Passing the Ball Back: What Great Recovery Coaching Really Does
- Calliese Alexandra Conner
- Apr 30
- 9 min read
There is a moment in every coaching conversation where the coach has a choice.
Someone looks at you and says, “I don’t know what to do.” Or, “What would you do if you were me?” And in that moment, something subtle but significant happens.
The ball lands in your hands.
As coaches, helpers, and professionals, something in us often wants to move quickly. To offer advice. To give direction. To tell the person what worked for us. To reach across the space between us and hand them a solution.
That instinct often comes from care. We want to help. We want to ease discomfort. We want the person in front of us to feel less stuck, less alone, and less overwhelmed.
But recovery coaching asks something deeper of us.
It asks us to notice the quiet moment where support can become control, where kindness can become rescuing, and where our desire to help can accidentally take someone further away from their own voice.
Great coaching is not about becoming the person with the answer.
It is about helping someone reconnect with their own agency, wisdom, choice, and capacity.
In other words, we pass the ball back.
The coaching principle people often struggle with
Often, when I am training Recovery Coaches and other professionals, I notice that one of the foundational principles people struggle with most is treating people as a resource.
They want to be useful. They want to say the right thing. They want the person they are supporting to leave the conversation feeling helped.
But this is where recovery coaching requires a different kind of discipline.
If I want to help shape great coaches and high-quality professional support, I cannot only teach the words of the principle. I have to keep discovering ways to help people understand it in their practice, and in the real moment when someone is sitting in front of them asking, “What do I do?”
Recently, I found myself reflecting on that very question: How do I help people understand what it really means to treat someone as a resource?
And the image that came to mind was sport.
Football. Basketball. Volleyball. Any game where the ball moves from one person to another.
I grew up watching football. I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan, so the image of passing the ball came quickly.
I started thinking about those high-pressure moments in a game. The final quarter. Seconds left on the clock. The quarterback has the ball in his hands. He is reading the field, sensing the pressure, deciding where to move, where to pass, and what play to make next.
In that moment, no matter how skilled the coach is, the coach cannot run onto the field and make the play for him.
The coach may have prepared him. Guided him. Trained him. Challenged him. Encouraged him.
But the player is the one holding the ball.
The player is the one who has to read the field.
The player is the one who has to move.
That is our role in coaching.
Our role is not to take the ball and run it ourselves. Our role is to pass it back so the person can make the play.
What does “passing the ball back” mean in recovery coaching?
In recovery coaching, passing the ball back means returning ownership to the person being coached.
It means recognizing that the person in front of us is not a problem to fix, but a human being with capacity, context, history, hopes, preferences, strengths, and choices.
Recovery coaching is about creating the kind of environment where someone can hear themselves more clearly, explore what matters, identify what is possible, and move forward with ownership.
That word matters: ownership.
Because ultimately, we can’t do it for someone. We can walk alongside. We can listen deeply. We can ask purposeful questions. We can reflect what we hear. We can notice strengths. We can support connection. We can help someone explore pathways, resources, and possibilities.
But we cannot live their life for them.
We cannot score on their behalf and call it empowerment.
At some point, the ball has to be in their hands.
And our skill as coaches is measured by whether the person leaves the conversation more connected to their own power, not dependent on ours.
When the coach keeps the ball
Let’s imagine someone says: “What would you do if you were me?”
If I keep the ball, I might respond with: “Well, I would probably avoid that situation. I would speak to someone I trust. I would make a plan. I would do this, then this, then this.”
That may sound helpful. It may even be well-intentioned.
But notice what has happened.
I am now running with the ball. My thinking has become the center. My experience has become the reference point. My solution has become the direction.
The person may leave with an answer, but not necessarily with more confidence in their own ability to find one.
And this is one of the quiet risks in the profession of supporting others.
We can accidentally make ourselves the resource. We can accidentally train people to look outward before they look inward. We can accidentally communicate, “I know better than you.”
Even when our hearts are in the right place.
That is not coaching. That is taking possession of the ball.
The deeper question is: Did I help this person come closer to themselves, or did I make them more dependent on me?
What this says about us
And this pattern is not limited to recovery coaching.
Across many roles, sectors, and settings, we can see how easily people are treated as problems to solve, risks to manage, behaviours to correct, or decisions waiting to be made by someone else.
Parents can do it with children. Teachers can do it with students. Clinical professionals can do it with patients. Leaders can do it with staff. Systems can do it with whole communities.
Often, it comes from care, responsibility, pressure, or a desire to protect. But the impact can still be the same: the person’s own voice, wisdom, and agency get pushed to the side.
So when we talk about treating people as a resource, we are not only talking about a coaching skill.
We are talking about a cultural shift.
A shift from fixing people to listening to them.
From managing people to partnering with them.
From assuming incapacity to looking for capacity.
From holding power over someone to helping them reconnect with the power within themselves.
Being a good Coach is a way to BE in the world. Because it is a different way of BEING with people.
What it looks like to pass the ball back
Passing the ball back sounds different.
It might sound like:
“What options have you already considered?”
“What do you think you could do in that situation?”
“What matters to you most right now?”
“What support do you think you need right now?”
“What has helped you move through something like this before?”
“What feels like the next right step for you?”
