Captains & Coaches Podcast

Sports don't teach lessons. Coaches do. This week, Tex breaks down transformational leadership theory's Four I's, connects them to social-emotional learning, and lays out the model anchoring his doctoral research on collegiate team captains. Education -  Captains & Coaches course, "Why They're Not Listening - Coaching Today's Athlete": http://listen.captainsandcoaches.com Training - &nbsp...

Joey Bergles [ @joeybergles ] has trained NFL athletes, a top-60 pro tennis player, and lacrosse standouts like the Kavanaugh brothers. None of them got better because of a magic program. They got better because they chose consistent discomfort, over and over, long before any potential showed up. Education -  Captains & Coaches course, "Why They're Not Listening - Coaching Today's Athlete...

Every coach has the athlete who's easy to reach, and the one who's checked out, arms crossed, wall fully up. This episode is about that second athlete, and why they're usually the one who needs you most. Tex breaks down the Coach-Athlete Reinforcing Loop, the five-stage cycle of trust extended, coaching delivered, athlete response, outcome, and reinforcement, and explains why it never resets to ne...

It has to be earned. Not given. Fairfax Hackley spent 34 years with the Arnold Classic. He trained with legends like Vince Gironda and Steve Maholic. He is the Senior Vice President for the International Sports Hall of Fame, now in its 15th year, inducting names like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronda Rousey, David Goggins, and Marcus Allen. But this episode isn't about bodybuilding. It's about mentorsh...

Most coaches don't praise enough. The ones who do often praise the wrong way without ever knowing it. In this episode, Tex breaks down why coaches stay silent when athletes get it right, the three mindset blocks holding that silence in place, and a concept from neuro-linguistic programming that changes how you think about the words you use around your team. You'll learn the three distinct types of...

Sean Waxman has spent 32 years in weight rooms, from Olympic weightlifting platforms to high school football programs, and he's convinced we're getting something seriously wrong with how we raise young men. Strength used to be something you coveted. Now it's treated like a threat. Aggression gets pathologized instead of channeled. And the trophies-for-everyone era has stripped an entire generation...

You've heard it a hundred times on a youth sideline: "Hustle!" "Not like that!" "MOVE!" And you've watched kids look back with zero idea what you actually want.  This week, Tex breaks down a framework called Coaching in 3D: three dimensions of instruction that eliminate confusion, build confidence, and give young athletes exactly what they need to perform.  Whether you're a youth coach,...

Trey Dombroski is a lefty starter in the Houston Astros organization, currently pitching Double-A ball with the Corpus Christi Hooks. Fourth round draft pick out of Monmouth University. Nearly 380 innings of pro experience and still climbing. But this conversation goes way deeper than stats. Trey breaks down what the Astros' velocity program actually did for his confidence on the mound, how the pi...

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 hu...

Brianna Battles is an athlete, strength coach, mom of two, and the founder of Pregnancy & Postpartum Athleticism. She's coached at the Division I level, competes in jiu jitsu, and has spent her career helping women pursue a lifetime of athleticism. Today she's bringing that same lens to sport parenting. In this episode, Tex and Brianna break down what it actually takes to raise gritty, multi-s...

Every roster goes through the same predictable stages of development, whether coaches and captains are aware of it or not.  In this episode, Tex breaks down Bruce Tuckman's Five Stages of Team Development through the lens of athletics, from the optimism of Day 1 fall camp all the way through the grief of a season's end.  You'll learn what each stage actually looks like in a locker room,...

What does it take to build a leader? According to Jon Heck, it starts under the bar. Jon played offensive tackle at UNC, two-time All-ACC, four-year starter, then spent nearly a decade coaching S&C for football at the NFL and Division-I level, including stops with the Houston Texans, Carolina Panthers and the Tar Heels. Now he runs Hammer & Chisel Performance, where he coaches athletes and...

Most halftime adjustments aren't real adjustments, they're just louder versions of what wasn't working in the first half. In this episode, we break down double-loop learning, the concept developed by organizational theorist Chris Argyris, and why it's the cognitive skill that separates coaches who adapt from coaches who just react. You'll learn the difference between single-loop thinking (fixing t...

