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This is a space for coaches, trainers, and leaders who love the game — but don’t want the game to cost them their family, their integrity, or their soul.
Here, we talk about leadership, pressure, culture, identity, and the quiet tensions no one prepares you for when you step into coaching.
This isn’t about chasing wins at all costs.
It’s about restoring what the game was meant to form in us — and in the players we lead.
This podcast is presented by the Beloved Coaches Collective, a community committed to coaching from identity, not insecurity.
I’m Coach Sanders.
Let’s redeem the game — one coach at a time.
Welcome back everybody to the podcast.
I'm your host, as you know, Coach
Matt Sanders, and I want to start
this week with a burning question.
And, uh, before I do that, I want to
say this: This episode means a lot
to me because this episode in itself
really defines how everything that
I saw and coached and even played
the game for was shifted when I
found out the origins of basketball.
So I wanna start today with a question
As a basketball coach, why do you coach?
Not why do you love basketball?
Not why do you want to win?
But why do you think, and this
is a question that I asked myself
over and over after I got started.
Why did God entrust me with the whistle?
That's a powerful question.
Why did God entrust Matt
Sanders with the whistle?
Every coach eventually has to answer
that question with their life, right?
Today I want to go back to the beginning.
As I said, th- this podcast today
is about the origins of basketball,
the origin story of the basketball.
And not, not just the invention
of the game, but the heart and
the intentionality behind it.
See, in 1891, Dr.
Naismith was given a simple assignment.
If you've followed the podcast at all,
you know that his goal was, or his
assignment was to create an indoor
game that would encourage young men
during the winter months, right?
Itâ¦
This is in, in Massachusetts,
it's cold, right?
To create an indoor game.
He invented basketball, so it's a
different way to use a ball inside, right?
So he invents basketball.
But his vision for basketball
extended immensely bef- way further
than just a game for the indoors.
He in- he invented the game with a idea
of enjoyment with a new set of rules.
See, through his own writings and
his own life, we see a, a, uh,
a philosophy, a, uh, a mantra, a
building of a culture that is valued
on character and teamwork and joy and
discipline and Christian influence.
He saw athletics as a way to help
people, not just produce performers.
I want you, want you to hear that.
He saw basketball, and man, my goodness,
man, Coach, if you're listening
to this, I wish I knew this when
I, 25 years o- ago when I started.
That basketball was meant to be
enjoyed and was literally built for
Christian influence, not to produce
people who just perform on the court.
And I actually believe this is why
basketball has endured, because there
are pockets of people who learn to love
the game, who learn to play it for the
entirety of their career or coach it
for the entirety of their, their career
because they love it, not because of
the value that was placed on their
lives because of how they perform.
See, basketball is at its best when it
develops the whole person, hence we are
transformational specialists as coaches.
That's what we do.
This is who we are.
There's, there's no s-
there's no way around it.
If the game at its origin was
designed to bring joy and bring
character and bring values that
were built around Christ, right?
Christian, it says, it, it was
built to bring Christian values,
and the, the word Christian in
itself means little Christ ones.
We look like Jesus.
That's the whole point, Jesus to Christ.
So, coaches, somewhere along the way,
this is for me importantly to say to
you, along the way, we started believing
our greatest responsibility was
developing better athletes or players.
And I, I can tell you, I bought
that hook, line and sinker.
I remember thinking, "I'm gonna be the
best player development coach in the
country," when I first started as a head
coach, e- e- especially in high school.
We were gonna develop players, and of
course we're gonna love them and we're
gonna use all the Christianese stuff
because I was at a Christian school.
But I didn't know this.
I didn't know this because it was,
everything I was doing was wrapped in,
in my value, in the, the validation
that was gonna come from they
perform and we win, and that is so
backwards to how it was designed.
Man, if I could go back and say to
my players, you know, my players,
"What we're doing is we're gonna
develop you spirit, soul, body.
That was the goal, and we want you
to enjoy it, and that's the goal.
And we want your character
to grow, and that's the goal.
And we want your, your, uh, your
emotional, uh, your emotional EQ to grow."
That's the, that, that should have been
the mantra, and I'm saying this to you,
young coach listening to this podcast.
That is what this is designed for.
I'm telling you what no one told me.
This is what changed the last
five years of my coaching career.
It completely shifted who I was.
See, our greatest responsibility, and
I wish I'd known this, to be honest.
I, I can't, I can't say it clearly enough.
I wish I had known this, that my greatest
responsibility was developing people.
And better people, and better
people, and better people.
I'm not saying I didn't do that to
some degree, but the- I'm saying,
uh, the- there's a better way to do
what we call coaching than what we've
been doing because it's so wrapped
in performance and the scoreboard.
I lived in it.
I've said it to you 100 times on this
podcast, now almost 28 episodes in.
I lived for that because it
was bringing me validation.
But what if, what if that you
knew that God designed the game to
develop you along with the player?
