What Are We Actually Developing? — Part 2

Happy Monday. We're continuing the conversation from last week — and I've got some help this time.

If you read Issue No. 8 you know I've been sitting with a question that keeps coming back to me — are we really developing players or are we just chasing results?

This topic reminded me of something my former assistant coach from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Nate Baker, wrote in his newsletter The Developer's Way a while back. Nate has been doing really thoughtful work around what it actually means to develop players and when I went back and read his piece it connected directly to everything we've been talking about here.

So this week I want to weave some of his thinking into ours. Because together it paints a pretty complete picture.

The Future Game

Nate opens with something that reframes the entire conversation around development:

"The real test of a coach isn't what happens on the weekend. It's how a player is prepared to meet life's future games without you by their side."

Read that again. Because that's the whole job right there.

He talks about what he calls the "future game" — and it's not just the next match or the next season. It's the game a player plays a year from now when you're no longer their coach. The game they play when they're navigating a hard relationship, stepping into a leadership role, becoming a parent. The habits, the character, the resilience they carry long after they've moved on.

That's what we're really building. And it's nearly impossible to put on a scoreboard.

Nate also addresses something every coach has felt at some point — the pressure to choose between development and winning. He calls it one of the great mistruths in our culture. And he's right. True development doesn't sacrifice winning. It creates the conditions for sustained success. It prepares players to win the games that actually matter — the ones that come long after their playing career is over.

The 11 Things Every Developer Coach Provides

Nate lays out 11 things every developer coach provides their players. I'd encourage you to find his newsletter and read the full piece — it's worth your time. But three of them hit closest to home for me personally.

Connecting With Others

This one is everything to me. Nate writes about how being vulnerable gets harder every day in our culture and how players need to be empowered to share their point of view so they don't feel like islands of one.

I've talked about this in previous issues. The private conversations. The five minutes before training where we just talk about life. The moments where a player feels seen as a person and not just as a player. That connection is not a soft extra — it is the foundation. Without it nothing else really works.

The Technical Base

This ties directly back to what we talked about last week. Every player deserves the tools to master and manipulate the ball from the earliest ages. Without that base they'll never be prepared to excel in the future game.

This is why the "just send it" mentality bothers me so much. When we bypass the technical development of players for the sake of a result we are taking something from their future. The centerback who never learned to play under pressure. The midfielder who never learned to receive and turn. Those are real costs that don't show up on a scoreboard but show up everywhere else down the line.

Protecting the Love

The game is just that — a game. Players should play with smiles on their faces. Without that joy there's little reason to stay in the game.

I believe this with everything in me. I've said it before in this newsletter and I'll keep saying it — if you constantly make someone feel terrible about the thing they're doing you are going to drain the joy right out of it. And when the joy goes the player goes. We are losing too many kids to burnout, to pressure, to environments that forgot that soccer is supposed to be fun.

Protect the love. It's one of the most important things we do.

What Nate Got Right

He ends his piece by sharing that he coached five future Navy SEALs. That during his time at the U.S. Naval Academy his program won 15 matches in a row, won their first Patriot League title, went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 25 years, and developed their first ever MLS player.

But here's what he says about all of that — those wins were never the goal.

"You're preparing players for a future far more meaningful than any weekend result."

The wins came because the development was real. The culture was real. The relationships were real. Success was a byproduct of doing the job right — not the other way around.

My Own Two Cents

Every single player that has ever come through one of my teams — whether they went on to play in college, whether they quit the sport at 16, whether I lost touch with them years ago — I played a part in their story. So did you. So does every coach reading this.

Some will leave and thank you later. Some will come back years down the road and remind you of a moment you've long forgotten that changed something in them. And some you'll never hear from again.

But they all carry something from their time with you. Make sure it's worth carrying.

That's what development really means.

Next week — Development Part 3. We're wrapping this conversation up and I've still got a few more things to say. See you Monday.

— Coach Frim

P.S. — Shoutout to Nate Baker and The Developer's Way. If you're a coach who wants to think deeper about what you're really building — go find his newsletter. You won't regret it.