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Design Your Uniform

Author: Alex Compton

  • When the Gym Gets Loud: What Our Kids See in Us

    A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the bleachers along the baseline at my son’s
    8th-grade basketball game. It was a Sunday afternoon at Pewaukee High School
    with three games happening at once. We were on the middle court, with
    parents, grandparents, and family members from both teams sitting all around.
    The gym was busy and loud, but most people were only paying attention to the
    game they cared about.
    In our section, many parents were starting to get a little tense and passionate. It
    wasn’t awful and I have seen much worse, but they were definitely getting
    caught up in it. Frequently when the refs blew the whistle for a foul or violation,
    you could hear people react loudly. A handful of missed calls felt big to the
    people around me, and their responses came quickly. I don’t believe anyone
    walked into the gym intending to be difficult. They were just invested in their
    kids, like most of us parents are. Youth sports can have that effect on us.
    But in the middle of all the noise, one family stood out.

    There was a set of parents sitting with what looked like grandparents. They did
    not yell at the officials, the coaches, or the other kids. They encouraged their
    son and his teammates, and twice during the game they corrected their son.
    They were not correcting him on basketball, they were addressing his behavior
    that was not in line with their values. Once he reacted to the crowd, and
    another time he snapped back at a player. Both times, the correction was calm,
    clear, and focused on behavior.
    Their son was also the best player on the floor. He was not completely
    dominant, but he was a little taller, a little stronger, and he really knew how to
    play. He was confident and tough, and he competed well. But he was also a
    young man who, like everyone his age, still has a lot of growing to do. Watching
    his parents, it was easy to see that he had steady examples around him. The
    way they carried themselves gave him a solid reference point for how to handle
    himself in emotional moments.
    I was not looking for anything. I came to watch my son and enjoy the game. But
    that family caught my attention. They were modeling something valuable, and
    their son was benefitting from it.
    It made me think about my own instincts.

    I have coached for a long time. When I watch basketball, I notice spacing,
    matchups, decision-making, and details. And I am also a dad, so I want to help
    my kids. Those two identities can overlap quickly. The urge to coach from the
    stands is very real for me.
    But I have learned that my job in the bleachers is different than my job on a
    sideline. Coaches coach. Parents model. The way we carry ourselves sets the
    emotional tone.

    There is a phrase that has helped me throughout my life. I remind myself of it
    on the days when my intensity of emotion is higher than it probably should be:
    cognition controls emotion. What I think about shapes how I feel. If I focus on
    the officials, I get frustrated. If I focus on mistakes, I get tense. And when I get
    tense, my kids feel it. They take their cues from me, whether I say anything or
    not.

    They are always watching us. And sometimes, the most powerful thing they can
    see is a parent who is calm, encouraging, and fully present.

     

    Reflection Question:

    When the gym gets loud, what do you want your child to notice about you?

    Practical Tip:

    Before every game, choose one word to model: calm, encouragement,
    gratitude, or something else. Return to it whenever emotions rise.

     

    Author Bio

    Alex Compton is an author, coach, and former international professional basketball player whose career has taken
    him into global youth-sports development. He co-founded the Nike Elite Camp and the NBTC program in the
    Philippines and has coached both professionally and with Gilas Pilipinas, the Philippine Men’s National Team.
    Now based in Madison, he is a member of the WBCA Hall of Fame and co-author of Guiding Your Child’s Athletic
    Journey, winner of the 2025 NYC Big Book Award. Alex is a Cornell University graduate in Human Development
    and Family Studies and speaks on parenting, leadership, and youth sports.

  • Protecting the Joy in the Game

    When my boys were young, I started filming their games so we could watch them together afterward. After so
    many years in professional basketball, breaking down film felt natural to me, and I thought it would be a great way
    to help them learn the game. I pictured the three of us enjoying it, pausing clips, talking through plays, and having
    fun.

    But as we watched, I slipped into a tone they weren’t ready for. I didn’t raise my voice, but the frustration showed.
    If they turned their head and lost sight of the ball, or stopped on a screen, or forced a tough shot, I reacted like I
    was coaching grown men. These were normal mistakes for kids, but my expectations weren’t set for where they
    were developmentally. And they felt it.
    After a little while, I noticed the boys didn’t look forward to watching film anymore. They didn’t say anything, but
    their body language did. They felt my tension. Something that should have been fun had become something they
    preferred to avoid. And I realized I had unintentionally created that atmosphere.

    So I changed my approach. I started noticing the good things first. I asked more questions instead of giving quick
    corrections. I pointed out smart plays from their teammates. I tried to enjoy it with them. When the tone shifted,
    their attitude shifted too. Not long after that, the boys were coming home and saying, “Dad, can we watch my
    game?” The difference was obvious. They wanted to share it with me because it felt good again.
    That moment taught me something I needed to learn as a parent: kids grow best when they feel joy in what they’re
    doing. They listen better. They learn more easily. They feel safe enough to stretch themselves. Correction still
    matters, of course, but it reaches them more deeply when the environment is warm enough for them to receive it.

