Stop Coaching the Player—Start Coaching the Person | Mike Candrea

Legendary softball coach Mike Candrea shares the foundation behind his success, including the three traits every great coach must develop: competence, compassion, and caring. He explains why relationships drive performance and how understanding your athletes as people changes everything about how they show up.

If you want to build stronger connections, better trust, and a more resilient team, this episode will challenge how you think about coaching.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Why coaching starts with the person, not the player
•  The 3 C’s: competence, compassion, and caring
•  How relationships impact performance and trust
•  Why connection drives consistency

🎧 This conversation originally took place inside Momentum Sessions, a free community for coaches who take culture seriously.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

You have to coach the person versus coaching just the athlete. If you're just dealing with their athletic skills and you never take the time to learn about them as an individual, then you're kind of missing the boat to build that relationship that you need. Yeah, you know, I mean, clear standards are very important. I think anytime you're you're leading, you you have to portray a vision of um where you want to go. You know, your culture is what enables people to buy into the vision. Okay, and and it's it's an ongoing thing. For me, it was getting the right people uh in the room. Um, I mean, that's probably sometimes the most difficult thing, is um, no matter what you're doing, is making sure you you're you're surrounding yourself with the right people. And I always said that it took it takes a village to win. And sometimes that village, um, you have to make sure that you have the right people that are in that village. I always looked at my job is building this beautiful boat and putting the right people in the boat and getting everyone to row the boat the the the same way. And um and in order to do that, you know, you have to have people that are high character, um, people that have high energy. I mean, energy is a big part of winning, and low drama. But at the end of the day, I didn't want to deal with someone that brought a lot of drama to the uh to the program. So I wanted someone that was that was competitive, um, that had high standards, that wasn't scared to hold other people accountable as well as themselves. And um and then to me, I think you've got a chance of building something special when you can have people like that in your culture.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

High character, high energy, low drama.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

That's that's a pretty good um yeah, combination.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

And you mentioned there around getting kind of the athletes to also own the culture. I think that's kind of what you were alluding to. How do you get your athletes to do that and not just follow it or comply?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

When I first started coaching, I used to think that I would be the one that would establish the culture, and and rightfully so you are. You're a piece of that, but um, the effective cultures that I had were um grown from within. Um so it was the players that that truly developed their own culture that held each other accountable, that kind of set their own standards, uh, along with the the vision that I portrayed as a leader of that group. Putting signs up on your locker room and and um giving quotes all the time isn't isn't what culture is all about. You know? Yeah. Um, and and to me, I think one of the big pieces for us was um finding people that were competitive. Since we were competing, our culture had to be a competitive culture. And for some people that's a little bit difficult because you know, we're we're gonna compete every day and we're gonna hold each other accountable every day. And you know, failure is gonna be a big part of it. Um, I think a lot of people are scared to fail, but to me, failure was where we learned um how to handle the adversity. And I think that's what kind of, if I look back at the the great teams that I had, they had emotional stability. They never got too high, never got too low, but but they also held each other accountable because they were good teammates. They would lock arms and they would they would be one. And um that's not always easy to accomplish with um young people today.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

What did you do when those standards were challenged, especially from a talented player or really any player, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Well, I I can't say that I had a lot of patience um with people that didn't want to buy in. So I think the buy-in is is very important. Working with the group of athletes that I had, we had one commonality, and that was we were all competitive. Um, we were all different. Um, so you have to accept the differences, um, and and you have to work at it. You know, it's it's it's like being married, you know, marriage marriage isn't easy all the time. Um, some days are good, some days are not, but you have to work at it to make it right. And I think in a competitive environment, um you're gonna have differences. Um, but at the end of the day, you need to be able to walk out of the room and and uh appreciate the differences, um, but move forward with one common goal.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Did you ever find like a secret to balancing um discipline with connection in regards to kind of maintaining your culture?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

