There’s a moment every coach knows.
Your voice gets louder. Your patience gets thinner. The pressure of competition, expectations, and your own standard starts to build. And before you know it, you’re no longer responding with intention — you’re reacting.
In competitive cheerleading, intensity is normal. High standards are expected. Emotion is part of the job. But there is still a line, and more athletes, parents, and coaches are asking an important question: when does hard coaching become harmful coaching?
That question sits at the center of a recent conversation from the Fullout Cheer Podcast, where Danielle Johnston and Dan Cotton opened up about what happens when coaches cross the line. In one episode, they discussed a blurred video of a coach aggressively confronting an athlete and the wave of online comments defending it as “just competitive sports.” … Concerning… In another conversation with sports performance consultant Jeff Benson, they unpacked how toxic coaching and toxic parenting can quietly affect athletes long before anyone calls it by name. I encourage you to go check those episodes out and give them a listen. You won’t regret it.
As someone who coached cheer for nearly a decade, I’ve seen this topic from both sides of the floor. I’ve coached in smaller programs where every athlete relationship felt personal, and I’ve also worked inside some of the largest programs in the world, where the pressure to win can make bad habits easier to excuse. That experience is what makes this conversation so important to me: I know what high standards should look like, and I also know how quickly they can become damaging when coaches lose sight of the athlete in front of them.
Most coaches are not “toxic” — but toxic moments still matter
One of the most important ideas from the recent podcast conversation with Jeff Benson is that most coaches don’t set out to be toxic. That distinction matters.
A coach can care deeply about their athletes and still act in ways that are harmful. They can be passionate, intense, and driven, yet still cross the line when their ego starts leading the room instead of their purpose. When that happens, athletes stop feeling coached and start feeling judged in a negative way.
And athletes feel that shift fast.
They begin to internalize dangerous messages:
“I’m only valued when I hit.”
“Mistakes mean I’m letting my coach down.”
“My teammates are competition, not support.”
That kind of environment does not just create pressure. It reshapes how young athletes see themselves.
The red light every coach needs to notice
Jeff Benson’s “stoplight” framework is one of the most useful takeaways from the most recent podcast episode of The Full Out Cheer podcast with Danielle Johnston.
Green light means a coach is calm, clear, and in control. Yellow light means frustration is building. Red light means the coach is angry, overwhelmed, or reactive.
Every coach hits yellow. Many coaches hit red.
The issue is not that emotions happen. The issue is what a coach does once they get there. At red light, coaches tend to raise their voice beyond purpose, lose connection with the athlete, and react based on emotion instead of intention.
That matters because kids do not experience your intent. The hard truth is that they experience your behavior, the tone in your voice and your body language.
You may think you are being direct. They may feel attacked.
You may think you are pushing them to grow. They may feel embarrassed.
You may think you are correcting a mistake. They may feel like they are the mistake.
Yelling is not the same as intimidation
Let’s be honest: yelling exists in cheer. Most coaches yell at some point. And I will be the first to admit that. One might say they know I am in the gym because they hear my voice before seeing my face.
Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes the gym is loud, safety is on the line, or attention needs to be snapped back into focus. A coach raising their voice to stop something dangerous or to correct a group is not the same as a coach losing control.
But there is a huge difference between intentional intensity and emotional loss of control.
If you yell all the time, athletes stop hearing it. And if giving corrections become emotional triggers or outbursts, athletes stop learning and start surviving your practices.
That is the point where coaching stops being productive and starts becoming fear-based.
When coaching crosses the line
The podcast discussed a real example of a coach aggressively confronting an athlete, physically moving into the stunt group, and using a tone that felt targeted and intimidating. Some people defended it saying “That’s just competitive sports.” Like it is a necessary evil for the outcome they are pursuing. Winning, more skills etc.
It is not.
There is a difference between holding athletes accountable and making them feel small. Believe it or not it is possible to demand excellence without using intensity and intimidation to force compliance. You can be a “hard coach” and not a harmful one.
When a coach:
Targets athletes individually in anger.
Uses humiliation, sarcasm, or public shame as motivation.
Creates an environment built on fear.
Repeats the same behavior after feedback.
That is not “just coaching.”
That is a pattern.
And to me that is the biggest red flag and when coaching can truly become “toxic”.
