Sports Thoughts

When you start out in coaching, someone will come in and talk to you about skills and technique and drills. And the traditional model goes something like this: Introduce a new skill. Demonstrate it. Get the kids to try it. Make it fun. Make it interesting. Get them engaged. Then — once they understand the movement — get them to do it over and over and over again until they “master” the technique....

Your athletes can hit the time in training. They can execute the skill on Tuesday afternoon at the quiet local ground. They can do the task. But can they do it when and where it matters? After 10 hours on a bus. Sharing a room with teammates who stayed up all night on social media. Eating fast food because nothing else was open. In front of more people than they’ve ever seen. On a ground they’ve n...

I’ve spent 35 years in sport. Most of that as a coach developer — a coach of coaches. Tens of thousands of hours with coaches who’ve achieved remarkable things: Olympic gold, World Championships, Grand Slams, professional titles at the highest level. Here’s my gift to you — the top three things I’ve learnt from that living library of coaching genius: 1. Learn something new every day. The best coac...

By Wayne Goldsmith Why aren’t kids coming back to your sport? The answer — and the solution — is standing on your sideline. Your coaches ARE the experience. Every session. Every interaction. Every moment that makes a kid think “I love this” or “I’m done.” You can have world-class facilities, brilliant programs and big marketing budgets, but what the coach says and does on Tuesday night determines...

There is no magic pill. No secret sauce. No one thing that guarantees success. The internet is full of people — usually selling something — telling you the “only” thing you need or the “best” way to do it. 30 years in this business taught me a simple filter for what’s real and what’s bulldust: RED FLAGS: * Absolutes — words like always, never, must, only, best = probably rubbish * Big promises — m...

By Wayne Goldsmith This is part three of my trilogy on the Norway sporting success story. Part 1: Everyone wants to copy Norway — but you have to play like YOUR place. Part 2: I’d scrap all junior rep teams for under-14s. Part 3: So what SHOULD you do? Here’s my three-step framework: 1. Learn from your legends. Stand on the shoulders of giants. Your sport has a legacy — people who figured out what...

Parents — sometimes you have to say NO. And mean it. We all love our kids. I’ve got eight — I get it. But I can’t tell you how many arguments I’ve had with sporting parents whose child didn’t get selected in a team and who want to blame the system or the coach or the selectors or anyone and everyone they can find. Instead of saying: “You didn’t make it this time. I love you. I’ll be right here bes...

What would you do if you had ONE session with a team you don’t know, in a place you’ve never been, sometimes in a language you don’t speak, in a sport you don’t understand? I am very lucky. I get to travel the world and work with coaches, athletes, teams and sporting parents everywhere. Often, coaches will invite me to visit their training sessions and spend time with their team. This can vary bet...

By Wayne Goldsmith Thanks for the incredible response to the "Good Boys Make Great Players" video. A coach wrote to me and asked, "Wayne. How do I coach "good"? Great question. My answer: Stop seeing them as athletes. Start seeing them as people who do athletic things. This re-framing of your coaching is essential because you shift your focus from talent, skills, winning, losing, performance etc....

I was visiting the Collingwood AFL Club here in Australia. Impressive facilities. Long history of success. Well resourced. Professional football team. They had a guy whose job was to take care of the players’ boots. Clean them, repair them, dry them. He’d been there for years doing the same job — and he loved it. I asked him: “ You’ve seen some of the game’s greatest players over a long time. What...

A lot of coaches, club committees and sports administrators complain that the reason their program, their team and their athletes are not competitive is due to poor facilities. “If we had a better court, our kids would be able to train and play better” etc. In 30 years in this business I’ve seen kids in Africa train in dirty swimming pools with no starting blocks, lane ropes or backstroke flags -...

There are no 7 year old champions, There are no sporting super-stars at 9 years of age. There are no “great” athletes at 11 years of age. Recently a sporting parent said something to me that I wanted to share with you. I promise you - NONE of this is embellished or made up. “Wayne. I need your advice. My kid plays sport and he’s great at it. Everyone tells us that he’s a champion. I want to help h...