    More than a century ago, James Naismith created basketball because he wanted a game that could teach young
    people Christian values. He understood that learning happens more naturally when the experience carries joy. Kids
    lean in when something is fun. They pull away when it feels heavy. That has always been true.
    As parents, we have values we hope our kids will learn through sports. But sometimes we can make the experience
    tense, pressured, or overly technical. We can’t let our passion become our child’s burden. Because when that
    happens, the learning we hope for becomes a lot harder to reach.
    The game matters. The lessons matter. The effort and character we hope to build matter. But at its heart, it is still
    just a game. When we protect the joy in it, we give our kids room to grow in ways that last far beyond the final
    score.

    Reflection Question:

    What emotion do you want your child to feel when they share their games with you?

    Author Bio

    Alex Compton is an author, coach, and former international professional basketball player whose career has taken
    him into global youth-sports development. He co-founded the Nike Elite Camp and the NBTC program in the
    Philippines and has coached both professionally and with Gilas Pilipinas, the Philippine Men’s National Team.
    Now based in Madison, he is a member of the WBCA Hall of Fame and co-author of Guiding Your Child’s Athletic
    Journey, winner of the 2025 NYC Big Book Award. Alex is a Cornell University graduate in Human Development
    and Family Studies and speaks on parenting, leadership, and youth sports.

  • The Car Ride Home: Connect First, Correct Later by Alex Compton

    My boys have very different personalities, but during the basketball season that began in the winter of 2021,
    I began to notice a strong similarity. They were on separate travel teams that winter, which meant a lot of
    long drives home—sometimes close to an hour—with just one boy in the car at a time. Those drives became
    a natural space to talk about the game and how they experienced it.
    After each game, I’d ask what they saw, what they were thinking, or how they felt they played. I wasn’t trying
    to coach them from the front seat. I genuinely wanted to hear how they processed things. But just about
    every time, both boys went straight to something outside themselves. The refs, a kid who pushed them,
    someone talking trash, a teammate who didn’t pass—the conversation always started somewhere else.
    Even though I had asked about their game, their first instinct was to talk about everyone but themselves. As
    someone who spent years coaching professionally, that got to me. I kept trying to bring the conversation
    back to their own decisions and their own effort. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I had to remind them of a
    specific play. Other times it didn’t move at all, no matter what I tried.
    What I didn’t fully understand then—and wish I had realized earlier—is that the emotional moment right
    after a game isn’t always the best place to ask a kid to look inward. Their feelings are still fresh and loud. Kids
    don’t naturally slide into reflection when their emotions are high. They need a little time to settle. Parents
    know this intuitively in other areas of life, but for some reason sports has a way of making us forget. I
    certainly did.
    At some point, it hit me that the car ride gives us a captive audience. We have their attention in a way we
    rarely do. And if that’s true, then we need to be clear about our priorities. For me, I realized the car ride home
    is more of a place to connect than a place to correct. That shift changed everything about how I approached
    those conversations.

    There was another piece I was slow to understand: kids that age simply don’t have the same internal tools
    we expect older athletes to have. They’re still learning how to separate what happened to them from what
    they did. They’re not being defensive; they just haven’t developed the maturity to sort through all the layers
    of a game. Their world is still very external. That’s normal. It’s part of growing up.
    Once I accepted that, the way I approached those conversations changed. I still cared about teaching them
    accountability, but I stopped expecting them to get there immediately. I let them talk through the outside
    stuff first. Sometimes that alone helped them settle enough to think about their own play. And other times,
    the car ride just wasn’t the moment to get into it—and that was okay too.
    Over time, I noticed something encouraging. As the pressure in the car went down, their willingness to look
    inward went up. Not every drive, and not in some dramatic way, but enough that I could see they were
    learning the right things at the right pace.
    Those car rides taught me that accountability develops in kids the same way most things do—slowly, with
    patience, and in an environment where they feel safe to be honest.
    Reflection Question:
    What tone do you want to set for your child during those car rides home this season?

    About the Author

    Alex Compton is an author, coach, and former international professional basketball player whose career has
    taken him into global youth-sports development. He co-founded the Nike Elite Camp and the NBTC program
    in the Philippines and has coached both professionally and with Gilas Pilipinas, the Philippine Men’s National
    Team.
    Now based in Madison, he is a member of the WBCA Hall of Fame and co-author of Guiding Your Child’s
    Athletic Journey, winner of the 2025 NYC Big Book Award. Alex is a Cornell University graduate in Human
    Development and Family Studies and speaks on parenting, leadership, and youth sports.
    Connect with Alex on social media for more insights on parenting athletes, leadership, and youth sports.