Success can hide bad behavior
This is where the conversation gets uncomfortable, but it needs to be said.
I have coached in both small-program and large-program environments, including some of the biggest names in the sport. And one thing becomes very clear: success can hide bad behavior. Across the board.
When a program is winning, people can become more tolerant of toxic coaching patterns.
Tempers get excused.
Behavior gets normalized.
Athletes get treated like results instead of people.
Not every successful program is unhealthy, of course. But in enough places, “that’s just how they are” or “that’s just what it takes” becomes the excuse that allows damaging behavior to keep going unchecked.
High standards and humanity can coexist
The goal is not to lower the standard.
The goal is to raise the standard for how we treat people.
One of the best examples of that is Ebony Brown. Head coach of the back to back summit champs from The Stingray Allstars - Navy. When you watch a Navy performance you can’t help but notice the technical excellence across the entire team. But a few other words also come to mind. Unforgettable, exhilarating, memorable. The kind of performance that pulls you in, and makes you wonder how the heck they are so good. I will tell you how…
Ebony is known for her elite standards, and from the outside, her intensity can be easily misunderstood. Her practices are VERY demanding. Her expectations are high. The level of effort her athletes are asked to give is far beyond what most people would consider “normal”. If you walked into a Navy practice without context, you might assume the coaching is all pressure, all volume, and all business with no bond with the kids. But that is the farthest thing from the real story.
What makes her culture so special is that the athletes are never reduced to just the mistake they made in that moment. The standard is high, yes, but so is the belief in each athlete. There is a difference between expecting excellence and making a child feel like they are only as valuable as their last hit. Ebony’s coaching does not just push athletes to work harder it helps them understand why the work matters, how to respond when things get hard, and how to carry themselves through adversity without losing confidence.
What people don’t see behind a summit winning culture like Navy is the amount of mindset work that happens behind the scenes. The conversations do not stop when stunts come down and bodies are rolling on the floor (literally). There is teaching there. There is correction, of course, but there is also coaching in the truest sense of the word: helping athletes process, refocus, and stay mentally strong through hard moments. That matters because athletes need more than just to be told “do better” or “figure it out”. They need to be shown how to bounce back, and how to keep moving without feeling crushed by the weight of perfection.
That is what true leadership looks like. It is not softness. It is not lowering the bar. It is holding the line while still protecting the athlete’s confidence and sense of self. That is the coaching style the sport should celebrate, because it proves you can build something championship-level without losing the people who make it possible.
These are kids, not machines
Cheerleading is demanding—physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The pressure to execute incredibly difficult skills is huge. The fear involved in this sport is very real. Fear of skills, fear of failure, and letting their team down. Athletes compare themselves to teammates, worry about mistakes, and try to meet the expectations of the adults around them.
And as Jeff Benson pointed out in the podcast, this all intensifies around ages 9 to 13—when emotional awareness, fear, and physical development all collide.
That matters.
Because these are not machines performing on command.
They are kids learning how to handle pressure, failure, confidence, and self-worth in real time.
That responsibility doesn’t just fall on coaches—it falls on parents too.
Coaches: if you live in a constant “red light” and treat every mistake like a personal insult, you’re not building tough athletes. You’re building stress and burnout.
Parents: if you normalize that environment, defend it, or accept it as “just how the sport is,” you’re reinforcing it.
Both sides shape the experience.
Holding a high standard is part of the sport.
Losing perspective shouldn’t be.
For parents, the takeaway is simple:
Not every gym is the right fit.
If something feels off, ask questions. Have the conversation. Pay attention to how concerns are handled.
And if nothing changes—if the environment stays unhealthy—it’s okay to leave.
Not because every hard moment is wrong.
Not because discipline is the issue.
But because your child deserves a place where accountability and care exist at the same time.
If a gym refuses to adjust, refuses to listen, or treats harmful behavior as normal—that tells you exactly what kind of culture it’s protecting.
What coaches need to remember
The years athletes spend in cheer will shape them far more than what happens on the mat. They will shape confidence, work ethic, resilience, and self-worth.
That is why the tone of a coach matters so much.
A coach can be firm and demanding. A coach can absolutely hold athletes to a high standard. But a coach cannot lose sight of the fact that the athletes in front of them are human beings first.
That is the difference between hard coaching and crossing the line.
And the best coaches in this sport never forget it.
