What if the sport your child plays every week is one of the most powerful character development tools you have — and you are not fully using it yet? Character development through sports goes so much deeper than winning and losing.
This episode pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to raise coachable, confident, resilient kids, sharing 5 practical insights from a coach with 26 years of experience at the college and NBA level:
✅The number one life skill that separates great players from average ones — and it is not talent
✅Why 70 percent of kids quit youth sports by age 13 and the surprising reason behind it
✅The one thing every parent should say after a game — and nothing more
✅What you say on the ride home after a game matters more than you think
✅How to turn failure into the most powerful character-building moment of all
✅The simple 3-step approach to test taking and decision making that builds real confidence
Check out the resources mentioned in this episode and start building character development through sports in your family today.
Resources for You
Show Notes:
Building Leadership and Life Skills Through Sports — A Conversation With Brett Gunning
Today I have Brett Gunning here, and we're talking about building leadership skills and life skills through sports. I love sports. My kids grew up in a sports family. And Brett has spent 26 years coaching — 14 years at the college level and 12 years in the NBA. What he's sharing today goes way beyond basketball. These are life skills that apply to any sport and really to any area of life.
The Number One Life Skill: Be Coachable
Brett spent years watching what separated great college players from great NBA players. And it kept coming back to one thing — being coachable. Being teachable.
When a parent, teacher, or coach gets on you, it's most likely rooted in a desire to help you. But a lot of kids can't get past the ego part to see that. They can't move from why are they getting on me to — this person loves me, they care about me, what is the message they're trying to give me?
For as simple as it sounds, most kids are not coachable. So that's where we have to start. Whether it's basketball, football, gymnastics, music — whatever it is — being coachable is the foundation.
Honesty and Letting Kids Make Decisions
Brett learned from a great coach who used to say — the greatest gift anyone can ever give you is the truth. And that's a biblical principle. When you're honest with your kids, you may not get the result you want immediately. But over time, when they start seeing on their own — every time dad told me something, he was right — that's when it sinks in.
Let them make the decision. Then sit down and have the difficult conversations about what happened. Let them learn the natural consequences. Instead of making your kid do something, be honest with them and give them the freedom to make the choice — then hold that conversation afterward about what they could do differently next time.
That's what coaches do. Right after a game, the best coaching moment is watching the film and evaluating the decisions. Then sitting down and saying — next time you're in this position, here's something to think about. You can do the same thing at the dinner table.
For a spelling test — if they waited until Thursday to study for a Friday test, have the conversation about how to prepare differently next week. That's not punishment. That's coaching.
The Ride Home — The Gut Punch That Changed Everything
70% of kids quit youth sports by the age of 13. And the number one reason? The ride home.
When Brett Gunning heard that statistic, he said — I'm done. Because making it to the college or professional level is about as likely as winning the lottery. So let's take that pressure off the table. What matters is that your kid has a great experience playing the sport through their high school years.
Here's the advice — after every game, say one thing. Just one thing. I loved watching you play today. Not — why didn't you do this? Why didn't you pass to Johnny? Why didn't you catch that?
Just — I loved watching you play. Let the ride home be that. Then maybe later that night or the next day, circle back to one teaching moment. But the ride home is where we are losing kids. Don't let that be the moment.
Building Confidence and Resilience
Brett's eight-year-old son was playing in a basketball game, down one with 10 seconds left, bringing the ball up for the last shot. He missed it. And Brett said — right away I flipped a switch and thought, this is going to be a much bigger teaching moment than if he made it. Because it's easy to handle success. It's hard to handle failure.
How do you build resilience? You have to embrace the hard moments. You can't run from them. You don't tell your kid — it was the ref's fault, you got fouled. You say — you missed the shot. It's okay. You're not going to win every game. Keep a great attitude. Shake their hand. You're going to have other opportunities in your life to hit the game-winning shot.
And guess what — one week later, same scenario, last game of the season. His son hit the game-winner. He said, "Dad, how did you know?" Brett told him — I didn't know it was going to happen next week. I just knew at some point you were going to be in that spot again.
Whether it's a failed test, a hard season, or a breakup — the only way kids become resilient is if we let them face the difficult moments, accept them, and learn from them. If we go through a failure and don't take the lesson from it, it's a wasted opportunity.
Teamwork, Humility, and Helping Others
If you don't want to be part of something bigger than yourself, go play tennis or golf. If you're going to play a team sport, you are part of something. And that requires humility.
In basketball, someone sets a screen so you can get open for a shot. If they don't do their job, you don't get the shot. Having the humility to recognize — I am part of something bigger than myself — is everything.
After 26 years in the game, Brett has seen it over and over. When you help someone else get open, the ball moves, your defender goes to help, and you end up getting the shot. You helped someone else and it came back to you. That's a biblical principle. When you help someone, it always comes back.
As parents, praise the unselfish things. Don't just say great job, you scored 10 points. Say — great job helping your teammate up when he fell. Great job cheering for your buddy when his head was down. Great job passing. Every kid already knows how many points they scored. Emphasize the things that don't show up in the box score.
Be Knowledgeable — Go Seek the Information
The second life skill Brett Gunning teaches is being knowledgeable. There has never been more information available. Whatever you want to be great at, every morsel of information is out there. Go get it.
Don't wait for someone to hand it to you. Go seek it. Whether it's cooking, basketball, coding, music — no matter what the profession, there are no secrets. It's all available. Our job as parents and coaches is to help kids understand they have to go pursue it. Learn as if you're going to live forever.
On the Right Path — Brett's Nonprofit and Book Series
Brett started On the Right Path based on Proverbs 22:6 — train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. He uses basketball to guide kids on the right path at the beginning of their journeys, tying every life skill and basketball skill together with a Bible verse.
He has three resources available. A six-book series for younger kids — each book teaches a life skill through basketball in a way kids and parents can read together. A 12-week interactive curriculum called Life and Basketball for middle school and high school ages — a great parent-child learning experience built around the game. And an online educational classroom on the website with videos from current and former NBA players talking about humility, resilience, and being coachable.
The Lesson From John Wooden
Brett Gunning once had the privilege of spending two to three hours with John Wooden — one of the greatest coaches of all time — about a year before Wooden passed away. At the end of that visit, Brett asked him one question. Coach, you've been through it all. What is the most important thing for a young coach to remember?
Wooden thought for a moment. Then he said — patience. Patience with your team. Patience with your players.
And that is a great place to close. For as much as we want our kids to get it as fast as possible, because we care about them and we know what's on the other side — we also have to hang in there with them. There's a dynamic of patience that we cannot overlook.
You can find Brett's book series, 12-week curriculum, and online educational classroom at ontherightpath.org. Links to all of it are below this video.
