Every team has rules. Some are written down. Be on time. Wear the right gear.
Communicate. Clean up after practice. Do not make the athletic trainer chase you for paperwork until they begin questioning every career choice that led them here. Then there are the other rules.
Know when the coach is joking. Know when the coach is definitely not joking. Know how loud you are supposed to celebrate. Know when eye contact means respect.
Know which veterans can tease whom. Know where to sit on the bus. Know whether “be early” means five minutes, ten minutes, or apparently sometime during the previous fiscal quarter. Those rules are rarely written.
We simply expect athletes to figure them out. Most teams have far more unwritten rules than coaches realize, and that can create problems for everyone. It can be especially challenging for neurodivergent athletes who may process social cues, implied expectations, sarcasm, hierarchy, or ambiguous language differently.
When an athlete breaks an unwritten rule, coaches often treat it as a character problem instead of a communication problem.
Culture Is Full of Invisible Instructions
Coaches talk about culture constantly. We want athletes to understand “how we do things here.” That phrase makes perfect sense to the people who already know how things are done here. For everyone else, it can be a scavenger hunt.
A freshman joins the team and hears, “We expect you to communicate.” What does that mean? Call every ball? Ask questions? Speak up in meetings?
Encourage teammates? Tell the coach when something is wrong? All of the above? We assume clarity because the phrase is familiar to us.
This is one reason I keep coming back to psychological safety for neurodivergent athletes. Psychological safety is not only about being nice or telling athletes they can make mistakes. It also depends on whether people understand the environment well enough to participate without constantly wondering whether they have violated some rule they never knew existed.
Vague Language Creates Vague Accountability
Consider some of our favorite coaching words: attitude, urgency, energy, toughness, coachability, presence, leadership. I use some of them too. The problem is not the words. The problem is assuming everyone shares the same definition.
If I tell an athlete they need “better energy,” I may have a very specific picture in my head. I want them talking earlier in serve receive, moving between reps, and supporting teammates after errors.
The athlete may hear, “I need to be louder and act happier.” Now we are solving different problems. Clear accountability starts by describing behavior. “I need you calling the seam before the server contacts the ball” is coachable.
“Bring better energy” requires interpretation. The National Autistic Society’s sports-coaching guidance recommends clear, concise, direct communication and warns against relying too heavily on body language, facial expression, or other implied social cues. That advice is directly useful with some autistic athletes, but I would argue coaches could use a healthy dose of it with everyone.
Sarcasm Is a Terrible Policy Manual
I enjoy sarcasm. Anyone who has spent more than nine minutes around me probably has evidence. Sarcasm can also be a communication landmine. Imagine an athlete arrives three minutes late and the coach says, “Nice of you to join us.” Everyone laughs.
The athlete smiles. Practice continues. Did the athlete understand the expectation? Maybe.
Did they understand the coach was irritated? Maybe. Did they know what to do differently next time? Maybe not.
For some neurodivergent athletes, sarcasm, tone, or indirect correction can be difficult to interpret. Even when they understand the joke, the actual instruction may still be unclear. USA Volleyball’s Words Matter resource encourages coaches to examine the effect of their language and specifically raises caution around sarcasm.
That does not mean sports must become humor-free zones where everyone speaks like an appliance manual. It means the joke should not carry information the athlete needs in order to succeed. If the expectation matters, say it plainly. Then make the joke if you still need the joke. I probably do.
Social Rules Need Coaching Too
We are comfortable teaching technical behaviors. We demonstrate footwork, rehearse defensive systems, and repeat serving routines until athletes can do them while half asleep. Then we expect team social behavior to emerge organically. Sometimes it does.
Sometimes it turns into a season-long sociology experiment. If there are important social expectations, teach them. What should happen when a teammate makes a mistake? What is the expectation when someone is speaking in a meeting?
How do captains bring a concern to coaches? How do teammates disagree? What does support look like during a bad match? Those are team skills.
My post Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk focuses on trust and open dialogue. Trust gets stronger when athletes do not have to guess which version of communication is acceptable on any given day.
Watch Who Gets Called “Different”
One of the quickest ways to find your unwritten rules is to notice which athletes are repeatedly described as different, weird, awkward, too quiet, too intense, too blunt, too emotional, or not social enough. I am not suggesting every unusual behavior is automatically fine.
Teams need boundaries. Respect matters. Safety matters. Shared standards matter.
But before correcting the athlete, ask what expectation they violated and whether that expectation was ever made clear. A player who does not make much eye contact may still be listening. An athlete who leaves a social gathering early may still care deeply about teammates.
Someone who asks very literal questions may not be challenging authority. A teammate who does not participate in a loud pregame chant may still be completely invested in competition. Different expression is not automatically poor commitment.
This is where hidden struggles of neurodivergent athletes become relevant. The visible behavior is often the smallest part of what is happening. If we only coach the surface, we may miss the actual barrier.
Make the Important Rules Visible
Here is a simple audit. Write down the five behaviors you believe define a good teammate in your program. Not values. Behaviors.
If “respect” is important, what does respect look like? If “communication” matters, when and how should athletes communicate? If “preparation” matters, what actions demonstrate preparation? Then ask whether your athletes would write the same list.
If the answer is no, you have found an unwritten rule. You do not need a 70-page team handbook. In fact, if your handbook reaches 70 pages, I suspect you have accidentally created a minor government agency.
Just make the important expectations concrete enough that athletes can understand and practice them. Then leave room for individuality where individuality does not interfere with the standard.
Culture Should Not Be a Guessing Game
The strongest team cultures are not necessarily the ones with the most traditions, slogans, rules, or matching T-shirts. They are the ones where people understand what matters and why. That clarity helps neurodivergent athletes. It helps freshmen.
It helps transfers. It helps anxious athletes. It helps athletes coming from different cultural backgrounds. It even helps the veteran who has been nodding for two years while privately wondering what “championship behavior” actually means.
This week, listen for one vague phrase your staff uses regularly. Ask what behavior you actually mean. Then say that instead. You may discover that the athlete who kept breaking the rule was never actually told the rule.
Key takeaways: Team culture contains many unwritten rules. Translate vague values into observable behaviors, make important social expectations explicit, and do not rely on sarcasm or implied cues to carry essential information. Before judging behavior, ask whether the athlete understood the expectation. Until next time, if it matters enough to enforce, it probably matters enough to explain.