For me, I was a relationship builder. I don't know how you would lead if you can't build relationships, but my my relationships were built um amongst trust, mutual respect, and honesty. And um I always felt like um kids knew that I was looking out for their best interest and that I cared about them as an individual as much as I did as an athlete. You see, when I coached, I really felt like my job was to get kids prepared for life after softball, because none of them were going to play softball professionally and and make a living. So my job was to teach life lessons along the way and prepare them to be able to be successful no matter whatever they chose in in their life.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah. And for high school coaches that are on this call, you know, they're and you knew this whole game is um you're rebuilding a team every single year, essentially. What's that first step, though, in creating kind of a long-lasting culture, regardless of who's there or who's graduating?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I kind of look at coaching in a couple of different aspects. One is the level that I was at where I could go out and recruit kids. Yeah. So if I if I made a mistake, it was my fault. You know, I didn't take the time to find out enough about them because it's not necessarily the skill set, but it's the intangibles that come back to haunt you. If I'm in high school, it's kind of the hand that's dealt to you. And so you have to probably be a little more creative and a little more patient to build this culture of excellence. And um I think a lot of it's just the way you treat people. You know, I think every kid wants to get better. You know, people always said, How do you make kids confident? Well, there's nothing that you can sprinkle over them that's gonna make them confident, but the way you make them confident is by making them better. I think coaches need to make sure that they have that total buy-in that they're gonna be the best version of themselves to be able to give to their kids. I always call it the three C's for me. I wanted to be competent at what I did, which means I was a student of the game. I never thought I knew everything, and uh I knew that the better information that I had, the better information my kids were gonna get. And that was kind of a road to making them better, okay? But I think um competent is important. The other thing was um that I was compassionate. I coached men and women. This this kind of sums it up in a nutshell, but and I always said men have to play good to feel good, women have to feel good to play good. So that compassion piece is very important to make them feel good about themselves. And I think when you're dealing with young people, you have to coach the person versus coaching just the athlete. If you can coach the person and find out more about the person, then you got a chance of making them a good athlete. Um, but if you're just dealing with their athletic skills and um you never take the time to learn about them as an individual, then you're kind of missing the boat to build that relationship that you need, I think. Because I think part of competition is having sometimes tough discussions. You know, sometimes um I was the only guy that would tell a kid that they won't they weren't doing something right, you know, and they had to get better. And if I didn't have that relationship, it'd be hard to have those tough discussions. But the better my relationship was, the easier it was to have those relationships. And I think at the end of the day, um caring. Kids have to know that you care about them. And one of the things that I did, I think that probably I don't know if I did it by accident or what, but I every kid that I coach, I put in my planner. And the first thing I do in the morning is I get up, I've got every birthday in it, and I send them a text message wishing them a happy birthday. And that has kind of cultivated my alumni, and it's also allowed me to stay in contact with my kids because I always told them that you know, you don't coach a kid for just four years and they leave you. You coach them for a lifetime. You're gonna be a part of their life, you know, you're gonna be part of their their weddings and and they're having their kids and all that good stuff. You can't just talk to talk, but you you got to be a part of it. And so that's one little thing that I've done that I think really makes a big difference because they look forward to that text message every year. And so when you when you've coached for 50 years, you know, there's there's a lot of kids that hopefully you've influenced and that you cared about and that you want to be a part of their life, and and I've been able to do that. So you've got many hundreds of names in that book that you go through every day.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Absolutely. Wow, that is awesome. Okay, so we spent a lot of time on the culture piece. Let's talk about kind of how you maybe keep athletes motivated through long stretches during the season or in the off-season if there's little tactics you have. Um, again, you talk a lot about finding purpose in preparation. How did you teach athletes to stay motivated by that? Or what was the thought behind that kind of saying?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Well, I think preparation is the foundation for competition. You know, so the the one thing that I always ask kids is what do you have control over? And you don't really have control over your competition, but you have control over the things that you do every day. So the preparation piece became the most important piece for us. We wanted to get 1% better every day. In order to do that, you have to control your attitude, your effort, and your focus. And that sounds pretty simple, but it's really difficult for young kids sometimes, especially the focus piece.

