An Olympic Snowboarder Got Brutally Honest About Leaving Her Toxic Coach—And It’s the Wake-Up Call We All Need

Maddie Mastro is a three-time Olympian, the first woman to land a double crippler in halfpipe competition, a Crystal Globe champion, and one of TikTok’s most-followed athletes with over 650K followers. But behind the record-breaking tricks and viral moments is a story that’s way more relatable than you’d think.

On The Squeeze, host Tay Lautner sits down with the professional snowboarder for a real conversation about the part of elite sports people don’t usually see—the mental game. Whether you’re battling self-doubt, trying not to burn out, or figuring out what success actually looks like for you, the insights that emerge feel like a deep exhale for anyone who’s ever had to get out of their own head.

Below are highlights adapted from the episode.

How did snowboarding even become your life?

“I grew up in a small town outside of L.A. called Wrightwood. There’s a small mountain called Mountain High that’s about five minutes down the road…that was like our backyard. So it was just what you kind of did on the weekends in the winter…It was just a part of our family in a way of being outside, of being outdoors…and I got pretty lucky with that…

…I don’t think it really clicked in my head until I was on a podium of a professional contest…That was probably…15 or 16. That’s when it kind of clicked that this could be my career…I had a very normal life—I went to high school. I continued playing soccer and doing other things. So, it wasn’t until I was fully thrown into it that it clicked that this could be my career if I wanted it to be…

…There’s a lot of… sacrifice…no longer playing other sports, not going to public or in-person high school anymore, like going homeschooled…traveling most of the year, doing school around the clock…When you’re 15, 16, 17, it looks a lot like that…

…[My parents] were definitely supportive like, ‘If this is what you want to do, we got you, but at the end of the day, we really don’t care what you do as long as you’re happy with your decision.’ So, they were really supportive in that sense.”

You have this mantra: ‘It’s not that serious, it’s just snowboarding.’ Where did that come from?

“It started…maybe a year or two years ago. I think it started because I was getting in this place where there was a lot of mental stuff going into it and it was becoming this really serious thing, when snowboarding for me is genuinely not that serious…sometimes life is not that serious. Like it’s not that deep. I feel like it stemmed from that thing of like, ‘It’s not that deep.’ I’m literally strapping a piece of wood to my feet and riding it down a mountain right now. It’s not that serious. It’s not that deep. I’m going to be happy afterwards. I have a good life otherwise. So it’s not that serious. And it just kind of helped calm me down in the moment when it feels like there’s these huge things in front of me that are life or death when they’re really not.”

How do you mentally commit to a trick when your brain is screaming ‘NOPE’?

“I don’t think any of us are immune to being scared. I mean, maybe there’s probably some action sports athletes who are immune to fear. But I am not one of those people. It’s definitely scary…

…It’s a lot of self-talk of mentally self-talking and making sure that internal narrative is the right one for the situation of trying these really scary tricks. So a lot of self-talk happens. And then I feel like there’s always that one that haunts you where you didn’t really commit and it didn’t go well because you didn’t commit. So I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do that again.’ So I’m going to commit from now on and do it right.”

Let’s talk about the head shave. What was actually going on behind that decision?

“People were messaging my mom like, ‘Is she okay?’…asking if I was okay mentally, if I was having some type of breakdown, which I was genuinely not having a breakdown. I had thought about shaving my head for a long time—for like four or five years—and I had always put it off because I did really put a lot of my value and image and my brand into my [hair]. I had really long blonde hair. And I just wanted to see what it was like to not have that…

…I struggled with acne for a long time too, and I always pushed it off because I was like, ‘I’ll shave my head when I have clear skin,’ or…‘when I’m feeling confident in my body.’ And all these different things…One day I woke up and I was like, that’s silly. I could have acne when I’m 45 or—hopefully not the case—but I could never be comfortable in my body ever. And so then I’ll never get to do this thing that I’ve wanted to do for so long because of these really silly things. And so I just shaved it off and I highly recommend shaving your head. Everyone should shave their head. It sounds very extreme, but it’s so good and so nice.”

You’ve been open about being in a toxic coaching relationship. What finally made you realize something was really wrong?

“When I really realized it wasn’t good was [when] I had left the relationship pretty much completely. And some time afterward when I started to unpack it, it was still lingering…that’s when I started therapy…That’s when I realized it wasn’t good. It was very, very bad. So it took some time because I didn’t fully grasp what was happening when I was in it by any means…

…It was kind of like a final blowout where there was a pretty big incident that I was like, ‘No, this is not okay. This is affecting my snowboarding now. Like, you’re ruining my day.’ My coach should never be the reason my days are getting ruined…They should never be a reason I go up to training and I don’t get what I want done because a coach is doing something unprofessional and is not being a coach…

…That was the final day where I was like, ‘No, this is now affecting what I want and my snowboarding, which is why we’re here…I’m here to snowboard. I’m here to learn stuff. I’m here to get better. You’re my coach. You’re supposed to help me do that, and you’re not helping me do that right now. So this is not going to work.’ But I didn’t realize the gravity of why it wasn’t working until I had already left the situation and I looked back on the relationship and I was like, ‘Woah, that was crazy.’..

…I didn’t even realize that was happening…My desire to achieve my goals was so huge that I was like, ‘I will do anything to get there.’ And it was like, ‘If I’m going to suffer for five years in this toxic coaching relationship, then if that’s what it takes—that’s what it takes then I guess to achieve my goals,’ which, you don’t have to suffer to achieve your goals.”

Want to catch the full conversation? Tune into The Squeeze with Tay and Taylor Lautner, streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

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