5 Things You Should Do When Cutting a Student-Athlete, According to Student-Athletes

Cutting student-athletes is always difficult, but learning from their experience can provides us a guide to do it better.

As a coach at any level, you have cut student-athletes from your program. And regardless of how carefully you will recruit and manage your roster in the future, you will need to cut again.

I was able to survey nearly 400 student-athletes (statistically valid for the student-athlete population of 550,000) who had been cut during their college career. Most of them are now “former” student-athletes, while others transferred to a different institution in order to keep playing.

From #5 to #1, here are the The 5 Things You Should Do When Cutting a Student-Athlete, According to Student-Athletes.


#5 Have only the Head Coach and the appropriate Assistant Coach present.

The common theme - or emotion - that Student-Athletes share about being cut is not anger or disbelief, but rather embarrassment. 88% of student-athletes cite feeling embarrassed by being cut and they don’t want the conversation turned more public than it needs to be. It goes without saying that a cut should be done face to face.

45% of student-athletes said it was very important that the Head Coach and their assistant or position coach be the only people in attendance. They don’t want anyone else there, including other assistant coaches or staff.


#4 Do not tell a player they are not a good player; tell them they are not right for your program.

Again this goes back to the embarrassment the student-athlete is feeling. 55% of student-athletes said that they were further embarrassed by their coaches telling them that they were “not good enough” to play in their program.

About 70% of student-athletes said they were surprised by being cut, because they had not been given any sort of performance improvement plan or specific goals to meet.


#3 From start to finish, stay out of public view.

Almost 60% of student-athletes reported being “escorted” from their coach’s office, locker room, or team facility after being cut. Most thought it was the coach’s genuine attempt to show empathy, but the result was still embarrassing (being seen by other players, students, and staff in what was clearly an emotional situation.)

Student-Athletes surveyed didn’t want to clean out their locker at that moment. They wanted to come back at another time or have a former teammate or team manager do it for them.


#2 Give the student-athlete hope & help.

If it’s true, a coach can tell the student-athlete that making the cut was a hard decision. That said, 22% of student-athletes in my survey said that, “the coach made the cut/the conversation about them (the coach.)” In other words, while it can be helpful for the coach to indicate how hard it was for them to make the decision, it’s always much harder for the student-athlete!

69% of student-athletes said that the coaching staff offered to help them find another institution/program if they wished.


#1 No surprises: tell the rest of the team precisely what you told the now former player.

Communication - first between the coach/player and then between the coach and the rest of the team - needs to be clear and precise. Student-Athletes want to know how and when the coach will communicate to the team about the cut. And of course players want their dignity and reputation to stay intact.

81% of student-athletes said that they wanted to know from the coach exactly what they intended to say to the team. And it was that communication that proved to be the most important factor in them leaving the program on good terms.