The Jobs Kids Give Us
Why Young Athletes 'Hire' Coaches—and What That Really Means
Over the past few weeks, I’ve shared a series of short Notes exploring a question that’s easy to overlook in the rush of practices, drills, and game-day logistics:
What are young athletes really hoping to get out of coaching?
These posts seemed to hit a nerve. I heard from coaches, parents, even a few athletes—all reflecting on how sport carries weight far beyond scores and skill charts. So, I thought it was time to gather those thoughts into one place and offer a bit more framing around what ties them together: the concept of Jobs-To-Be-Done.
Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) is a theory from innovation and design thinking, originally created by Tony Ulwick. It flips the usual perspective: instead of asking what a product is, it asks what someone hires it to do. Not just functionally, but emotionally and socially, too.
A parent doesn’t hire a milkshake because they’re hungry—they hire it to keep their kid quiet in the back seat. A person doesn’t hire a fancy notebook because it writes better—they hire it to feel like someone who journals.
3 Key Takeaways:
Young athletes don’t just want to win—they want to grow.
Coaching meets deep emotional and developmental needs, from building confidence to navigating uncertainty.
Each athlete “hires” their coach for different reasons.
Understanding the underlying Jobs-To-Be-Done helps coaches design better environments, give more meaningful feedback, and connect on a human level.
The true work of coaching is relational, not transactional.
When we focus on connection, reflection, and agency, we unlock transformation—for them and for us.
2 Thought-Provoking Questions:
What job are your athletes hiring you to do right now—and is it the one you think you’re doing?
If you zoom out from drills and tactics, what emotional or social needs might be driving performance patterns you’re seeing?
So what are young athletes hiring us, as coaches, for?
It’s rarely just “improve my crossover run” or “help me win.” Those are outputs. But coaching, done well, serves deeper purposes. Coaching is hired to meet complex developmental needs—ones that young people often can’t articulate, but deeply feel.
Here are five of those jobs, as I’ve come to understand them through the lens of Integrated Dynamics Coaching and conversations with real kids on real courts and fields.
1 - Help me feel competent and confident when facing uncertainty
Sport is one of the few places left where kids regularly face honest unpredictability. A chaotic game, a loud opponent, a referee’s bad call—these are micro-labs for navigating the unknown.
Youth sports can offer safe spaces to build confidence through exploration, play, and what I like to call the ugly learning zones, where mistakes aren’t just tolerated—they’re necessary. Coaching is hired here not to deliver certainty, but to help athletes feel competent amid uncertainty.
2 - Help me discover how to solve problems on my own
Young athletes don’t want to be micromanaged. They want to be empowered. Whether they know it or not, they’re hiring coaches to teach them how to read situations, adapt, and choose.
This job is fulfilled through practices that emphasize decision-making and representative learning—environments that reflect the messy demands of competition. In short: not just reps, but reps with purpose. The word that comes up here is agency—and kids know when they’re being given it, or denied it.
3 - Help me find joy in challenge—not just comfort in success
This is one of the most resonant themes in the feedback I got: kids don’t just want to “get better”—they want to feel alive in the effort. The joy isn’t always in winning. It’s in figuring it out.
The “ugly zone” is where that happens. Where movement is awkward, timing is off, and learning is sticky. We think they’re struggling. Sometimes they are. But often, they’re loving it—because this is where they feel themselves becoming something.
When I was their age, this was the emotional payoff I chased most, even if I couldn’t name it at the time.
4 - Help me belong—to a team, a sport, and something meaningful
For many kids, sport is their first experience of belonging beyond family. It’s where they learn the rhythms of trust, the sting of exclusion, the magic of shared purpose.
They don’t hire coaching just to get better. They hire it to feel seen. To be part of something where their presence matters. As coaches, we fulfill this job when we create cultures of mutual respect, when we name strengths that go beyond performance, when we include—not just select.
5 - Help me grow as a person, not just an athlete
Coaching is rarely about skills in isolation. It’s about shaping the human that shows up to execute those skills.
Youth sports are a vehicle for self-regulation, self-talk, and self-belief. It’s where athletes confront failure, doubt, and inner critics. As coaches, we can either feed those voices—or help them manage them. Gallwey’s Inner Game still rings true here: the battle between Self 1 and Self 2, between judgment and intuition, plays out daily.
When coaching is hired for this job, it becomes a kind of mentorship. Not in a grand, guru-like way—but in the daily, quiet way that character is formed.
What This Means for Us
Understanding these five jobs has shifted the way I see my own role. It’s easy to fall into thinking we’re there to execute a program or deliver information. But when you zoom out and listen to what athletes are actually trying to get done, you realize: coaching is far more relational than transactional.
And that has ripple effects:
It changes how I design practice—less about coverage, more about connection.
It changes how I give feedback—less about correction, more about reflection.
It even changes how I define success—less about outcome, more about transformation.
So, to everyone who resonated with those original Notes—thank you. It reminded me that many of us are trying to coach beneath the surface. To coach humans, not just performers. To meet jobs that aren’t listed in the program brochure, but are deeply felt nonetheless.
And to any athlete reading this (or coach reflecting on their younger self):
What job are you hiring sport to do for you?
Because knowing that sets the tone.
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Rolf is a seasoned performance coach and coach developer, with a unique perspective that challenges conventional thinking. He works across both the business and sports worlds, supporting teams and individuals through change. Currently, he coaches multiple teams and provides personalized guidance to leaders in both fields.
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