One Player at a Time - Jen Houk

Creating space, creating empowerment

Jen Houk is an amazing human being and parent. I have the deepest respect for her as both a person and a coach. She is also the Associate Head Coach at Montana Sate University in Bozeman, Montana. In 2023, she led her team to school records in total wins and Big Sky Conference wins.

What is “One Player at a Time”? - read here

At the beginning of our conversation, I asked Jen how she viewed herself as a coach. At first, she responded by using the old “players’ coach” cliché but followed that up with why she thought that term might fit. As with many coaches, Jen thinks that players would still consider her a “technical coach” because she does talk to them about technical and tactical subjects but she’s far less interested in being a great technical coach and much more interested in being a great human coach. For her, the central questions are not about execution. Instead, she is always asking herself, “how are we operating from a place of empowerment?”

Jen and I talked about her work with a college player, particularly working with that player in the second half of her collegiate career, so roughly 20-22 years of age. (I am going to refer to the player as Annie but that is not her real name.) She characterized Annie as “super-talented” and noted that Annie had always played at a high level. But what most impacted their relationship during this time was Jen’s sense that Annie could “take more ownership” of herself, her abilities, and her place on the team. In conversations with Jen, Annie had often expressed doubt about herself and Jen saw this doubt take a toll on Annie’s performance.

Notice that Jen used direct evidence (her conversations with Annie) to inform her observations about Annie’s behavior. She could have just assumed that Annie’s self doubt was negatively impacting her performance based on observation but not communicating with Annie would rob Annie of her agency, her ability to perceive and change her own environment. Making those assumptions goes against Jen’s desire to empower players. But the conversations that Annie had with Jen didn’t happen out of nowhere. The relationship she co-created with Annie set the stage for all of this work. Jen’s emphasis on relationship-building makes the more-traditional coaching work that she wants to do possible.

Jen’s connection with Annie is an example of players feeling comfortable talking with her. That comfort, Jen says, is a product of picking up on “sliding doors moments”. (While we can look at such moments in the context of all relationships, we’ll stay focused on coach-player relationships here.) Jen has found that players regularly make small bids for attention or interest from others, in this case coaches. Jen works to stay aware of these small bids and respond to them appropriately. By choosing how she responds to these bids, she can open doors to further conversations in the future. In Annie’s case, Jen connected with Annie’s self-deprecating humor because Jen also jokes about herself, especially when she’s uncomfortable. Over time, having that trait in common allowed Annie to talk with Jen about things that her jokes centered on. Annie was going through a very stressful time and she was using her humor more and more to cope. Jen felt that Annie’s behaviors were ultimately limiting the work she did in the gym. Because of how Jen had previously picked up small bids for interest from Annie, she could now talk with Annie about her observations. The conversations centered around Jen seeing her behavior, understanding it, and sharing that Jen didn’t think that the behavior would get Annie where she wanted to go. “This thing affects your ability to be a better player but also your future ability to parent and partner,” she recalled. As a result of that, Jen told Annie that she wasn’t going to feed into her behavior anymore, meaning that she wasn’t going to laugh along with Annie’s jokes anymore. By sharing her decision with Annie, Jen laid a foundation for different conversations in the moments when Annie would crack jokes. Instead of going along with the joke, Jen would point out to her, “this is what I’m talking about,” and then ask Annie to tell her more. She would invite Annie to think about what happened and what she was feeling that led to the joke. Another piece of Jen’s work is that she already knew what Annie’s long-term goals were because of prior discussions. So Jen could point out to Annie that her actions weren’t aligned with her goals. Jen could then ask Annie, “is there a way you can frame this to move towards what you want?” Jen helped Annie see another way to talk to herself.

Notice how Jen chose to address Annie’s coping mechanism. She didn’t tell Annie to stop, she didn’t keep reminding Annie that the jokes weren’t helping. She invited Annie to think for and about herself. Jen created space for Annie to reflect on who she was being and who she wanted to be. Jen listened; she didn’t judge Annie’s choices or responses. By asking Annie to reframe her comments, Jen created an opportunity for Annie to develop a different sense of herself that better aligned with her goals. This affirms Annie’s agency because the choice to change behavior is hers, not dictated by Jen. If Annie doesn’t want to change her behavior, then she has the chance to change her goals instead. This is an example of Jen acting from her desire to “operate from a place of empowerment”. She facilitated Annie’s recognition that the choice had always been hers to make.

Jen referred to her questioning of Annie as “constructive but not in an ‘everything’s okay’ kind of way.” Her goal was to be constructive “in the sense of construction, of adding bricks to a wall instead of tearing them out.” It wasn’t Jen’s job to add the bricks, it was Annie’s. She wasn’t trying to blindly build Annie up, no matter what happened. If Jen would have just built her up, Annie would have negated Jen’s work by continuing to tear herself down. Instead of trying to build Annie up faster than Annie could tear herself down, Jen invited Annie to change and supported her as she tried. Over time, Jen noticed that the content of her conversations with Annie shifted, that they began to talk in ways that embraced learning. Annie began talking about how her touch on the ball felt or what she could try doing differently. Jen even noticed Annie paying herself an occasional compliment.

As with most learning, Annie’s progress wasn’t instant or permanent. Jen joked about how she would have one conversation with Annie about reframing and then she could have the exact same conversation with her five minutes later. But Jen continued to support Annie as she worked on herself. She believed that Annie could be better so she supported Annie and created space for her to figure out how to be a better version of herself. I asked Jen what she learned from her work with Annie. “I learned a lot about how I want to have difficult conversations.” She reminded me that it isn’t always perfect or easy for her to do this work, despite what this story makes it seem like. Trying, screwing up, making amends, and trying again are all part of it. What makes the work easier for Jen is how well it aligns with her coaching values and goals. This alignment is what I find so remarkable about Jen. We can all learn from how hard she works to coach in a manner that is authentic to her.