How do you meet Gen Z athletes where they are at?

I had the privilege of speaking at the 2025 Youth Athlete Summit on Saturday, January 18, 2025. I was one of many speakers on different topics, including financial literacy; name, image, and likeness (NIL), and athlete self-care.

My topic was serving Generation Z athletes. I selected this topic all of my clients are Gen Z athletes. “Gen Z” athletes generally range from 13 to 28 years old. They tend to exhibit unique characteristics that are often attributed to living in a digital world from the day that they were born.

The strengths of Gen Z athletes include curiosity, willingness to learn, well-informed, finding resources on the internet, and visual learning. Areas of improvement include being overly focused on short-term results, difficulty coping with negative feedback and failure, short attention spans, poor in-person communication skills, and poor time management (Gould et al., 2020).

The title of my presentation was “Serving Gen Z Athletes: Don’t Be the Old Person Yelling at Cloud.” I guess another possible title could have been, “Hey you kids, get off my lawn!” The title reflects adults expressing instinctive frustration at the values and habits of a young generation of athletes. You might hear them say, “Back in my day…” (fill in the blank).

My mission for this presentation was to share my experiences and expertise to leave audience members better equipped to interact with Gen Z athletes. After reflecting on the last eight years in the sport psychology field – three as a graduate student and five as a mental performance coach in private practice – I landed on three key takeaways:

  1. Meet Gen Z athletes “where they are at.”
  2. Be curious about Gen Z athletes as people (not just athletes).
  3. Help Gen Z athletes understand WHY.

My 2025 Youth Athlete Summit Presentation

Being curious about Gen Z athletes as people and helping them understand why things are happening to them and around them is pretty straighforward, so I want to explore what it means to meet a Gen Z athlete where they are at. Meeting athletes “where they are at” is something that’s been drilled into my head since the day I started my graduate training in 2017.

So, what does it mean to meet an athlete where they are at?

It means not forcing them to conform to the way that you want them to do things. Rather, trying to understand what they need from you rather than demanding what you need from them. Some simple examples my world include:

  • Texting young athletes to remind them to check their email since they don’t regularly check it on their own.
  • Sharing short videos to articulate learning points that you want to share because they generally have shorter attention spans and are visual learners.
  • Being understanding when they cancel sessions last minute or even a no-show because of other priorities (or because they just forgot) rather than scolding or punishing them.

Meeting Gen Z athletes where they are at may be uncomfortable for adults. Many of us, myself included, were brought up having adults demand that we do exactly what they say or risk facing a negative consequence. Further, meeting them where they are simply requires patience.

I’ll share a story about how I have met one of my Gen Z clients where he is at and how it has eventually paid dividends for both of us.

I have been working with a freshman Division 1 baseball pitcher for about 14 months. Our first session was in November 2023 about 14 months ago. I was referred to this athlete by his baseball training facility. They explained that his physical talent was undeniable, but that he struggled with his mental game.

Upon meeting him, I quickly learned first-hand that baseball was overwhelmingly the biggest part of his identity. Baseball’s importance in his life caused him to be extremely self-critical. Yet, he wasn’t as ready to engage in the mental performance coaching process despite having access to a new resource to help him become a better player. The adults in his life – his mother, his coaches, and now me – were more ready for him to change than he was.

At first, he didn’t fully understand how I could help him. He didn’t know what to talk about in our sessions. Most importantly, he just didn’t trust me. He didn’t distrust me, per se. I recognized that he was keeping me at arm’s length as he tried to figure out what I could do to help him. I knew that I had to keep showing up for him. I had to be patient.

Things shifted positively about six months later in May 2024 when I literally went to meet him where he was. Unbeknownst to him. I drove about 45 minutes north to watch him pitch in a high school game. I had never seen him pitch up until then. That day, I saw all of the things that I heard from him and those around him for the past six months.

I witnessed incredible physical ability. He threw the ball hard. It sounded different. It looked different. I also witnessed the struggles. He struggled to find the strike zone at times. He also struggled to regulate his emotions when things weren’t going his way. Interestingly, I witnessed him work through adversity that day, which made me believe there was hope to help him.

After the game, I texted him about the outing. He was confused at first because he didn’t know I was coming to the game. I shared with him that I was impressed with how he bounced back after a very rough first inning that included a lot of walks and a couple of runs. His response to me was, “Yeah, but the umps were squeezing me!” This also reinforced that we had a LOT of work to do because he was fixated on the negatives and things that he could not control.

The most important thing that happened that day was that he started to trust me because I took made the effort to come to his game. I wanted to build on that trust, so I decided that we would meet for our sessions at the facility where he trains during the summer. I wanted him to know that I was committed to him by making the hour drive, watching him throw, working with his pitching coaches, and just spending time getting to know him in his natural environment.

Trust slowly built through the summer of 2024. He was still unclear about what he should be sharing with me, but he was talking to me. We talked about his mental approach. We talked about his expectations for his freshman season of college. We just talked about baseball.

Just before Thanksgiving, I was visiting his college campus for a reason unrelated to our work together. I texted him to arrange a time for us to meet. We met in the late afternoon on a relatively warm November evening. We walked through campus to the baseball field while talking for about an hour. 

He shared about his experiences during the first semester. “Fall ball” didn’t go exactly as he wanted. His relationship with his coaches is different than it was during recruiting and wasn’t quite sure where he stands. He was nervous about his role on the team for the upcoming season, his first as a college baseball player Little did he know, he was sharing exactly what he was supposed to be sharing with me – what was going on in his life!

This meeting was another step forward to getting his buy-in to allow me to help him. Meeting him where he was at, both literally and figuratively, was evidence to him that I was genuinely interested him helping him. At the end of that meeting, I suggested that we plan to meet again when he was home for winter break in a few weeks. We could start working in earnest to help him prepare for the season. He agreed.

We met for a session by Zoom after Christmas. It was shortly after his first bullpen session of the winter break. His pitching velocity was down. It troubled him. He questioned whether he should “shut down” (i.e., take an extended break from pitching). He wondered whether he was injured despite not being in pain. He was unsettled. And, for the first time in over a year since I met him, he was truly ready to be helped. I could sense he trusted me enough to allow that to happen.

Sensing this, I was honest with him. I said something to the effect of, “For the first time since I met you, I feel completely comfortable challenging you now. You need to do something different to start getting the results that you want. Are you ready to do that?”

He responded yes. He was ready to change. He trusted me enough to allow him to help. In contrast, he tried to do it on his own for the past year. The only way this could have happened in my estimation was by continuing to meet him where he was, continuing to be curious about him and his experiences, and continuing to attempt to explain why mental performance coaching would help him. 

After 14 months, he finally understands why and is ready to take the actions to improve his mental game. I’m excited to help him take another step forward in what will be the most important season of his baseball career. However, this could change tomorrow. I must continue to meet him wherever he is at whether he continues making progress or takes a step or two back. That’s my responsibility and I accept it with pride.

References

Gould, D., Nalepa, J., & Mignano, M. (2020). Coaching generation Z athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 32(1), 104–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2019.1581856

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