Nate Baker's Newsletter #174 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches Is This What You Envisioned Coaching Would Be? May 22, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 6-7 minutes By Nate Baker So much of coaching is about remaining directionally correct. When you started your journey, you were: Idealistic Principled Motivated And in love with the game. You wanted to create the...
8 days ago • 8 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #173 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches Parents Are Not the Problem. They’re the Lever. May 15, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 6-7 minutes By Nate Baker Parents are the primary scapegoats of a broken soccer culture… That they were never equipped to navigate in the first place. There are bad actors. Ones that ruin their own child’s experience...
15 days ago • 7 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #172 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches The 11 Gifts We Give Our Players (After the Final Match) May 8, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 5 minutes By Nate Baker My team’s season ends tomorrow. And I wish it didn’t. But every season has “seasons” to it. There’s a spring where new players come together and there’s an excitement. A summer where...
22 days ago • 7 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #171 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches The Answer is Blowing in the Wind May 1, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 6 minutes By Nate Baker We did the impossible this past week. And I don’t know quite how to feel about it. In an event showcasing the best MLS and Non-MLS academies in the country, our Achilles U17 group: Went 3-0 and won the group...
29 days ago • 8 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #170 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches The Real Test of a Coach: Players 14–18 April 24, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 5 minutes By Nate Baker I was a young college assistant getting to know his new boss. We were a few days into preseason. And I was put in charge of the second group. We would be conducting an inner-squad scrimmage: starters...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #169 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches What Behavioral Psychology Says a Coach’s Real Job Is April 17, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 6-7 minutes By Nate Baker And it’s something you never learned earning your coaching licenses. But to better understand our main responsibility as Developer coaches… We need to understand every player’s...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #168 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches The Tragedy of Development April 10, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 5 minutes By Nate Baker It’s hard enough to get a group of people moving in the same direction. It’s near impossible to understand how much ground you have actually covered. If you’re a coach who feels like you’re pushing in the right...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #167 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches Sympathy For The Non-Developer April 3, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 5-6 minutes By Nate Baker The coach who has development on their heart is always at war with themselves. Fighting the internal pull of ego… So they don’t become the very coach they once swore they’d never be. Development is a choice....
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Nate Baker's Newsletter #166 "The coaching education newsletter for those dedicated to helping their people pursue their potential." The Culture Rep Essential Reading for Developer Coaches The Real Legacy of Every Coach March 27, 2026 | Browse Archive | Read time: 6-7 minutes By Nate Baker In 1957, a researcher placed rats in a cylinder of water with no way out. Most gave up in about 15 minutes. In his second trial, the researcher changed one thing. Just before the 15-minute mark, before they...
2 months ago • 6 min read