Building Social Emotional Intelligence through Lacrosse

By Chris McQuilkin

-This article originally appeared in the Beyond Strength Journal, 1(2), print edition.

In recent years, a pressing question has emerged in the world of youth sports: Are today’s young athletes becoming emotionally softer, or are coaches becoming more demanding? Or, can we all agree to just blame the parents? (Joking… sort of) The reality likely lies somewhere in between, highlighting a crucial need to bridge the gap between traditional coaching methods and modern emotional intelligence development.

The Missing Link in Youth Sports

There’s a common misconception in youth athletics: parents assume sports naturally teach life lessons. Maybe they had a great coach during their high school athletic career and associate their character development with the sport they played. It’s a natural connection between sport and their growth, unfortunately they’re making the association between sports ball as the mentor and not the coach who facilitated the practices and games. 

On the other sideline, coaches often assume mentorship and these fundamental emotional skills are being developed at home by the parents. As coaches, we want to believe this and focus on the practices and training we can control. However, not all home environments are created equal. For better or worse.

The truth is, sports alone don’t teach lessons—coaches do. Athletic training provides an unparalleled platform for cultivating emotional intelligence and character development, but only when coaches intentionally step into their role as mentors.

The Framework: Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in Sports

I’ve been coaching lacrosse and athletic development all over the world for over 15 years. The skill and long-term athletic development, physically, was a passion and I helped send dozens on dozens of athletes to the collegiate level but it was not until diving into the social emotional development of children that I truly unlocked and leveled up my Emotional Quotient (EQ) to meet the metrics and X’s and O’s I would deliver during practices and training.

My favorite model for Social Emotional Learning is the CASEL framework utilized in many elementary school settings for developing curriculum. To effectively develop young athletes not just physically, but also socially and emotionally, to help them step up as confident leaders, that just so happen to play lacrosse, I combine the five core competencies with movement and leadership responsibilities on the field:

1. Self-Awareness
   Athletes must learn to recognize their own emotions, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and acknowledge the gap between their current abilities and their potential. This includes emotional literacy and understanding how thoughts impact behavior.
2. Self-Management
   Success in sports demands impulse control, following instructions, and self-regulation. Athletes must learn to manage their emotions and behaviors, particularly in high-pressure situations. Techniques like mindful breathing and “science of the sideline” become crucial tools.
3. Social Awareness
   Team success relies on athletes developing strong social skills and understanding team dynamics across all levels—from freshman to varsity. This includes 360-degree communication and relating to others with common goals and mutual respect.
4. Relationship Skills
   Athletes must learn to build and maintain healthy connections within their specific units (offense/defense, position groups) while understanding their interdependence with teammates. The question becomes: are they lifting others up or pulling them down?
5. Responsible Decision-Making
   This competency focuses on developing athletes’ ability to make positive choices under pressure. It includes building intrinsic motivation and problem-solving skills that earn coaches’ and teammates’ trust. Very valuable when the game is on the line. Talking about the game of life 😉

Practical Implementation: Training Emotional Capacity

Here is a glimpse at how I intentionally target and develop these competencies through various training methods with my lacrosse athletes:

Weight Room Opportunities:

• Self-awareness through weight selection and form assessment.
  Always there to correct and protect, but leave room for them to self assess with simple question of, “How did that rep/set feel?” Then step in to shape their movement or interpretation of the movement quality or effort.
• Social awareness through lifting groups.
  Seeing when teammates need spots or asking individuals to check their teams effort and see if there is more in the tank for conditioning.
• Relationship building through partner exercises and team lifting goals.
  Mixing classes, positions, friend groups, or however else we can start to build trust and connections across the team.

