Athletic directors and coaches need to be storytellers. The stories we tell our students extend far beyond the X’s and O’s they need to know to play the game. They are stories of struggle and triumph, of legacy and aspiration. When we reference athletes who have since graduated, we are doing more than reminiscing. We are honoring the contributions of those who came before while also setting an example for today’s players. Students hear us speak with reverence about older players, and they want that same respect. That desire becomes a goal, a motivation, and a source of self-belief.
Think about how powerful it is to say to a team, “You could be the first group in school history to win a 5th-grade championship.” Suddenly, the season becomes about more than this week’s practices or games. It becomes about legacy. It becomes about writing themselves into the story of the program. That kind of context is what helps young athletes believe in something bigger than themselves, and it drives them to work harder.
This is why I see coaches and athletic directors as living historians. We’ve witnessed the greatness of past teams, and it’s our responsibility to pass on those stories. Statistics matter, but they never tell the whole story. That’s why debates about the “greatest of all time” always come back to more than just numbers. They’re about the narrative. Michael Jordan’s performance in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals is a perfect example. On paper, the numbers were excellent: 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 44 minutes played. But that’s not what people remember. The story that has lived on is that Jordan played through food poisoning, completely drained and weak, yet still carried his team and hit the game-winning shot. The stats tell us what happened. The story tells us why it mattered.
This same principle applies not only to how we talk to our athletes but also to how we communicate with parents. Weekly updates that only list results and scores miss the heart of the program. Parents want to hear the story. They want to know how the team fought back from behind, who stepped up in the big moment, and what the game's energy felt like. If we tell the story well enough, parents will start telling it themselves. The narrative will spread beyond us, and soon the program's identity will be carried by the community. That reputation matters. While parents may not choose a school solely for its sports program, I’ve met plenty of families who have weighed their options between two schools, and extracurricular activities like athletics made the difference. I’ve never once heard a parent say, “That school is good at sports, so we’re not going there.” At the very least, you want to be on par with the other schools in the area. And if you can build a mythology around your program’s success—stories that parents repeat at dinner tables and prospective families hear on tours—the story will begin to tell itself.
Ultimately, sports are not just about games. They are about legacy, identity, and the stories that will be told long after the final whistle. As leaders, we have the privilege of shaping those stories for our athletes and their families alike. And speaking of writing new stories, today is the last day to take advantage of our Back-to-School Sale, which saves you $100 off the lifetime membership. If you’ve been considering joining, this is the perfect opportunity to invest in resources that will help you build the kind of sports program whose story is worth telling for years to come.