unknown 11:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Trying to get them when they come to practice every day that they're actually present. You know, I always say, be where your feet are. If you're if you're in this drill, then make sure your feet are here and you're in this drill. And once you can get them to start understanding that, that they have control over their preparation, that preparation leads into quality, um, competitive environments, trying to keep kids confident is is a challenge. But the one thing that I think as as young coaches is is number one, you want to make sure that you don't um you don't have your kids fearing failure. Because you can learn a lot from failure. And I always say, you know, I won a lot, I won a lot of games, but I also lost a lot of games, and I probably learned more from the games I lost than the games that I won. And um so I I wanted my kids to not fear that. I wanted them to know that that was kind of part of the process. And um, I think a lot of young coaches that I've watched want to be successful so bad that they sometimes put way too much pressure on kids so that kids can't relax and just play. So that's a big a big piece of it, you know, is just not not not putting so much pressure on kids to perform. And if I look at the the um development of our athletes today, I think we're putting way too much pressure on kids, number one, early on, instead of developing their skill, their skill base. Um, because to me, I think when when you're working with young kids, um, you've got to be concerned that if if the challenge is high and the skill is low, kids will get frustrated. And vice versa. When the when the challenge, when the skill is high and the challenge is low, they get bored. So that's kind of the piece you have to balance all the time is where are we right now and who am I working with? And if I'm working with a young kid, I really don't care whether they win, lose, or draw. I just want them to develop their skills. And then as they grow their skill or their database of their skills, then winning becomes a part of it. Because if you're gonna compete, there's gonna be a winner and a loser. You have to understand that. But I think sometimes we don't give kids enough time to progress through that spectrum. And you know, I think to the most part, kids play way too many games and practice very little. Let's talk about the Olympic Games. We practice for four years, four years for one week of competition. In pr in in college, we practice five times for every game that we play. If you look at travel ball today, they practice once for every five games that they play. So the development piece is is kind of slowing down a little bit. I think athletes are bigger, they're stronger, they're faster, they've got more information at their hands, which can be good or bad, you know, because they don't know really what's good information, what's not. If they want an answer, they go to their phone and they Google it. You know, I I didn't have that luxury. So I had a lot of trial and error, which allowed me to experiment, allowed me to fail a lot, but it also made me appreciate that the feel for the game that I had. I had to learn how to play the game.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

So after either a big win or a tough loss, what's kind of your perspective on how to keep the team's energy up or at a at a good level?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Well, I think a lot, yeah, I think a lot of it's how you play. At the end of the day, it wasn't the wins or the losses for me. It was how did we play today? Uh how was our effort? You know, how was our focus? Um, were we present? And my job was to teach them how to execute the game of softball. So if you look at a game of softball, there's a lot of little pieces that go into it. A lot of kids want to be good, but they're not willing to put the time and effort into it to be good. And and and we're we're dealing with a competitive skill that not everyone's born the same way. Right? So I was not I was not at all a cookie-cutter approach type coach. I mean, I dealt with every kid individually and tried to get the most out of their abilities. Because I, at the end of the day, it's the it's the experience piece that allows you to build the database that you need to play the game. I said, I'll give you a deck of cards. When you're young, your deck of cards really small, right? As you play the game, the Olympics, our average age was 27 years old. Those kids had the experience. You know, they had the maturity physically, mentally, and emotionally. So their deck of cards was huge. But the key to playing our game is you've got to be able to get the right card to the top of the deck when you need it. You can't think about it. It just gotta happen.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Right. That's a cool way to look at it. Um, and for coaches that are working with multi-sport athletes or short attention spans, I think you kind of answered this, but what's your best advice for creating consistent effort?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Well, short attention spans are part of the generation you're dealing with, so learn learn to deal with it. And so I think the first thing with a coach is is is understanding the X generation. That's where I would start first. What are the traits of an X the X generation right now? And that will maybe help you how to approach these kids. Because they're brilliant, um, they're they're used to having a lot of information at their hands, um very short tension of span, um, you know, but um they're gonna change the world someday. Um, but if you don't know what you're dealing with, compared to my generation, I mean, we were very task-oriented, and the coach says, Mike, do this and I did it. Well, now the coach says, Jane, do this, and she goes, Why? You know, you've got to explain things a lot more. And so I think that's that's where I would first start is is understanding that the person that you're coaching right now, um, to be able to help them grow and develop. And then the development piece, it takes time, you know. It it you can't speed that up. But once again, the better information as a coach that you can give those kids, the the the better they're gonna get and the more they're gonna enjoy the sport. It goes hand in hand.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

If anyone watching has got a question, you can raise your virtual hand or chap it, type it in the chat. We did have a couple of questions in the community. Jeff Morse, uh tennis coach in Washington, he asked, How do you keep players hungry in the offseason?