By Wayne Goldsmith n the old days, coaches talked a lot. We’d go on and on about what to do, how to do it, how many times to do it, why to do it. Now, athletes want something other than a “sage on a stage”. They want a coach who works WITH them — not AT them. They want more than telling and yelling. Questions are a powerful coaching tool. Why? Because when you ask an athlete a question, they stop,...

Player Power doesn’t mean the players are in charge. It means they take ownership. Traditional coaching was simple: tell them what to do, yell when they don’t. Command and control. Modern coaching is different. The coach leads by painting a vision — telling the story of the team’s future with the same clarity as they can describe the past. Someone still needs to lead. Someone still needs to see th...

By Wayne Goldsmith I’ve delivered sporting parent workshops across six continents — from South Africa to South Korea, Canada to Fiji — since the early ‘90s. In every session, I ask one question. The most important question any sporting parent will ever consider: Close your eyes. What do you see? Watch the video — then tell me what YOU see. Wayne Goldsmith. If you found this useful, hit subscribe —...

By Wayne Goldsmith So - you had to coach the local under 8 team because no one else would? As Douglas Adams would say - DON’T PANIC! There are millions and millions of people just like you all over the world - i.e. what we call “THE LAST ONE STANDING”. Let me guess. You took your kid to the local football or basketball or hockey or baseball club. They announced “Hey everyone. We’re looking for a c...

By Wayne Goldsmith Let’s talk about what I call The Coaching Moment. That moment when you’re talking with an athlete - it’s only you and them and there’s real connection. In that moment where the only person in the world who matters is that person - that athlete - standing in front of you - you have the opportunity to coach them. A lot of people think coaching is about drills and skills. Others be...

By Wayne Goldsmith Every coach loves technique. They love talking about it, studying it, recording it and coaching it. But the technical model most of us have been using is overly focused on “perfection” - and is not focused enough on coaching the athlete to be able to effectively execute THEIR TECHNIQUE - i.e. their own unique, individual technique, when and where it matters. Colleagues - forget...

By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Kids today are not LAZY - please write that down 100 times. Lots of coaches and parents tell me that kids today are lazy, they don’t want to work hard, they are all looking for the easy way - the short cuts, they’re all entitled….. Bulldu#t! T...

Welcome to Sports Thoughts 2026. This year I’ve decided to focus on video posts. There’s way too many Ai generated text posts out there - so I’ve made the commitment to record a lot more video for my Substack community. There’s a lot going on in 2026 and I hope you’ll join me as a subscriber - or at the very least a regular reader / viewer. Have a wonderful year! Wayne Sports Thoughts is a reader-...

BY Wayne Goldsmith Welcome to Sports Thoughts Story Time. As a species we humans are at our best when we’re connecting with each other through story-telling. Story telling allows us to share more than the facts: it’s our opportunity to share our feelings, our emotions, our wisdom and our learning with others. Stories allow us to share our successes, our failures, our joys and our fears. Stories he...

By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Three Important Things to Remember: * Talent is what people see on the surface - character is what creates champions; * The most "talented" kids often quit first when things get difficult; * Persistence beats talent when talent doesn't persist...

By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Sport has a teenage drop out problem. Every sport. Every nation. Kids get to their mid-teens and the vast majority decide it’s time to drop out of competitive sport and focus on other things. I’ve heard a lot of people try to explain this prob...

By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Over the past 30 years I’ve worked all over the world with some brilliant coaches. Worked with coaches in the USA, UK, Ireland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Italy, France, Australia, NZ and many many other wonderful sporting nations. Work...

By Wayne Goldsmith Welcome to Sports Thoughts Story Time. As a species we humans are at our best when we’re connecting with each other through story-telling. Story telling allows us to share more than the facts: it’s our opportunity to share our feelings, our emotions, our wisdom and our learning with others. Stories allow us to share our successes, our failures, our joys and our fears. Stories he...