I don’t know how to coach anymore

Why didn't you just work with him and help him learn how to stay healthy while running the big volume? The way you describe it, it sounds like he was doing great, then burned out and got injured when you started training him. I'm sure that's not the case, but just go back and read what you wrote and think about how it sounds. That kid probably thinks your training caused the injury and burnout. Did it?

You basically described exactly what my kid did (20:00 to 18:00) except she did not get injured and just led her team to a state championship. Her coach is not a high volume guy but he was thrilled to have her back 2:00 faster than before, and worked with her. He used her example to encourage girls who were afraid to boost their mileage to do 5-10 more than they had before and they all got much faster. Nobody got hurt. A positive attitude goes a long way.

yeah i wouldn't give longwinded explanations upfront justifying yourself, it could invite debate. i would give broad generalizations about the day's effort level, and if it's a deliberate down ebb or taper i would tell them that.

i might explain if a specific kid asked. i'd chat to them on the side. i wouldn't have a group chat.

personally i would flip the script. if a kid is seemingly doing his own thing and seems to suffer for it, you pull them aside and encourage them to stick to the program.

Well, you could just stop coaching. And continue to call yourself a coach. My friend George Santos and I talk about this approach all the time.

(pretend) Coach Dahl

(a) success in and of itself wards this off a little. people assume you know what you're doing. my HS soccer coach was clueless but successful. it would take a while for noobs to figure out he stunk because he'd won state, regularly made the state playoffs, always a winning team. but he rolled the ball out for the talent. success buys you a head start on the mob.

(b) when a kid is coming up on JV or arrives as a frosh, seeing a competitive varsity is its own discipline.

(c) along the lines of your pro, a resume of success told the kids day one, might also discipline. i've been here x years. we've sent y kids to state. we've won state z times. "follow the program and maybe we'll add you to the list."

(d) conversely, if you aren't having that kind of success, maybe rethink how you're going about things. i get if some school in the area is twice your size, but you shouldn't be much better or worse raw talent than any other school around. TF isn't like soccer, you don't live or die on do you have some select kids someone already coached up. you have 4 years. make good use of them.

All I hear is “My athletes aren’t crediting me for finally growing!”

i think it's particular to distance running. i primarily did sprints/hurdles and did some jumps, but dabbled in XC 2 years. no one throws around mileage like it's some alternative success besides doing it meet day. a jumper might think extra jumps are dumb. i think it's the quirk of you can't do it full speed, you have to pace in training and meets, and there can be some quirks on which kids progress or not.

maybe it also attracts bright kids and ones who can articulate training methods and if they work.

that being said, i did find distance coaching often programmatic. my second year of XC i got anemic and blew up. the coach had upped how much of the workout i did atop soccer. i didn't respond well and eventually after a horrible meet found out i was sick. i was telling dude for about 2 weeks i felt exhausted and can we carve back. he wanted me to move up the varsity food chain. answer was no. i then got sick and had to be replaced.

personally what i learned from that was trust myself and make effort adjustments if a coach goes nuts.

OP, thank you for that outstanding post. As a coach, I can understand what you mean. Young people have zero trust or respect for conventional authority figures. in some ways, I cannot blame them for that, seeing as how they have been let down by numerous important institutions over the past 25 years or so. But it does make it very difficult to reach a lot of kids. I try hard to be the sort of coach who can help the widest breadth of athletes. But more than a few just sort of turn their brains off when I or another Coach are talking.

interestingly, I have noticed this more with the young men than the ladies. Young ladies tend to be more anxious to get along, and will at least listen. Young men are more difficult to reach. I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with men. I think that the world they face has probably made them a little more suspicious, I don’t know. Add to that very high levels of anxiety and mental illness, and it’s tough to coach a lot of kids.

This is exactly the same experience I had with my son in the context of the university admissions process. Despite lengthy conversations about how we could set up a process that would help him achieve his goals, he would not believe that he had the ability/attributes to gain admission via the path I sketched out (his path is a bit different to that of most people on this board; he was raised as a native Japanese speaker, in Japanese schools, and his weakness was his English-language reading and writing ability, both in terms of navigating the admissions process and doing the work once he got there). He repeatedly veered down obviously (to me) undesirable pathways, and a friend of mine said, "He has been TikToked." I remained patient (i.e. complained my ass off to friends and family, but tried not to let my frustration boil over too often with my son) and eventually he got across the finish line, following the path I had outlined, but man, it was a struggle. [The good news: he got into an excellent university, and he is killing it academically; perhaps he just needed to grow up.]

If I were you, I would try for maximum transparency at the outset of every season. Kids are mostly not dumb, and they understand what is going on. Tell them what you have observed. Tell them who you are and what you are trying to help them achieve. Explain what has been happening over the past few years. Ask them to 1) listen to you, live, in the room, and 2) trust in your experience and the investment you have in them personally (an investment that a random influencer does not have). Good luck!

I think it is always important to remember that while kids may be changing... the coach is changing as well as the years go by.

I'm sure the older coaches thought this same kind of stuff when these younger coaches were athletes themselves. "The Kids these days" thing.

It is important to realize that (as a coach) some of these observations, thoughts and feelings are pretty par for the course... Just keep rocking with the fundamental things that you know are tried and true and don't get discouraged.

I think a lot of kids try to do a lot of things because getting into college is more competitive. Or maybe they just have their heart set on an elite school. I am quite a bit older, but I did almost nothing special to get into college. perhaps things have changed.