Building a Culture of Passion and Enjoyment: The Foundation of Performance

As well as being the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach for Netball Ireland and a professional Track & Field coach, I have the honour of wearing another hat. That of a PE teacher. It’s a role I’ve now been in at my current school for just under a year, and one that’s given me an entirely different perspective on what truly drives performance and growth in young athletes.

At my current school, I have an input in every sport however, the real focus and passion is in the programmes I lead and oversee which are Cross-Country, Athletics and this Term, as you might expect, the Netball Programme, working with year groups that range anywhere from 20 to 35 girls. It’s a smaller cohort compared to previous boarding schools I’ve been part of, where I might have had 60 or more girls in a single year group. And yes, in this smaller pool, Netball isn’t everyone’s favourite sport, and that’s completely fine.

Because what this environment has given me is something special: a group of girls who genuinely don't just like the game, they LOVE it.

Where Passion Meets Opportunity

This season, something quite remarkable has unfolded. Let’s take my Year 9 team as the main group for this example. They might not be the most experienced or technically polished group, but they’ve thrown themselves completely into the team environment.

Their first match of the season ended in a 26–6 victory. Their first win, according to them, in several years. The smiles, the energy and the pride that came with that result were infectious.

But what’s been even more inspiring is what’s happened since that win. The girls have become obsessed in the best possible way, with getting better. They’ve started asking thoughtful questions about positioning, timing and how to improve specific skills. They’ve shown initiative, drive and curiosity.

I have decided to give every player a netball to take home over the half-term break, encouraging them to keep the momentum going. One girl has since convinced her parents to buy her a netball post so she can work on her shooting. A small group of defenders has organised to meet up during the holidays to practise interceptions and back-line structure.

These are Year 9 girls... not professionals, not scholarship athletes, but young players who are beginning to fall in love with both the process and the team around them.

What we’ve built here is more than a team - it’s a culture.

Culture isn’t just what you say as a coach; it’s what your athletes feel when they walk into training or a PE Lesson. It’s the sense of belonging, shared purpose and mutual respect that turns a collection of individuals into something far greater than the sum of their parts.

When a strong culture exists, effort becomes natural, and accountability becomes shared. Players stop working for the coach and start working for each other. They begin to see improvement not as an obligation but as an opportunity.

And here’s the key in my opinion, culture can outplay skill.

A team that loves what they do, that shows up, supports one another, and plays with enthusiasm and trust will often outperform a technically superior team that lacks unity and passion. Skill can be taught. Systems can be learned. But buy-in, now that emotional connection to the process and the people has to be earned and nurtured.

Netball Fever Sweeps the School

What’s been even more remarkable is how this culture has swept through the entire school we’re calling it Netball Fever! Other year groups have started to take notice of the Year 9s’ energy and enthusiasm. The junior school has even had a netball post installed on their playground, and now every break and lunchtime you’ll find groups of pupils out there practising their shooting, laughing and challenging each other.

It’s not that we’ve deliberately “taught” this culture, it’s simply happened. The passion and excitement from one team have become contagious, rippling outward in a way that no amount of structured coaching could have achieved.

Passion as a Performance Multiplier

Enjoyment is the ignition switch of performance. When athletes enjoy the process, they invest more energy, show greater resilience and develop faster. It’s the emotional fuel that turns potential into progress.

You can’t force passion, but you can create environments that allow it to grow. Environments where players feel valued, where progress is noticed, and where mistakes are treated as part of learning rather than signs of failure.

What’s been most rewarding about this Year 9 group isn’t just their improvement on the scoreboard - it’s their shift in mindset. They now carry themselves like a team that believes in itself. They communicate better, they support each other, and they’ve developed a sense of shared identity that didn’t exist before. Because this team is a team made up of students who aren't and wouldn't be your traditional group of friends off the Netball court.

Beyond Skill: The Human Side of Development

It’s easy in sport to obsess over tactics, technique and physical metrics. But culture, that emotional fabric of a team is the invisible force that makes everything else stick. It determines how players respond to challenge, how they handle pressure and how they approach growth.

The best athletes I’ve ever worked with, whether international netballers, sprinters or young students share one thing: they enjoy what they do. Their passion fuels consistency, and that consistency paves the way to building mastery.

That’s what this group is beginning to understand. They might not yet have elite netball IQ, but they have something just as valuable - a foundation of enthusiasm, teamwork, and self-driven learning.

And in my opinion that’s how great teams are built.

In a world where sport can sometimes become over-structured and outcome-focused, this experience has been a refreshing reminder: if you can create a culture of passion and enjoyment, performance will follow.

The wins will come. The skills will sharpen. But more importantly, you’ll have a group of young athletes who genuinely love the process and that is where true development begins.