? is a real question, and if he says music, you put on music. All of the value is in him finding out you meant it, and one violation of that will cost you honest answers for about a year.

9th through 12th grade. He knows more about the position than you do now, and he knows that you know it. Ask before offering — do you want my read, or are you just done? Nine times out of ten he's just done, and the tenth time he'll ask you something real, and you'll be glad you didn't spend the other nine.

At every age, if there's a debrief worth having, it happens the next day rather than the same night, and it starts with a question instead of a conclusion. What did you see on the fast breaks? will get you further than you were cheating toward the ball side. He'll usually arrive there himself, which is the entire point — the athlete who can review his own game is the one who keeps improving when you're not in the car.

A few things worth avoiding

Try not to ask about specific goals, and try not to say it wasn't your fault — he knows which ones were, and telling him otherwise mostly tells him you weren't watching very closely.

Go easy on the refs, the defense and the coach where he can hear you. It feels like loyalty, but what it teaches him is that the result belonged to somebody else, and a goalie who learns that quietly stops being coachable.

Be careful with the shutouts, too. Celebrating one as proof of his worth seems harmless, and it's the same trap running the other direction — whatever you let the wins mean, the losses are going to mean the opposite.

And save the analysis for later than the parking lot. He can hear you talking to the other parents. They always can.

The part that lasts

Five years from now he won't remember the score of this game. I promise you that.

He'll remember, precisely and permanently, what the car felt like.

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Want to see how we build a goalie's week — the training, the mental work, and the part you actually play in it? Three real days from a real fifth-grade week are open on the site, no signup, nothing to enter. Take a look at the free week.

Coach Greg — LAX Goalie Hub

Coaching from a coach — general information, not psychological or mental health advice. If what you're seeing goes beyond sport — it's lasting for days, showing up in sleep, appetite or school, or changing how your athlete talks about himself — talk to your doctor, a school counselor or a mental health professional.