NFL = Not For Long: Why aren't we paying enough attention to coach burnout in sports such as NFL?

The Super Bowl is complete, the Vince Lombardi trophy has been awarded to the LA Rams and tickertape is piled up at SoFi Stadium. The question is, after a gruelling season and only one identified winner in a 22 week long season, how many coaches will end up in a pile like the swept up tickertape??! Even the new age coaches are showing signs of stress and imbalance in their profession which brings the ideas of burnout back into the conversation….some of the ideas were even flagged in a Super Bowl preparation interview this week.

As he entered the biggest game of his professional life followed by the biggest summer of his personal life, Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay spent time Friday pondering what all of that means for his future; 2 days before the Super Bowl at his home track!! McVay is known as a high intensity coach and admits he doesn't yet have the answer to the ideal work/life balance but he made it known during his team's final media availability before Sunday's Super Bowl LVI that it's something that has been on his mind.

When the Rams hired Sean McVay, he made history as the youngest head coach ever hired in the NFL. McVay was just a month shy of his 31st birthday at the time, making him the first coach hired before turning 31. The gamble on the young coach has not only proven to be successful, but it has reshaped the sport. The average age of NFL head coaches will be 48.5 years old heading into next season after this off-season's coaching carousel saw nine new coaches hired. The average age of a head coach has shifted nearly six years younger in the span of just a few years. With new age coaches comes new age awareness and expectations of mental health and personal wellbeing that may have not be spoken about in the past, in NFL and many other sports. Moments after answering a question by saying he "won't make it" if he's coaching until he's 60, McVay was asked why he didn't think that would be the case. McVay, 36, started his response by saying he was joking but then gave a roughly 90-second answer on the other things he wants to pursue in life.

I love this so much that it's such a passion but I also know that what I've seen from some of my closest friends, whether it's coaches or even some of our players, I'm gonna be married this summer, I want to have a family and I think being able to find that balance but also be able to give the time necessary.

I have always had a dream about being able to be a father and I can't predict the future, you know? I jokingly say that. I don't really know. I know I love football and I'm so invested in this thing and I'm in the moment right now. But at some point, too, if you said what do you want to be able to do? I want to be able to have a family and I want to be able to spend time with them.

I am sure McVay’s comments may be different this evening after becoming the youngest Super Bowl winning coach at only his second attempt but you have to wonder; what careers, professions or jobs in the world do we as people have to consider stepping AWAY to get married, start a family or have some personal time? When are we as coaches going to ask the spotlight be turned down or turned off at some points in time to allow us to self regulate or understand their emotions? Let’s consider some of McVay’s comments and expectations of professional sport such as NFL to better understand how and why we can support our HP coaches….

Looking at sport specific research, we all understand the physical implications of physical exhaustion to burnout yet this is a small piece of the puzzle; researchers such as Maslach and Fransen propose the burnout syndrome consists of three central characteristics: emotional exhaustion, reduced accomplishment and depersonalization (Maslach, 1982). In sport settings, burnout has been found to result from “chronically frustrated or unfulfilled basic psychological needs” (Cresswell, 2006), with reduced accomplishment and devaluation featuring most prominently. Devaluation to sport, regarded as “perhaps most cognitive of burnout dimensions” (Lemyre, 2006), has strong links to lack of autonomy (such as feelings of choice and self-directedness in sport development) and competence (perceptions of effectiveness in sport or team). McVay’s comments of the build up to his side’s Super Bowl victory would defiantly suggest he’s feeling a sense of devaluation towards the sport when he has to choose between the game and his personal life. Research conducted in 2020, Fransen found that ideas such as shared leadership, allowing people feel, think and behave as members of the same team, supporting each other building team confidence, cohesion, performance outcomes and team learning reduced burnout symptoms of involved athletes. Amongst these ideas, McVay has spoken about or displayed emotional exhaustion, showing a desire to step away and have some personal space and start a family; or depersonalisation, joking that he couldn’t do this until he was 60, whilst being the youngest ever NFL coach and already experienced a Super Bowl appearance. But how does this relate to other coaches of all ages and sports?

Drawing upon research by Gustafsson (2007), findings from team sport athletes showed higher burnout scores (compared to individual athletes) based on emotional and physical exhaustion and devaluation of coach and co-athletes, while displaying no substantial correlation between training volume and burnout scores. Therefore, emotional support and perceived efficacy in sport are areas programs and sport organisations can assist for prolonged involvement, retention, and engagement of coaches, which can be enhanced by understanding of what coaches value and why. Even with McVay’s intense attitudes, the pressure of winning a Super Bowl in the new $5.5billion stadium may have been unnecessarily adding or increasing the pressure or expectation to win.

