The thing about labels is they’re sticky. Once you attach them to something, they might not come off again. If they do, there will probably be stuff left behind. There are more consequences to labeling people than you think.
Some consequences are more obvious than others. When you label an athlete you work with as playing a certain position, that means they’ll spend more time practicing the skills and tactics of that position and less time practicing others. I’m not saying that all the consequences of such a label are bad, narrowing a player’s focus to a single position can have positive effects on their learning and development of the skills associated with that position. But I am pointing out that coaches often exclude practicing any other positions once a label has been attached. The positive effects of being included in one particular group may be offset by being excluded from other groups completely. There’s a tradeoff here between depth and breadth of learning and participation. Ask yourself if there are ways you can keep that tradeoff from being absolute. How can you make it so the label you attach to an athlete isn’t too sticky?
There are consequences to sticking a position label on a player that extend far beyond how they spend their time in practice. Consider one of the possible effects on the player, identity foreclosure. It is part of James Marcia’s theories on adolescent psychosocial development. This identity status is defined as, “…when a commitment is made without exploring alternatives. Often these commitments are based on parental ideas and beliefs that are accepted without question.” Identity foreclosure is troubling because it is done without exploration. When a player is labeled as something without the chance to try out alternatives for themselves, it can have negative impacts on their self-concept, autonomy, and motivation.
But there’s a positive way for a label to be placed on someone, through identity achievement. Without getting too far into the weeds about Marcia’s theories, identity achievement comes as a product of exploration and commitment but, often, after plenty of doubt and confusion. Why strive for identity achievement instead of identity foreclosure? Because the person develops a sense of autonomy as well as developing a sense of what their identity is. (Marcia also applied these ideas to people past adolescence who had already achieved an identity but then undergo transitions that led them to explore new identities.) Before applying labels, ask yourself who chose the label for the person it’s being stuck to.
Regardless of which identity status a player reaches, you and others will treat them differently and they will treat themselves differently once that label is stuck to them. But what “differently” looks like depends on which status they’re in. In identity foreclosure, the player may resent you and/or themselves if they’re not sure about their new label. They may also feel extra pressure to live up to your label. Since you chose it for them and you’re in charge, they may believe that you labeled them because you expect them to be a good example of that label. In identity achievement, they may feel more at ease with the label but they will still have much to learn about how to grow into it. Either way, how will you support them as they learn about what that label means?
Labels regarding what position a player plays, as complex as they can be, pale in comparison to how complex labels regarding a player’s traits or personality can be. Just like positions, these labels affect how you, others, and the athletes themselves will respond. For instance, I’ve written about some ways in which your language impacts how you treat athletes:
There are many different ways in which the labels you apply affect others as well as yourself. I want to discuss three points in particular about the use of labels.
First, others know about the labels you stick on them, even if you don’t say them out loud. In their book Thanks for the Feedback, Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone talk about “behavioral blind spots”. They point out that most of your behavior is in the awareness of others but most of that behavior is not in your awareness. That means the labels you mentally stick on athletes are often known to those athletes. Heen and Stone write, “The fact that others are always reading our faces, tone, and behavior doesn’t mean they are always reading us right. They can often tell when what we say doesn’t match the way we feel, but they can’t always tell quite how” (p. 85). If you harbor those labels for players and think they can’t tell, you’re almost certainly wrong. If you don’t want to directly address those labels, then expect players to misinterpret what you’re thinking. How do you directly address such potentially difficult conversations? Heen and Stone (along with Bruce Patton) wrote a whole book on that subject. I highly recommend both books.
Second, those labels affect your own thinking about the person that you stick the label on. This is commonly called the halo effect. (This term refers to positive impressions but can also include negative impressions. Some will refer to negative impressions creating a horns effect. Same difference.) What’s important to note about the halo effect is that it affects your impressions of a player in unrelated areas. If you think that a player doesn’t work hard enough, that impression may lead you to think less of their competitiveness or of their trustworthiness, even if you have no evidence to support those thoughts. You should ask yourself how one opinion you hold about a player may be affecting other opinions you hold about that player.
The third point could almost go without saying but I think it’s important to make it explicit. How you think about players in your care, both generally and specifically, will affect how they ultimately perform. Coaches commonly ask athletes to have a growth mindset but think little of their own mindset or, more importantly, of their thoughts about if the athletes can grow. Several of the main researchers in growth mindset interventions (including Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth) investigated how a teacher’s own mindset supported (or failed to support) the mindsets of the students in their care. They found that “…students cannot simply carry their newly enhanced growth mindset to any environment and implement it there. Rather, the classroom environment needs to support, or at least permit, the mindset by providing necessary affordances” (p. 29)1.

The labels you stick on someone change how they move through the world and change what you and others expect of them. Think carefully about the labels you use. I once had the opportunity to ask Karch Kiraly for his thoughts on what the women on the US National Team were capable of in terms of their skills and competitiveness. He replied that he refused to place any of his expectations on them because he didn’t want to limit them with his opinions. His approach to the question may be radical but I admire his commitment to giving those players the space and autonomy to grow and compete as label-free as possible.
My writing here mostly assumes that labels are negative but I think they can also be positive. How can you help players embrace growth mindsets with a label? How can you inspire them to be more by using a label? How can you use labels to be more inclusive or more supportive?
It may come across as cheesy, but I am who I am and I’m okay with showing you that. There’s a song that I have often listened to when I need a little lift and I think the title fits in well with the theme here. Here’s a bit from the chorus:
Well it just goes to show
How wrong you can be
And how you really should know
That it's never too late
To get up and go
What could you and others do if you were all a little more unstuck?
Yeager, D. S., Carroll, J. M., Buontempo, J., Cimpian, A., Woody, S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., Murray, J., Mhatre, P., Kersting, N., Hulleman, C., Kudym, M., Murphy, M., Duckworth, A. L., Walton, G. M., & Dweck, C. S. (2022). Teacher Mindsets Help Explain Where a Growth-Mindset Intervention Does and Doesn’t Work. Psychological Science, 33(1), 18–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211028984