Team bonding vs. Culture Building

By Justin Davie Wapsie Valley Cross Country & Track & Field Coach

In the previous two articles, we have looked at what makes a great coach, specifically getting the most out of your athletes/team and ways to create opportunities for success for everyone. In this last article, we will look at how to create a culture that makes those things possible.   

Ask a coach how they establish culture, and they will probably list team bonding activities like crazy sock day, team meals, bowling, etc. I’m not saying don’t do those things. I’m saying that’s not culture; those are activities. Culture is the internal feelings people have towards something. Think of it this way: A team with a great culture could never do activities and still have a great culture, but a team with a bad culture could do many activities and still not have a good culture. There is a difference in team bonding and culture building. Team bonding activities may not necessarily relate to how an athlete feels internally. That internal feeling is what your culture really is. What is most important is the daily interaction and relationships which happen every day between coaches and athletes AND between the athletes. 

On a cross country meet day, I randomly hollered at a runner in the hallway, "Hey, it’s meet day; let’em know!” That seemingly simple action soon spread not only through our team, but the student body AND other programs started doing it on their game days. “Meet day;  Let’em know” had a far greater impact on our culture than our team dinners. Athletes now felt special on their meet day and felt supported by the student body, even if they did not attend a meet.

In cross country, we pass around note cards for each person, including coaches, and everyone writes positive messages and reasons they are happy that person is on the team. They also write positive things about themselves. Lots of teams do this, but our key is I laminate them and the kids are asked to carry them around. At any point, a coach or teammate can ask them to take the card out and list positives about themselves. Imagine having a bad day as a teenager, then being reminded of positive things about yourself.

It’s not a new concept to look at the bench to see a team's culture. It can be a tough balance wanting kids to desire to compete for playing time or for a spot but also be happy for the people that are out there. A key is to create investment. When I was in high school, the coaches gave a name to the kickoff team in football. The “Zoo Crew” became a goal for underclassmen to get in the “Zoo” even if it was at the end of a blowout. We cheered like CRAZY for the varsity not only in games to score, but even in practice, we would try to catch the eye of a coach. Them saying things like, “You keep that up and you might make the Zoo Crew” motivated us. 

One year in basketball, I looked up an ancient symbol of toughness. I found the Wawa symbol and had a whole bunch of them printed off onto little iron-on patches. We had a number of ways you could earn one to iron on your warmup (kind of like helmet stickers in football). But the key was there were team goals, as well. If a person took a charge, they got a Wawa, but if the team took 3 charges, everyone got one. Whenever someone took a charge, the bench would explode in excitement and they would yell “Wawa”!!!!!

In cross country, we had runners that would run their race and be at camp the rest of the time. I said over and over again we need to cheer people on in other races but nothing changed. Honestly, some kids would even hide or pretend to leave camp when I was around. I needed a different approach, so I told the kids you can tell a lot about a team by its bench. Even though we didn’t have an actual bench, anyone not running in that particular race, was a part of the bench. I challenged the kids to have a great bench during meets. I’m not sure if it was giving them a defined role or a fear of the idea we would have a bad bench, but the investment and results were almost immediate. Kids would even ask after meets,” how was our bench” and took pride in it. 

It may seem obvious but how people feel about someone or something is directly related to knowing someone cares. You care about them as athletes AND people. You care how they represent themselves, the team, and their school. You celebrate their success but are there for them in their failures. Nothing does more to impact how someone feels inside than caring. If you can do that and it spreads to the team, you will have a great culture.