Intrinsic motivation is not the only path to lower levels of burnout. Lonsdale’s (2009) research found autonomous extrinsic motivations, such as integrated or identified regulators, also resulted in lower levels of athlete burnout. Applying to this conversation, if coaches such as McVay are able to express a sense of themselves or achieve outcomes that they value personally (such as raise a family), it may be possible to increase engagement in sports or reduce levels of burnout or dropout for our coaching volunteers or even high performance coaches. So, what can we do to help encourage innovative and aspiring coaches as they explore new ways for self fulfilment and collective engagement?

Cliff Mallett explained that “intrinsically motivated behaviours involve genuine interest and enjoyment in pursuing particular activities with natural tendency to seek unique challenges, explore and learn” (Clifford J. Mallett, 2005). Research by Gould and colleagues (1996) suggested that coaches should cultivate personal involvement with players, offer two way communication, utilise player input and understand player’s feelings so as to enhance player engagement and motivation whilst reducing symptoms of burnout including depersonalisation towards their sport (Gould, Tuffey, Udry, & Loehr, 1996). We need to set up systems or make it a priority to better understand our coaches; they like our athletes are not solely driven by the scoreboard and understanding what they are interested in before training or after the final whistle shall help us as organisations offer coaches scope and freedom to utilise skills or drive from other areas of their lives.

Moving onto having the right environments for coaches to grow and develop, let’s look at a well discussed area highlighting what not to do! Psychological safety is about removing fear from human interaction and replacing it with respectful and accepting behaviours. Psychologically safe environments in sport (and all walks of life) have been identified as group environments where there is a shared belief that team members are safe to take interpersonal risk without fear of being ridiculed, punished or rejected. Again, drawing upon athlete centred research, Prof Sophia Jowett and others investigated and found that coaches whom attended athletes concerns and needs, empowering and inspiring athletes to achieve more and encouraged to work towards their identified goals created psychologically safe environments, aided and supported by connected, stable and cooperative relationships. Negatively, the lack of these quality relationships can weaken interpersonal relationships and even augment exploitation, intimidation and humiliation in interactions which can effect the involved athlete’s wellbeing. Using these ideas as a guide, are we as program leaders or coach educators offering communities of practice within our clubs or environments to encourage connected, stable and cooperative relationships? All too often, we see a highly critical culture, unwilling to share ideas or collaborate to enhance the group’s engagement, focused on technical and tactical elements of our sport along with time in the chair which can occasionally (and sadly) result in intimidation and humiliation towards other coaches and players alike and force out coaches whom feel they have to choose between the job and being themselves.

Looking at understanding or creating psychologically safe environments, there could be a seemingly obvious juggle between balancing performance markers and being seen as a successful coach versus being a caring and considerate coach, program leader or in this case, father, husband and human being! However, when investigating social and task cohesion between sporting team members, Jowett (2003) found a stronger relationship between social cohesion (which is the degree to which team members like each other) to performance markers than task cohesion (cooperation to common goals). This research supports the importance of creating a psychologically safe environment in HP sport, to both allow and encourage interpersonal risk taking for well being and subsequently creating an environment to encourage and enhance performance improvements. These points tied together with the fact that understanding, cooperative and collaborative relationships can help reduce burnout symptoms shows the importance of quality relationships for athlete and/or coach wellbeing. The best predictor of positive developmental experiences are transformational behaviours, usually between coach and athlete but would also be the case between coach to coach or coach to administrators, managers or franchise owners; these ideas include individual consideration, articulating a vision and individualised support. To gain these ideas as sporting organisations or supporting HP teams, I believe it is achieved and built on by understanding your coaches as a person, supporting them and communicating to them, openly and regularly.

Something I have written about previously is the term or ideas around “need centred” or “needs led coaching” as opposed to “athlete centred”. The concept looks at how coaches can respond to the needs of athletes, combining structure for team cohesion with the freedom and support to explore capabilities and make mistakes to promote learning. However, we need to allow for the ability to create “need centred” environments for coaches also. While coaches should design practice and develop learning environments which are reflective to the identified goals of the players and their current capabilities, it needs to be an environment where coaches explore their ideas, test their capabilities and work towards inherently important goals for the coach as an individual as well as the group as a whole. If sporting organisations such as new NFL Champions LA Rams create this sense of psychological safety or make their leaders more aware of burnout symptoms or a psychologically safe environment where they can step away and have time for them and their families like McVay’s request, you can expect to see higher levels of engagement, increased motivation to tackle difficult problems, more learning and development opportunities, all leading to ultimately better performance by our coaches at all levels. Let’s stop burnout from the bottom up and support coaches of all ages and levels. I encourage you to discuss with leaders of your sport or clubs the ideas of shared leadership, how can you encourage people to feel, think and behave as members of the same team, while supporting each other building team confidence & cohesion.