Symposium replay · Mental Edge Academy
The mental side
of female athletes
What every coach and parent needs to know, and how to train it on purpose. Watch the full session: why today's girls are carrying more than ever, why sport is still the best place to build mental strength, and 12 tactics you can use this week.
Eric Orme · Founder & CEO, AEA Institute Meredith Brick · Performance coach & girls' HS coach Lenny Krebs · VP of Strategic Partnerships
What you'll walk away with
Built for coaches, athletic directors and parents.
We won't wow you with ideas you've never heard. We'll give you a system and a process around them, so you can act on them with your daughter or your athletes starting tomorrow.
6
Tactics for coaches
Moves you can put into your very next practice with your female athletes.
6
Tactics for parents
Simple things to use with your daughter after her very next game.
10
Free Parent Toolkit tools
For parents of youth sport athletes, including our featured tool, Win the Car Ride Home.
01 · The need
Girls are carrying more than ever.
School. Competition. Social media. Expectations from everyone, including herself. And the everyday friction that used to build resilience by accident has been engineered out of childhood.
53%
of high school girls reported persistent sadness or hopelessness
3 in 4
teen girls worry about failing
2×
by 14, girls leave sport at twice the rate of boys
44%
of women's college athletes feel overwhelmed, vs. 17% of men
This doesn't mean girls are less tough. It means they're carrying more than any generation before them. We train her body every day. Who is intentionally training her mind?
Sources: CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023; The Confidence Code for Girls / Ypulse, 2018; Women's Sports Foundation; NCAA, 2022–23. Mental fitness supports development; it does not replace clinical care. In a crisis, call or text 988.
Being mentally strong
is not about wanting it.
It has to be practiced. Trained. Repped. And built into a system.
02 · The sandbox
Sport is still the best sandbox we have.
Athletics is the safest place a young woman will ever rehearse the hardest moments of her life. A bad call trains emotional control. A missed shot trains the next-play response. A reduced role trains adaptability.
94%
of women in the C-suite played sport
34% vs 23%
of former youth athletes score high on grit, vs. non-athletes
90% / 0%
Coaches say the game is up to 90% mental. Most programs spend close to 0% of practice training it.
g = 0.81
A large, significant effect for structured mental-toughness training. It's coachable, like a jump shot.
Sources: EY / espnW; Ohio State (~4,000 adults); 2024 systematic review & meta-analysis, 10 studies.
03 · The practice plan
Mental fitness is three kinds of training.
A complete athlete is built with conditioning, a playbook and situational practice. The mind needs all three.
01
Mental Conditioning
Daily reps that build the mindset muscles, like strength and conditioning for the mind.
02
Mental Frameworks
Routines for before, during and after: the pre-game primer, the reset routine, the debrief. A playbook for the mind.
03
Situational Training
Rehearsing the missed free throw, the bad call, getting subbed out, before they happen. A scrimmage for the mind.
= Mental Fitness: trained daily, scored like a workout, built on neuroplasticity.
For coaches & athletic directors
6 tactics to use at your next practice.
01
Put the mind on the practice plan
Pick a mindset of the day, like adaptability, and talk about it 5 or 6 times in the first minutes of practice.
02
Rehearse adversity before it happens
Twice a week, walk through the missed shot, the bad call, the deficit. Practice the response, not just the play.
03
Teach one reset routine
A breath, a cue word, a physical reset. Get her out of a negative state in nine seconds, not nine minutes.
04
Praise the process out loud
Effort, courage and bounce-back, not only the stat line. What you celebrate is what she reps.
05
Teach identity traits
Give every player something she can be elite at: best communicator, best body language, best at handling adversity.
06
Make adversity your team's identity
"We're adversity beasts. Setbacks are when we shine." Say it 100 times this season.
For parents
6 tactics to use after her next game.
01
Win the car ride home
Skip the replay. Try "I love watching you play," then let her decide if she wants to talk about the game.
02
Separate her worth from her stat line
She should never wonder whether a bad game changes how you see her.
03
Ask better questions
"What's one rep you're proud of?" "What did you learn?" Reflection beats critique.
04
Model the reset
After puberty, kids learn more from what they see than what they hear. Let her see how you handle your own bad days.
05
Coach the lens, not the score
Find two moments in the game that tie to real life, and praise her for working through them on the floor.
06
Run the 3 × 3 reflection
After every game: what she did well, what she learned, what she can improve. Three bullets each, written or spoken.
Key moments
Inside the replay.
0:00Welcome, speakers and what you'll walk away with
5:28Why today's athletes face 10,000 comparisons a day
9:11A weight room for the mind
13:23Girls are carrying more than ever
14:49The world got easier. Growing up didn't.
16:31The confidence cliff at high school
25:25Sport is still the best sandbox we have
31:42The three kinds of mental fitness training
37:02The reflection habit that changes a season
38:346 tactics for coaches
43:246 tactics for parents
48:31Your free tools and next steps
Parents · Free Parent Toolkit
10 tools for parents of youth sport athletes
Every parent who attended gets the full toolkit. Missed it live? Just ask.
- Featured: The Car Ride
- What's Holding Them Back
- Identity Beyond the Sport
- What Will They Be Remembered For?
- Which Parent Are You?
- Building Your Season Together
- How to Talk About Competition
- Commitment & Buy-In at Home
- Stop · Keep · Start
- Role Acceptance & Expectations
Coaches & ADs
Coach Forward 7
Our 7-day boot camp on mission and purpose, built from our coach-burnout prevention series. It helps you lead, not just manage.
Want this for your girls' programs? Talk to us and we'll build it with you.
Mental Edge Academy
Give her a weight room for the mind.
Daily mental fitness workouts, sport-specific rehearsals and 104 live coaching sessions a year, across the 15 mindsets most predictive of athletic success.
The season is the sandbox. The adversity is the equipment. The practice plan provides the reps. Life is where she'll use them.