Yes, I’m serious: I know a college head coach who, after his team played poorly, blamed it on their menstrual cycles and then insisted that every player fill out a form detailing when they had their last period. That is a serious Wankah move. Never ask for your players menstrual cycles.
If you ask players for their menstrual cycles, you’re not “being data-driven” or “dialed in to performance.” You’re crossing a line. You’re turning a deeply personal aspect of an athlete’s body into something they have to justify to you, and you’re sending a message that their performance is suspect unless they disclose intimate details. That’s not leadership or positive team culture, that’s an ugly form of control.
Could there be rare contexts where menstrual cycle tracking is relevant? Maybe. I can imagine an individual endurance sport, or a highly specialized performance environment, where an athlete voluntarily works with a trusted medical or performance professional to help them plan training around their cycle. Even then, it should be athlete-driven, medically informed, confidential, and never a blanket requirement for everyone on the team.
For every team sport context, especially in youth, high school, and college environments, coaches have no business collecting menstrual data on their players. If you care about performance and well-being, focus on things that actually build trust and safety: communication, recovery, role clarity, mental health, and making sure your players feel valued as people—not as data points.
So this week’s Wankah Award goes to the coach who blamed poor play on periods and then made his team hand over their cycle information. Don’t be that coach. Period.
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Am I wrong on this one? Coaches, athletes, and support staff—tell me what you think in the comments below.