Practice Field Applications:

• Dynamic movement preparation for self-management.
  The warm up of practice is the MOST valuable 10 minutes of practice. Never the same dynamic warm up, always coach led movement selection with handing off responsibilities of counting to leaders. I could write a novel on the “what” to do and “how” to use this time for long-term athletic development. For the purpose of this article, coach needs to lead this and see the aches, movement quality, mindset, etc. of the players and help them with a self-check-in to build self-awareness and direct their attention to quality warm up.
• Motivation drills for team building.
  Leaders lead… but not often get followed at the high school level for many social reasons. Conditioning and team building is the time for leaders to build their voice and learn the difference between authoritarian leadership and authoritative. Social awareness and EQ for kids takes reps. Coach is there to help shape their words, tonality, and connect their intent to lead with the impact.
• Controlled adversity situations for decision-making development.
  Here is where I blend situational awareness of the field into practice and help guide their thought processes during certain game specific situations. I control the clock, penalties, even unruly fans, anything and everything they’ll experience in a game and the expectation of execution on offense or defense.

Strategic Coaching Interventions:

• Calculated conditioning moments when warm-ups aren’t respected.
  As mentioned earlier, I highly value the warm up for injury prevention over the course of a season and long term athletic development over years with a squad. If this time is not being respected or kids are showing up late to practice unexcused, then I reserve the right to take away the warm up and go into a difficult (but low injury risk) conditioning to start practice. Any major change of course is always bookended with a lesson in why and shapes their behavior or poor decision making. If patterns persist with groups, split these guys up or give them responsibilities like setting up the field or counting. Show them how difficult leadership is and the vulnerability it takes.
• “Fun-ishment” activities that build character while maintaining engagement.
  Over the course of a season I have a progressive speed, agility, and conditioning plan in place leading up to the 1st game and sustaining this over the course of a season. Running as a tool for discipline is reserved in the back pocket to not disrupt the plan or risk hamstrings. So, a coach must get creative with disciplinary tools for “fun-ishment”. These include planks, pillars in all planes of motion, push ups, single leg strength movements like lunges and split squats. And my personal favorite, partner resisted strength exercises.
• Leadership opportunities through captain-led activities.
  This begins with counting reps in the warm ups, then once all the skill drills have be taught to the team, Captains get to choose how the practice begins with their skill work. Game Days include a lot of responsibilities for set up, especially road games. Handing off these responsibilities to then hand off (using their teammates specific name) to others.

The Progressive Approach

The key to success lies in gradually increasing the emotional and physical challenges while maintaining appropriate support. I love the warm up for this and then having the leaders choose components of practice. This gradually leads to an unmatched confidence in games towards the end of the season. Guys are getting hyped from sidelines, calling their own number on the field, and then helping stay after games to leave the field better than they found it. Some athletes will grasp lessons quickly, while others may require more intensive guidance—like “breaking wild horses,” as the metaphor goes. 

The goal isn’t to break spirits but to build resilience and emotional capacity. Making the most of our time together on the field to build camaraderie and establish behaviors of self-leadership that will stick with them for the rest of their lives.

Beyond the Field

Perhaps most importantly, this approach helps coaches identify athletes who need additional mentoring—those whose worlds outside of sports may be crumbling. By developing emotional intelligence alongside physical skills, you can create a more comprehensive and impactful athletic experience that truly prepares young athletes for life’s challenges. Sometimes behaviors like showing up late or breaking established rules and standards are flares going up. Socially aware coaches and teammates can sense this and aim to get ahead and be there for them.

Raising the Game

The unfortunate reality over 15 years of coaching is the mistakes and missteps I’ve made with athletes, both physically through training injuries or emotionally labeling a kid as “problem” and doing what most coaches would do, hold back from coaching and pouring into them.

There is an evolution of coaching that demands a versatile coach with the social and emotional skills to lead individuals and guide teams through troubles, on and off the field. Traditional physical development and skill progressions are the easy part. Are you willing to overlook or ignore behaviors you know are costly to an individual, or your team, in the long run? If, yes, then go coach at the professional level and get out of youth and high school sports. You’re doing more harm than good. Google the term, “Coaching Scars” and reflect on your career, both as an athlete and a coach.

Self-Awareness for a coach is the key to connecting the dots between your EQ and sports IQ. Similar to intentionally incorporating SEL competencies into a coaching framework for their athletes, mentors can bridge the gap between old-school toughness and social emotional leadership, creating more resilient, confident athletes prepared for success both on and off the field.