What if the secret to reducing ACL risk, unlocking elite speed, and fixing broken movement patterns starts at the bottom of your athletes' feet? In this episode, we're live from Summerstrong with Cal Dietz, creator of Triphasic Training and the strength coach behind USA Women's Hockey's Olympic gold medal.  Triphasic Training II - https://amzn.to/4iNvi9M Cal pulls back the curtain on the meth...

Your athletes hear the word "conditioning" and the intent dies before the first rep. So stop calling it that. In this episode, Tex shares the full presentation he gave at the Soldiers to Sidelines [ @soliderstosidelines ] Endurance Coaches Summit, a real-time breakdown of how he reframes fitness for high school athletes to actually get buy-in, raise intensity, and build something that matters beyo...

Most athletes think showing up is enough. Go to the tournaments, hit the showcases, get seen, and the offers will come. Nick Tintle has spent nearly two decades watching that belief cost athletes the opportunity they worked their whole career to earn. Nick is a 2x All-American, MLL Champion, and founder of The Lacrosse Barn, the first lacrosse-exclusive training facility in Texas. In this episode,...

Matt Erdman spent 14 years in law enforcement before stumbling into a coaching opportunity he wasn't ready for. He'll be the first to tell you he didn't know a thing. So he learned. Now he runs Veritas Athletic Performance in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska — a speed and performance facility built on one word: truth. Truth in faith. Truth in law enforcement. Truth in training. The stopwatch doesn't lie, an...

Jim Davis is the founder of the Good Athlete Project and author of Get Steady: Essays at the Foundation of Sustainable High Performance . This conversation was recorded live at New Trier High School the day before we both presented at the Beyond Strength Summit in Chicago. Grab Jim's Book, Get Steady here: https://amzn.to/4tgb6le We cover Jim's High Order Performance Framework, from the physiologi...

Every season, coaches name captains. Hand out the 'C.' Fire everyone up. And then the season hits, and half the time, those captains don't know what to do with it. Not because they don't care. Not because they're bad leaders. Because nobody ever taught them how. This episode is the story of what happened when I decided to change that. I'm in the middle of my doctoral program in educational leaders...

What separates a good strength coach from a great one? According to Matt Nein, it's not the programming. It's the environment you create and the experience you deliver — every single day. In his 21 years at Salisbury University, Matt has built one of the most decorated strength and conditioning programs in all of college athletics — 14 national championships, 360-plus All-Americans, and the 2018 N...

You can spend an entire season with someone and still not know a single real thing about them. You know their position. You know what they do when the game's on the line. But you don't know their story — and that gap is exactly where teams break down. In this episode, Tex breaks down the Three H's: Hero, Hardship, Highlight — a team building exercise used by Jon Gordon with Dabo Swinney's Clemson...

Dr. Mike T. Nelson [ @drmiketnelson ] is a PhD exercise physiologist, metabolic flexibility expert, and one of the most applied performance scientists in the game. He's been researching and using creatine since 1995 — and today he's helping coaches and parents cut through three decades of myth, fear, and bad marketing. Dr. Mike's Complete Creatine Manual: creatine.miketnelson.com In this episode,...

Pat Riley called it the Disease of Me — and it doesn't start with losing. It starts with winning. In this episode, Tex breaks down Pat Riley's 7 Danger Signals: the warning signs that individual ego is quietly taking over a team that's supposed to be chasing something bigger. From chronic under-appreciation to cliques forming in the locker room to players who are frustrated even when the team is w...

There's no game like Army-Navy. No neutral site classic, no rivalry week hype machine — just two military academies, one football field, and everything that comes with wearing the uniform. Navy just won. And I wanted to talk to the guy who makes sure those Midshipmen are ready to play it. Jim Kiritsy is the Head Football Strength and Conditioning Coach at the United States Naval Academy. He built...

Most teams hand one athlete a title and expect leadership to follow. It doesn't work — and now there's research to prove it. In this episode, Tex breaks down why the traditional captain model sets athletes up to fail, what social network analysis reveals about how leadership actually operates inside teams, and why distributing leadership across multiple players — with defined roles and real develo...