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Well, good question. And a lot of it is the kid you're dealing with. Some kids are self-motivated and will do everything that they can to get better. Um, the only thing that I tried to do is I when they would leave me every year, I would give them a short list of things to work on. So at the end of every season, we did a SWOT analysis, and I did it with every kid. What is your strengths? What are your weaknesses? And now here's the opportunities we have for you to get better, or else they're going to become a threat, right? Yeah. So maybe the approach on how you you know you can describe these things and then and then be a resource for them, you know, as to how they can do that, whether they're at home or not. Because unfortunately, our game sometimes takes more than one person. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do it, but it's you know, if you're gonna if you're gonna hit, I mean, hitting off the T is gonna get you so far, but then you're gonna need someone to be able to throw pitches that are gonna move. You know, and and um tennis probably the same way. You can you can hit tennis balls against the backboard, but I think eventually you're gonna you need to be able to put the the game together. And um, I think that's one of the things that we've kind of created is we've created a lot of mechanical monsters that are mechanically very sound, but don't have the mindset yet how to think the game, how to play the game. They don't have any flow. So they have to have some structure, you know, and sometimes that's very hard to to um to create that structure when they're n not in an organized situation, but at the end of the day, they're only gonna get as good as they want to get when no one's around and they've got to learn to work on their own.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

And I don't know if that answers it, but and then communic and then communicating with them throughout that summer too. You know, maybe a zoom call once a every couple weeks or once a month or just to check in. I think sometimes that helps some kids with a little more accountability. Yeah. But the accountability accountability pieces you either have it or you don't. That's why when I recruited kids, I'd go to their homes. I never recruited a kid that I didn't go into their homes to see how they how their parents were and how the kid treated their parents. Because that tells you a lot.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Was that the number one determining factor how they treated their parents? I mean, like that you would really try to key in to figure out that was a big part of it. How they would treat their parents.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Because a lot of times in softball, you're not only uh recruiting the kid, but you're recruiting good parents too.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

You know?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

I didn't want to have any nightmare parents.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

So, Tracy Braden, girls' basketball coach in Missouri, she was asking, how do you develop leaders and how did you use your captains within your team?

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Okay, good, good question. And and first question was the captains. I never had captains.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

I always I always looked at our team as having 18 leaders. I mean, that was my ultimate goal. I wanted every kid to lead. And then I realized that we had different types of leaders. You know, we we might have had the vocal leader, we might have had the mom of the team, you know, um, we might have had the kid that sets an example every day. They may not talk a lot, but but but they're a powerful leader because of how they do things. And so I I never felt like number one, your best player, hopefully your best player is going to be your best leader. That's not always the case. Okay. Um, but I I thought it was way too much pressure to to put the C on a kid because you have to be willing to be a leader twenty four seven. So I had different types of leaders. And I probably spent more time saying, all right, you know, if if you're not going to be a leader in this program, you have to be a follower. And you need to be a good follower. You know, so I I wanted to be have a seamless um approach in everything that we did because we were all pulling the rope the same way. You know, whether we had one leader or two leaders, whether our leaders were freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors, it really didn't matter. I think leaders were kind of um they kind of rise to the top, you know, at the end of the day. I don't think I can in fact I've tried to pick most of the time when I tried to pick in my mind who the leader would be, I was wrong. Who ended up being my leader. So I never worried about that. I just worried about team. You know, team, team, team. Shimbeckler, right? Most important three words team, team, team. The team, the team, the team. And to me, that was the big thing is I wanted to just make sure that we would hook arms when we went into battle and that we were pulling for one another, that we were going to hold each other accountable, and that we had high standards that we were going to try to reach.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

He was also asking, how do you instill a winning is not just on the scoreboard environment at your organization, where the majority of people just want to see a W on the scoreboard?

