It probably didn’t take you long to figure out that life isn’t fair, right? Can you think back to when you realized this? It might have been in your early adult years, or maybe even when you were a teenager. Maybe your parents got divorced, or maybe you got passed over for a promotion at your job and your bosses gave the position to some dipstick with a brain like a retarded clam. Whatever the case, we’ve all found out how easy it is to get screwed over, even when you’re doing the right thing and you don’t deserve it.

Weightlifting is another great place to learn this truth because it’s pretty obvious that athletic talent isn’t given out equally, or even fairly. We’re all born with a certain level of lifting ability. The only difference between us is the amount. Some people are so gifted that it feels like they were sent from another planet (e.g., Ilya Ilin). Others can barely stand up straight and cough at the same time. Most of us are somewhere between those two points.

Sometimes, the people who have the highest levels of natural ability are the ones who…well, it just doesn’t seem like they deserve it because of their attitudes. You know who I’m talking about. They’re amazingly talented, but they’re also lazy or have crappy personalities. They’re not the ones you want to see at the top, but that’s where they wind up because they were born with gifts that almost nobody else has.

On a personal level, this is just something you have to ignore. You can’t do anything about it, so you have to focus on bettering yourself and forget about the jerkoffs. However, it’s a little different when you’re a coach and these are your athletes we’re talking about. What I specifically want to look at in this article is the coaching dilemma, “What should you do when your best athletes aren’t your best leaders?”

You see, your best athletes will always be the leaders of the gym, at least to a certain extent. The people who are lifting the biggest weights and having the most success will constantly get a lot of attention from others. There’s no way around that. For better or worse, everybody is going to look up to the studs. It’s human nature. The situations where this can become a problem are when those studs have attitude problems. If your top lifters are lazy, mouthy, or whatever… everybody in the gym is going to notice it. Clearly, there are a variety of problems that can come from this. First, your people might all start to think that they’ve got a free pass to act the same way the talented idiot does. A general feeling of, “If he gets away with it, I should, too” could start to grow. Second, everybody may start to lose their respect for you, the coach, if you’re not doing a good job of controlling and disciplining the talented idiot. Because of these risks, and several others, it’s pretty damn important that you have an effective approach for maintaining the collective attitude in your program, and everybody who’s involved with it.

When your best athletes aren’t your best leaders… It doesn’t take long to find examples of this. In fact, I’m going to tell you a little story to illustrate it.

Betty and Veronica…

I need to write this part of the article carefully, because I’m gonna talk about some real people. These are two female lifters I used to know, and both were top national-international level athletes whose names would be pretty recognizable to anybody who has been around for a while. I’ll give them aliases to protect their identities. Let’s call them Betty and Veronica.

Betty was the ultimate example of a supremely talented athlete who had pathetic work ethic and a lousy attitude. I didn’t train with her personally, but she was notorious on the national scene for her laziness. Most of her teammates disliked her because, according to the stories I heard from multiple sources, she blew off her workouts, whined constantly, and started hellacious drama in the gym with her mouth. Her platform behavior at national meets made these rumors pretty easy to believe. When you watched her, it was like watching these prima donna professional athletes we see in the NFL, NBA, or wherever. I think the only people who supported and cheered for her were the ones who were just as lame and stupid as she was. But despite all of this, she could break records and win championships on the platform. She was naturally gifted in a way few people are.

Now, she had a close competitor in her weight class who we’ll call Veronica. Veronica was the polar opposite of Betty, plain and simple. She had a lot of talent and ability, no doubt about it, but nothing like Betty had. The only reason why Veronica could compete nose-to-nose with Veronica was her work ethic. Everybody knew that Veronica was one of the most disciplined, hard-working athletes we had in our national program. She rose to the top of our ranking list through sheer force of will. In addition to this, Veronica was a pretty likeable gal. I knew her pretty well and I never saw any attitude garbage that rubbed me the wrong way. She was easy to get along with and seemed pretty humble. I think most of the people from those days had a lot of respect for her.

She and Betty had some intense battles on the platform. They went at it more than once and, fortunately, Veronica usually won. It was nice to watch because you knew Veronica deserved victory more than Betty. She had to work like a pack mule to stay ahead, because Betty’s incredible God-given talent always put her in a position to take a shot at the win.

If you’re a coach, hopefully you’re going to have more Veronicas than Bettys in your career. If you have Veronicas, your job is going to be pretty easy. These are the athletes who will work their asses off, have a lot of success, and still maintain a positive, loyal attitude that makes your program better and reduces your headaches. They’ll make the whole thing fun, and you won’t have to worry about them leading your other athletes in a bad direction.