These questions are invitations. They say, “I believe there is something within you worth listening to.” That is the difference.
Advice often says, “Here is what I think.”
Coaching asks, “What are you discovering?”
Advice can create movement. Coaching helps create ownership.
The Art of Coaching
Of course, passing the ball back does not mean throwing it at someone with no care, as if we’re in a dodgeball tournament.
This is where the art of coaching comes in.
A good pass is thoughtful. It meets the person where they are. It considers pace, readiness, timing, emotion, context, and trust.
Sometimes someone is overwhelmed, and the ball needs to be passed gently.
Sometimes someone is circling their own answer, and the coach simply reflects it back.
Sometimes someone is asking for advice because they have forgotten they have options.
Sometimes someone has been told for so long that they are the problem that they can no longer see themselves as the solution.
So we do not simply say, “Well, what are you going to do?” and call that coaching.
We listen. We reflect. We ask with warmth. We slow the moment down. We help them notice what is already there.
Coaching asks more of us than a set of questions. It is presence, restraint, discernment, humility, belief and trust.
A coach can learn the right language and still miss the person.
A coach can ask a technically good question and still be trying to control the outcome.
A coach can sound supportive while quietly pulling the ball back into their own hands.
The work is deeper than technique.
It is about who we become in the presence of another person’s uncertainty.
A simple way to check yourself
When you are supporting someone, quietly ask yourself: Am I holding the ball, or am I helping them hold it?
That one question can change the whole conversation.
If you are giving too much advice, you may be holding the ball.
If you are rushing to solve, you may be holding the ball.
If you are trying to prove your value, you may be holding the ball.
If your story, your solution, or your urgency has become the center, you may be holding the ball.
But if your questions help the person think, choose, reflect, notice, and take ownership, you are probably passing it back.
That is the work.
To support in a way that strengthens the person’s relationship with their own capacity.
The ball is in their court, but we still walk beside them
I believe this metaphor stayed with me because so much of coaching lives in this tension.
We are involved, but not in control.
We are supportive, but not rescuing.
We are present, but not overpowering.
We are useful, but not the source of someone else’s wisdom.
That is not always easy, especially when we care.
But great coaching requires us to trust that people are more than their stuckness, more than their uncertainty, and more than the moment they are in.
It asks us to see the potential in them, even when they cannot yet see it in themselves.
So yes, we support.
Yes, we walk alongside.
Yes, we help create the conditions for growth, reflection, choice, and movement.
But when it comes to agency, ownership, and the next right step, we remember: We are not here to take the shot for them. We are here to pass the ball back.
Reflective questions for coaches and professionals
The next time you are supporting someone and feel the urge to jump in with advice, pause and ask yourself: Am I holding the ball, or am I passing it back?
Am I making myself necessary, or am I helping this person discover their own answers?
Am I trying to solve the moment, or am I supporting their long-term confidence, choice, and self-discovery?
Coaching is not about proving how much we know.
It is about helping someone reconnect with what they know, what they value, what they choose, and what they are ready to do next.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can do as coaches is not to give someone the answer.
Sometimes it is to help them realize they were holding the ball the whole time.
Because the ball was never ours to keep.
The game is life
Last night, on a FaceTime call with Phil Valentine, who plays many roles in my life as a coach, mentor, friend, and more, he reminded me of something simple:
“Our role as coaches is to prepare the players to enjoy the game. And the game is life.”
That really hit home. Because perhaps that is the heart of what this is really about.
How fortunate are we to play a small role in helping someone build confidence, trust, and the capacity to participate in their own life.
To read the field.
To make choices.
To move through situations and circumstances.
To notice support around them.
To keep playing the game.
And maybe, most importantly, to remember they are already on the field.
Calliese Alexandra Conner
If you work with people, this is part of the work.
Whether you are coaching, leading, teaching, mentoring, parenting, supporting, managing, or walking alongside someone in a difficult season, the question is the same: Are we helping people come closer to their own wisdom, capacity, and choice?
At Recovery Coach Academy, we help coaches and professionals strengthen the skills that sit underneath meaningful support: listening, questioning, self-awareness, trust, boundaries, and the ability to treat people as the resource they already are.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What does it mean to treat someone as a resource in recovery coaching?
Treating someone as a resource means recognising that the person has strengths, wisdom, lived experience, values, preferences, and recovery potential within them. The coach supports the person to explore their own options rather than taking over or giving all the answers.
What does “passing the ball back” mean in coaching?
“Passing the ball back” means returning ownership to the person being coached. Instead of solving the problem for them, the coach asks questions that help the person reconnect with their own insight, agency, and next steps.
Is recovery coaching the same as giving advice?
No. Recovery coaching is not primarily about giving advice. It is about asking good questions, listening deeply, supporting autonomy, and helping people identify their own goals, choices, strengths, and possibilities.
Why is autonomy important in recovery coaching?
Autonomy matters because recovery is personal. People are more likely to build sustainable recovery when they are supported to make choices that align with their own values, needs, strengths, and circumstances.
What skills does a good recovery coach need?
A good recovery coach needs active listening, purposeful questioning, self-awareness, empathy, boundaries, cultural humility, and the ability to support someone without rescuing, directing, or taking over.
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