Because when you know what it was meant
for, and you know how God designed you,
and when you say yes to Jesus, he makes
you righteous and redeemed, then we
can take this game back to its origin.
We can redeem the game, and we can coach
free, and our players can play free.
Man, I hope you hear that today.
So let's take a breath and, and
look at some scripture here.
Uh, Colossians 3:23 and 24 says,
"Whatever you do, work heartily as it
is unto the Lord," or as for the Lord.
See, all of this is for Him.
I, I w- I was listening to a player talk
the other day, and he was talking about
how, "I do this and all glory to God."
Remember, when you make that
statement, you diminish your
performance to the ground.
You push it all the way to the floor.
If He gets all the glory, then
what you're saying is, "If God
gets all the glory, He's the one
who gave me this gift to coach.
If God gets all the glory, He's the
one who gave us the gift of basketball.
If God gets all the glory, He gave
us this gift of coaching players.
And if God gets all the glory and
we win, just icing on the cake."
But God gets all the glory
if we lose, or when we lose.
And I just, I, I think that's so
important to say, that as you do
everything, right, uh, uh, shout out PGC.
How you do anything is
how you do everything.
If you, if your anything and
everything is wrapped in performance,
that's how you're gonna do it all.
Your players are gonna play from fear.
You're gonna coach from fear.
You're always gonna live by the
scoreboard and your wins and losses.
But if you can receive what I'm saying
to you, that this game was meant to be
enjoyed, it was meant to be loved, it
was meant to bring character and, and
make our players begin to look like
little Christ ones like us, man, what,
what a, what a different way to do it.
And I'm just saying there's a better way.
I'm just saying there's a better way.
I, I, I know there is.
So this game itself was
never the destination.
Basketball is a awful god,
and I, r- hand raised.
Coach, if you're listening to this,
basketball was never meant to be our God.
It is ⦠And, and little G, to be
honest, little G, but I sure made it that.
I idolized it.
I worshiped it, and it made me
actually worship the Unholy Trinity,
shame, guilt, and fear, a lot.
I did it a lot It was never meant
to carry the weight of our identity.
Ha, I just said that.
Championships are wonderful.
I have rings.
You can see them behind
me if you watch this.
But they cannot tell a
young person who they are.
Come on, coach.
It, it can't do that.
It, it's not meant to do that.
Only Jesus can do that,
and Jesus through you.
Man, I wish I knew this.
And I'm not, again, I'm not, I'm
not trying to diminish lives thatâ¦
If you, if you're a former player of
mine and you hear this, I'm not trying
to diminish the lives that were changed
through me, 'cause God can take a
crooked stick and strike a straight blow.
He totally did that, but I'm
saying there's a better way.
And man, if I could go back,
this is what I would say.
There's a better way.
Jesus is the one.
Jesus, He, He, before He ever
performed a miracle, before He ever
did any of that, God the Father called
Him, "This is my beloved child."
You and me are just like Jesus.
We, the scripture says we are the
firstborn among many brethren.
He was the firstborn among many breâ¦
We are his brothers and sisters.
We're brothers and sisters in Christ.
So God says that to Him before
He performed any miracles.
So before we coach another w- a game,
or we, we coach another practice,
before we win another championship
or lose another championship, before
you recruit another player if you're
a college coach, God has already
spoken that over you through Christ.
You are beloved.
You are righteous.
You are redeemed.
You don't need the
scoreboard to validate you.
Man, I hope you hear that.
And the scoreboard of life will do that.
If I have, if I have a family, if
I have a house, if I've got enough
cars, if I've got enough money in
the bank, the scoreboard of life
will do that because basketball
in itself, it, it reflects life.
It really does.
So if you live by the scoreboard
in the game that you coach, you'll
live by it in the life you lead.
I 1000% did that.
A quick side story I, I'll tell you.
Uh, my wife and I are, um, we're
doing some marital counseling with
one of my former players, and I
said this to them, um, in one of our
sessions, um, about buying a house.
And my wife and I, we kind of laugh about
it now, but right as we got married,
I had this, this, uh, this performance
piece etched in my mind that once you
get married, you get a house, and that
this was going to say, "I have made it."
Well, looking back on it, it
was a horrible purchase, and
we were barely making it.
I already had somewhere for us to
live that I actually owned, and I
went through all these steps to have
a house because I thought it would
do it, and she loved me anyways.
Same for basketball.
It's, it's not.
The, the championships
are not gonna do it.
But when your kids call you four
years after they've graduated and say,
"Coach, I just wanna say thank you
because everything you taught me is
really coming to fruition in my life,"
that's greater than any ring can ever
get you, any banner can ever get you.
That's the goal of this.
Same for us with Jesus.
When we, when we, we are founded in
Him and, and, and when the blessings
come, we get to say, "Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, God, for doing that.
Thank you, Jesus, for
working in that situation."
Luke 3:22 says, "You are my beloved Son."
Says God saying that to Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made Him who
knew no sin to become sin in our place."
Christ already did all this so
that we can know who we are.
We are little Christ
ones