Leadership stories beyond the captain’s role.
More Than An Armband is a warm interview series about how athletes learn to lead before, during, and after the big moments. Its conversations move through origin stories, setbacks, turning points, and the habits that carry from sport into life beyond the game.
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More Than An Armband is built around the belief that leadership begins long before anyone is named captain. The show follows athletes, coaches, and sports-adjacent leaders through the experiences that made that idea real for them. A typical conversation moves patiently. First comes the background. Then comes the hard part: the bench role, the injury concern, the move, the uncertainty, the moment a player has to choose effort before proof. From there, the guest’s story becomes a working lesson in confidence, character, resilience, communication, or accountability. The series has a strong soccer spine, with guests reflecting on college soccer, the USWNT, beach soccer, professional habits, and captaincy inside competitive team environments. It also leaves space for stories that travel beyond the field. Grace Leer connects leadership to songwriting, co-writing, moving to Nashville, and the discipline of simply beginning. Cathy Helin speaks to confidence and resilience for student athletes and teens. Becky Sauerbrunn’s episode lingers on the trust required when a captain represents players while still working with staff. Ali Hall’s segments return to authenticity as a source of respect. Shinya’s story centers on persistence, confidence, and the way one opportunity can change a college career. The recurring Women Leading the Way segments add context from women’s sports, including Trinity Rodman’s NWSL contract, UC Berkeley’s women’s health and performance initiative, Jessica Berman’s NWSL leadership, Allie Riley’s retirement news, and UCLA women’s basketball’s championship moment. The result is less a tactics show than a guided archive of leadership stories. It is plainspoken and emotionally close. It respects the guest’s memory. It keeps circling back to a useful question: how does a person carry what sport taught them into the rest of life?
Made for: Best for athletes, student athletes, coaches, sports parents, and women’s sports followers who like reflective interviews over hot takes. It also fits anyone interested in confidence, resilience, and team leadership.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its patient biographical shape: it lets guests tell the long version, then draws out the leadership lesson without forcing a polished speech. Its soccer and women’s sports grounding gives familiar performance topics a more personal, lived-in feel.
Leadership in sports goes far beyond the captain’s armband. It’s about stepping up, inspiring others, and making an impact—during and outside of competition. Welcome to More Than An Armband, the podcast that dives into how athletes lead during competition and how they carry those lessons into life beyond the game. From game-changing moments to navigating the next chapter of your life, we’re breaking down what it truly means to lead. Led by host and founder of Captain’s University, Anja Koehler.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Athletes and coaches turn trust, resilience, and career reinvention into practical leadership lessons grounded in decisions made under pressure.
More Than An Armband keeps returning to a practical question: how does someone exercise authority without losing trust? In one-on-one conversations, Anya Kohler draws out decisions made during competition and follows their consequences into coaching, work, and life after sport.
The captain's armband becomes rehearsal for the conversation you have been avoiding.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
An encouraging music-career story about starting before you feel ready.
Grace Leer's segment follows the slow work of building an independent music career: writing with Kyle, bringing in players one by one, managing social media, burning demo CDs, printing stickers on her mother's printer, moving to Nashville, and emailing venues until one finally…
Leadership and data frame a bench-to-starter story built on confidence and results.
The episode presents leadership as something that reaches past the captain's armband, then turns to UC Berkeley's first-of-its-kind women's health and performance initiative.
A calm, clear reminder that confidence can be taught, shared, and carried well beyond sport.
More Than An Armband makes its point without much ornament: confidence is something people learn, not something they are born fully holding. There is a mild caveat in that the piece stays more reflective than practical, but it still lands clearly.
A steady leadership story about trust, authenticity, and captaincy.
This episode keeps its focus on what leadership looks like when the title and the authority do not quite match up. Becky Sauerbrunn comes across as measured and direct as she talks through the gap between wearing the armband and earning trust, especially in the push and pull…
Rivalry panic with tactical receipts.
Angelina Anderson, Angel City FC goalkeeper and captain, says accountability works only after trust is built, using her friendship with veteran Sarah Gordon as the example.
Leone's section keeps coming back to character.
Grace Leer discusses her songwriting process, emphasizing authenticity and the importance of practice, comparing it to soccer.
Anya Kohler opens on momentum in women's sports.
This episode discusses the importance of authenticity in sports leadership and highlights Trinity Rodman's contract extension and captaincy as a milestone for women's sports.
Ali Hall discusses the importance of being authentic and accountable in leadership, using beach soccer as a backdrop, while the host highlights Trinity Rodman's contract and captaincy as examples of growing investment in women's sports.
Anya Kohler opens on leadership in sports.
Kathy Helin, owner of Bearcat Coaching and former University of Minnesota Crookston basketball player, connects her confidence work to a life spent in basketball, coaching, and business.
Allie Riley reflects on what it really means to lead when the armband is only the obvious part.
This episode discusses leadership in sports through the lens of professional soccer player Marley Canales, along with updates on the new Athletes Unlimited Softball League and the U.S.
This episode highlights Kara Lawson's leadership legacy and her appointment as head coach for Team USA at the 2025 Women's AmeriCup, emphasizing her commitment to mindset, grit, and resilience.
This episode of More Than an Armband discusses leadership in women's sports, featuring insights from the She Believes Summit with Billie Jean King and Michelle Kang.
NWSL veteran Lu Barnes discusses passing on leadership and shaping the next generation in women's soccer.