How to Support Your Coach Husband During a Losing Season

There is a very different energy in our house after a win than there is after a loss. After a win, my role is pretty easy. I commend my husband, celebrate with him, listen to him recap game and revel in his happiness.

After a loss, my job is to be present.

I've been married to a football coach long enough to know that one loss and a losing season are also two very different things. And we've lived through both. During my husband's second season as a head coach at Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary, his team went 3-7. The following season, they went 1-9 😔.

There were a lot of lessons in those seasons, including those that had very little to do with football. I learned what losing does to a coach, what it does to a family and how to support my husband in a way he needed and received.

A Coach May Handle a Loss Differently Than You Expect

One of the things that surprised me about my husband is how calm he is after a loss. I think it’s because he's a realist and an avid researcher. So he tends to have a pretty good idea before a game what his team's chances are, which means the outcome rarely catches him by surprise.

After a loss, he watches the film (immediately and obsessively!), identifies what went wrong, and sets out to correct it before the next game. Only when they lose a game he believes they should have won is there more frustration and… lamenting. But even then, he has his own, individual process for dealing with it.

And I've learned not to interrupt that process by immediately trying to figure out why they lost or assigning blame. He doesn't need me conducting a postgame analysis from the passenger seat, particularly since we both know I dont actually know what I’m talking about. He needs someone who will just listen.

So I do. And I offer hugs. If he points out something that happened during the game that I noticed too, I might tell him I saw it. But I let him decide when and how much he wants to talk about football.

A Losing Season Is Different From Losing a Game

When the losses begin outnumbering the wins, you’re dealing with a much harder and impactful dynamic.

There is an undercurrent of pressure that follows everyone to and from the game. There’s more film to watch, more recruiting to do, more phone calls to make and more meetings to have. Everyone is trying to figure out what can be changed while knowing that there is only so much you can do in the middle of a season.

And eventually, there is great exhaustion and sadness.

A losing season can make a coach question himself. It can be embarrassing. It can even be harmful because wins and losses can affect how other people perceive his ability to coach and potentially influence future professional opportunities.

The people watching from the stands may be disappointed that their team lost on Friday night. But the coach is carrying considerably more than Friday night's final score.

The Public Criticism Is the Hardest Part for Me

This is probably the part of a losing season I struggle with most as a coach's wife.

People can be rude and cocky. They can also be judgmental and incredibly confident about decisions they didn't have to make with information they didn't have. Parents talk. Fans talk. And social media gives everyone somewhere to publish what they think the coach should have done differently.

My instinct is often to defend my husband because I know how hard he works. I know how many hours he has spent watching film, talking to coaches, planning practices, recruiting players and thinking about the kids. I also know that when a season isn't going well, he's already questioning and evaluating himself without strangers volunteering to help.

But my husband likes to take the high road, and I never want my reaction to embarrass him or make his job more difficult. So I stay out of the bleachers and, as much as possible, away from the comments.

Because I manage his social media, I can't avoid everything. Every once in a while, something might inspire a very subtle piece of content. But I've learned that most criticism does not deserve a response, and certainly not one from the coach's wife.

What I wish people understood is that the coaches are probably taking the losses much harder than you are. You get to complain about the game and move on with your weekend. They're going home to watch it again. And then they’re going to work to meet about it.

Remind Him That Winning Isn't the Only Evidence of Good Coaching

Of course coaches want to win. I'm not pretending the scoreboard doesn't matter when everyone involved knows perfectly well that it does. But the scoreboard isn't the only place a football program can win.

A difficult season is precisely when you have to deliberately look at the wins happening outside of the scoreboard: the academic, personal and community growth of individual players, the development of the roster, the culture of the program, the alumni community and the relationships being built.

When my husband gets discouraged, I remind him why he coaches. I show him the cards players have written him, the gifts parents have given him, the awards he has received, and the players he’s gotten to college. Yes, he wants to win football games. But he also wants to develop young men.

That work doesn't stop because the team is losing. In some ways, losing gives a coach even more opportunities to teach perseverance, accountability, humility and how to keep showing up when the reward isn't immediate.

A winning record is wonderful. Watching a young man become a better student, teammate, leader or person matters even more.

Sometimes the Best Thing You Can Do Is Stop Talking About Football

One of the most useful things I've learned about supporting my husband after a loss is the value of distraction.

By Saturday afternoon, he usually needs something that has nothing to do with football. So we might go on a family outing or have a date night. It doesn't erase what happened the night before, but it reminds both of us that there is a life happening outside of the season.

And that separation matters. If every loss is allowed to ruin the entire weekend, football starts occupying even more space in our home than coaching already requires.

There is already enough tension during a losing season. Sometimes supporting your coach means giving him permission to put it down for a few hours.

Faith Gives Us Somewhere to Put What We Can't Fix

There are limits to what I can do for my husband during a losing season. I can't change the final score. I can't make a player execute differently. I can't silence a parent on Facebook, and I can't promise that next Friday will be better.

But I can pray.

One of my consistent prayers for my husband is that God pours into him as much as he pours into other people. Coaching requires him to encourage, teach, correct, motivate and lead young men and other coaches, often while managing his own feelings. I pray that he is sustained, strengthened and uplifted while doing it.

His faith is his own source of strength too. I don't have to manufacture the perfect encouraging speech when I know he has somewhere deeper to turn for guidance.

Supporting Your Coach Doesn't Mean Forgetting Yourself

Supporting your husband through a losing season does not mean you have to lose with him. I feel his losses deeply because I love him. I'm devastated for him when I know how hard he worked for an outcome he didn't get, and public criticism can make me angry because I'm watching people judge someone I know much more intimately than they do. But I also have to fill my own cup.

My husband's football season cannot become my entire emotional life. I need things that restore me, relationships that have nothing to do with football and enough perspective to remember that our family is bigger than whatever happened on Friday night.

And he needs that too.

One of the things my husband has told me is helpful is simply having me on the sideline. He doesn't have to search the stands after a difficult moment and my expression gets to be the first thing he sees. There is something fitting about that because, after years of being a coach's wife, I think the best description I've found for my role during a losing season is one of simple and steady presence.

Not ahead of him trying to fix it. Not behind him carrying all of it for him. Not in the Facebook comments defending him to people who have already decided they know better. Just with him.

How to Support Your Coach During a Losing Season

If you're a newer coach's wife trying to figure out how to encourage your husband through a difficult football season, these are the things I would tell you:

• Be present before trying to be helpful. Let him process the loss in his own way before asking him to explain it or offering solutions.

• Listen more than you analyze. You don't have to figure out whose fault it was or what needs to change.

• Stay out of the comments and away from the bleacher coaches. Protect your own peace, and don't create another problem your husband has to manage.

• Look for wins beyond the scoreboard. Remind him of the players who are growing academically, personally and as teammates and young men.

• Create some distance from football. Plan the family outing. Go on the date. Watch something completely unrelated to sports. Let Saturday occasionally be Saturday.

• Remind him why he coaches. Winning matters, but so does the work he's doing in the lives of his players.

• Pray for him. Pray that he is strengthened, encouraged and poured into while he spends so much of himself pouring into others.

• Fill your own cup too. Supporting your coach does not mean forgetting yourself or carrying every loss as if it belongs to you.

After a win, my job is to commend and celebrate. After a loss, my job is to be present. A losing season may require more patience, more perspective and a little more intentional separation between football and family. But I don't have to find the words that magically make losing hurt less.

I just have to stay with him while it does.