ANDREW J SIMPSON

Coach,

Each and everyday I want to encourage you to pick one player minimum, look them in the eyes, and from your heart say to them, "I care about you. You're going to do great things in your lifetime."

This communicates two things to them:

1. "You have value."

2. "You have a purpose beyond athletics. The best is yet to come for you."

So many of the athletes you coach do not yet believe these truths about themselves. 

If you do this every single day, you will hit your entire team multiple times in a single season.

Words change lives.

And a coach's words are among the most life-changing for a young man or woman. This is the Love-Powered Coaching that I talk about in The Youth Truth book.

As a society, I do not think it is right that we blame coaches for the majority of athlete mental health issues (although there are plenty of cases where this is warranted). Blaming does not encourage or...