However, the sucky part of this conversation is that you’re almost guaranteed to have a few Bettys if you stay in coaching long enough. It’s unavoidable, really. Life just doesn’t stay easy forever. So when the Bettys come through your door, here are some suggestions for how to handle them:

Tip #1: Be prepared.

I hate to say it, but the first thing you need to do with a Betty athlete is understand that they could quit on you at any time. These types of personalities have no concept of loyalty or gratitude for the hard work you’ve put into them. Also, they probably don’t respect (or even believe) the fact that you, the coach, are one of the main reasons why they’ve had success. Even if they’re insanely talented, they still needed to be taught and guided along. You did that, but they don’t really appreciate it. So my advice would be to always keep it in the back of your mind that a Betty is never more than one step away from taking a dump on you. They’ll either quit lifting entirely or they’ll switch coaches. It hurts the same either way, but it’ll be easier to swallow if you’re not totally blindsided.

Tip #2: Don’t sell your soul.

Obviously, the Betty athlete is somebody you would like to keep coaching. They’ve got huge ability. You, the coach, want to work with athletes who can win championships. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that. We’re all competitive and we want our people to stand on the top of the medal podium. So you want to keep Betty on your team roster, but it’s painfully clear that there are going to be difficulties because of the attitude and work ethic. As a coach, there’s a concept known as “selling your soul to the devil.” This refers to a time when a coach simply gives up any efforts at discipline and just lets the Betty athletes do whatever the hell they want as long as they keep winning. There’s no attempt to control or correct any of Betty’s bulls—t. Everybody knows that Betty is going to win championships, and the coaches are willing to let her get away with murder as long as they get to be standing next to the chalk box when she nails those big lifts. Please make sure you understand that this is the fastest way to lose the respect of your other athletes. Believe me, they’ll know what’s going on. And once they’ve figured out that you’ve sold your soul, it’s just a matter of time before they walk. You can quickly find yourself in an empty gym with just you and Betty. And as we mentioned, she’s never more than one temper tantrum away from kicking you to the curb. Then you’ve got nothing.

Tip #3: Celebrate the ones who deserve it.

Try to find ways to recognize and honor the people who aren’t your best lifters but ARE your best leaders. These are the ones who might never make it to Betty’s level because they don’t have that kind of natural ability, but they contribute huge amounts to your program through their behavior and commitment. You might need to get creative to figure out ways to do this. An easy idea would be to make up some kind of monthly gym awards you give out to your athletes, and make one of them a “leadership” award or a “work ethic” award. Make a big deal out of presenting these to people. Get the whole gym to stop what they’re doing for a quick ten-minute awards ceremony before a workout on the last day of the month or whatever, and give out the awards. Talk them up and make a big deal out of it. The award itself could be something serious (gift certificate or plaque) or something fun (a milkshake or a beer). Whatever specifics you decide on, the point is that you’re showing appreciation to the people who have busted their ass the hardest for you. You’ll be amazed at the results.

And for the rest of you…

This subject obviously applies most directly to coaches. Some of you are athletes who don’t do any coaching, so here are a few words for you. First, there’s a pretty good possibility that you’ll do some coaching someday if you’re an athlete. It works out like this most of the time, so these thoughts and tips could come in handy someday. Second, you can use this subject as a kind of self-diagnosis. Which type of athlete are you? What are the qualities that define you the most as a lifter? What would a coach say about you if an honest answer was guaranteed? Some heightened awareness of your own identity is never a bad thing.

This used to bother me a lot as an athlete. I was definitely a Veronica type (it sounds funny for a guy to say that, but you know what I mean). I wasn’t born with talent from another galaxy. I had ability, but not the kind that was going to get me on the Olympic Team in four years just by showing up at the gym and following my workouts. And when I saw Betty athletes passing me by when they hadn’t invested the same time and pain as me, it was hard to swallow. I got bitter sometimes because the whole damn thing was just unfair. The biggest rewards should go to the people who work the hardest. I believed then, and I still do, that I was working harder than most other lifters.

Some of you might feel the same way. You might be an athlete who has to live with a Betty in the gym every day. Or you might be a coach with a bleeding ulcer because some Betty is clobbering your gym’s morale through laziness and sass. Hey, there’s one more thing we need to mention in addition to the tips we looked at above. As a coach, there might be a time when you need to kick somebody out of your program. If you’ve got a Betty and the situation just gets to be more than you can stand, you may have to pull the plug. They say you should never give up on people. Okay, sure. That sounds good on paper. But I believe that there are times when relationships have to be ended. When does that time come? When the grief outweighs the rewards. Or when you start to compromise your self-respect. Once you cross these lines, you start having a hard time looking yourself in the mirror.

This whole thing will be a lot more fun if you build stronger bonds with the people who deserve it the most. Whether they’re going to win championships or not, your hardest workers can still be your leaders if you set your program up the right way.