Caring coaching climates emerge as key factor in promoting high school athletes’ well-being and motivation, complimented by a task-involving climate

When coaches utilise evidence-based practices, the benefits to athletes often extend far beyond the physical. Achievement goal theory has provided insight into which coaching practices facilitate and which hinder youth development. This investigation assessed whether the perceived motivational climate (caring, task-involving, and ego-involving climates; CCs, TICs, EICs) on high school teams are related to athlete well-being and motivation. Athletes (N = 181; M = 15.71 y.o.) completed a questionnaire mid-season. For both the girls’ and boys’ teams, CCs were negatively linked to shame, psychosocial stress, and depression while TICs were positively linked to state coping appraisals and motivation to continue, after controlling for the nested structure of the data. For athletes on girls’ teams (n = 129), CCs were negatively associated with state stress appraisals and positively associated with feeling that their coach cares about what happens to them, state coping, enjoyment, and motivation to continue. For girls’ teams, TICs were positively associated with enjoyment and negatively associated with state stress and life stress. For boys’ teams, CCs were negatively associated with life stress, while EICs were negatively linked to feeling that their coach cares about what happens to them. These results suggest coaches should create CCs and TICs to elicit adaptive motivational responses and foster greater well-being in youth. More than a third (36.5%) of boys’ teams athletes and 24.0% on girls’ teams reported to some extent that their coach is one of the only adults who cares about them, underscoring the critical role coaches can play during adolescence.