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah. Well, one of the things that helped me is we we would chart a lot of things that we did. So we would give them numbers on our performance. And win, lose, or draw, we were trying to improve those numbers. So whether it was executing a bunt, you know, what is our percentage of successful bunts and not successful bunts? And when you play a game like we do, um, there's a lot of analytics, and there's a lot of numbers that you can use that can motivate, but can also kind of help you paint the picture of here's where we're at, gang, you know, and and this is where we need to be to be successful. These are the things that we need to get better at. And so I think the the the clearer you can be at giving them analytics or or numbers or charts or whatever it can be where they can kind of see it, you know, that here's the first game, man. We were like I'll give you a good example. Um, I never kept batting averages, I mean, although we always had them. I kept um well-hit averages. So yeah, I wasn't concerned about whether you got a hit or not. I was concerned about did you know, did you get a good pitch to just square it up? Yeah, you know, so how you base your success on can change how your kids are looking at success and failure.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Love it. So, coach, this has been incredible. Before we wrap up, though, what's the maybe the the one message you want every coach to, you know, listening right now or on the replay to take with them, whether they're coaching in high school or college or well, youth?

SPEAKER_01 25:04

I'll say one thing, time flies. Um, if you're when you're doing something you love to do, um it's hard to believe right now that you know I've been in this game for five years, I'm getting ready to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the very first team that I coached. And it was a baseball team, and they happen to win a national championship. So that was kind of a good thing. But 50 years has gone by very quickly, and if I would leave the coaches with one thing, if I look back on my career, um I'm proud of a lot of things, but I'm I'm I'm not so proud that I was I that I could ever find some balance in my life. Um, I spent more time with other people's kids than my own kids. And and to me, at the end of the day, that that's been a challenge. That's really probably the reason why I really retired in 21 is because I just felt like, you know, I I've got five grandkids and and I don't want to go through the same thing here of not being there for them. And so trying to find a balance is it's not easy, but I promise you one thing. I mean, I I've I've lost a child, I've lost a player at, you know, player at 21 years old, played in the championship game one day, is gone the next. I lost a wife uh on the Olympic tour, perfectly healthy one moment, gone the next. So I know how precious life is, and and I I think at the end of the day, we gotta we gotta remind ourselves that what we do is not who we are. The game doesn't define you. And and you know, I think sometimes we I I and I can speak for myself, if I didn't win a national championship, I thought it was a failure. You know, and I had to kind of redefine it because I find myself blowing through the victories and then agonizing on the defeats. I never enjoyed the small victories, and I think in today's world, if you're gonna coach, you better enjoy the small victories and and and appreciate it because it it goes by quickly. Um and the other thing is is try to find some balance between your family. You only get one family, don't neglect them over a game. Okay. Um your profession. I hope you're doing something that you love to do because then if you do, you're never going to work a day in your life. And for me, the third thing is my faith. You know, I wouldn't have got through some of the things I did in life without my faith. I thank my strong mom for that. And um, and I think um at the end of the day, if I really go back, I would I wouldn't do a lot of things different, but I I definitely would have found that piece a little sooner. And and that was is spending some more time with my own kids. Because that's that's you can't get it back. And then if you really want to do a snapshot, one day I was sitting at my desk and I pulled out this tape measure, and my dad was a jazz musician, a very accomplished musician, died a frustrated man, had four kids, none of us had any musical talent. But anyway, I was thinking about him one day, and at the time he was like 78 years old. I took this tape measure, I pulled out 78, then I took away the 60 that I was back then, and I go, that's what I got left. You know, I think sometimes as coaches, we need to take a realistic snapshot of what's really important to us. The wins kind of all kind of blend in, the losses kind of blend in after a while, but you know, you get one family, make sure you take care of the people that you truly love and that love you. And I'll leave it with that.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Love it. I love the visuals. You got the tape measure, you've got the piece of cards. I'm a visual, visual guy. Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Well, coach, um, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for everyone for joining. And uh yeah, coach, I hope to stay in touch with you and thank you for sharing your wisdom today.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

All right. God bless all of you. Take care.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Hey, it's Matt. Thank you so much for listening. This conversation that you just heard originally happened inside of Momentum Sessions, a free community for coaches who take culture seriously. If you'd like to hear the full conversation, join future calls, ask questions live, and connect with other coaches working on culture and leadership, visit momentum teams.com slash sessions. We'll see you there.