Editor’s Note: This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering leadership, personal development and performance through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here.
A few months ago, a reporter asked Liam Coen, the first-year head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, how he planned to build culture. A typical question that usually elicits a typical response.
Instead, Coen referenced a 2010 study from a pair of scientists at the University of California-Berkeley.
The study was titled “Tactile communication, cooperation, and performance: an ethological study of the NBA.” In it, the two scientists from Berkeley, Michael Kraus and Dacher Keltner, closely observed the 2008-2009 NBA season, looking for a link between physical touch and team success. They concluded that the teams with players who gave each other the most high-fives, hugs and pats on the back won more.
Coen called it an example of “the power of touch.” He explained that he viewed touch as an important part of team chemistry, and whether it was a fist bump or high five, he thought touch had the ability to bring people together. As an example, he talked about kids and how they celebrate with expression and physical gestures. That, he said, was the kind of open and celebratory environment he wanted to create in his first year.
“There’s a whole study about it that I thought was interesting,” Coen said. “Because for us to actually be connected, we’ve got to be able to high-five and celebrate and have a good time together. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
It could be easy to mock an NFL coach for prioritizing hugs and high-fives, but as it turns out, the study’s findings are a popular — and sometimes debated — topic inside professional sports.
“I’ve heard about it everywhere I’ve been, every organization,” said Joe Boylan, a longtime NBA assistant coach. “There’s always somebody who brings it up and references it.”
Like Coen, the researchers behind the study believe that touch matters. But why? Or how much? And does it align with the lived experience of players and coaches?
As graduate students at Berkeley, Michael Kraus and Dacher Keltner learned about touch in one of their lab classes. The idea that touch is a critical part of how we communicate interested Kraus.
At the time, Kraus, a doctoral student in Berkeley’s social psychology program, was playing a lot of pickup basketball. He started to think about the guys he played with and what worked as a team.
“If you’re playing well in general and you like playing with each other, there’s just a shorthand to communicating that involves touch,” he said.
That sparked an idea for a study. He and Keltner began making phone calls to the NBA league office, hoping to speak with anyone who could give them approval to analyze players’ and coaches’ behaviors involving touch. They finally reached somebody in the archives who gave the go-ahead to record games.
They selected one game per team during the first two months of the 2008‑2009 regular season and watched for every intentional, celebratory touch, documenting details about the behavior of each one. Then they used the data from the 294 players across all 30 NBA teams to predict both individual and team performance later in the season.
As the study deepened, certain moments stuck out: A player’s teammates failing to pick him up after he fell, or Steve Nash constantly high-fiving everyone on the Phoenix Suns. The study found that the Boston Celtics scored the highest of any team in terms of touch, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers; both teams won more than 60 games. Meanwhile, the Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Bobcats scored lowest and both teams missed the playoffs.
Scientists have long found that touch can trigger the release of oxytocin, also known as the “bonding hormone.” It can also relieve stress, lower blood pressure and boost immune function. Kraus believes the reason athletes respond to touch goes back to our earliest moments. Research on human brain activity when we hold hands or hug has shown reduced activation in regions of the brain associated with feelings of threat or pain. It’s among the reasons parents are encouraged to engage in skin-to-skin contact with their newborn babies.
You don’t have to look hard to find examples of touch across sports. College volleyball players come together and embrace after every point. Olympic gymnasts often follow European customs and kiss their coaches and teammates after routines. Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber is known as one of the best teammates in baseball, in part because teammates say he gives great hugs. Years ago, the Phoenix Suns even tracked the number of high-fives they gave each game.
“It might be particularly important, I would hypothesize, for men in physical sports to know that other people care,” Kraus said. “And that might be the most important communication tool.”
By the end of the season, Kraus and Keltner concluded that touch built trust and cooperation and was tied to performance. In fact, they said, their study found that the teams that touched the most also won the most.
The study became a point of conversation and has always raised the same dilemma: Were the teams good because they touched more, or did they touch more because they were good?
One of the players the study highlighted was Kevin Garnett.
Known for his leadership and intensity, Garnett stood out in the study as the “touchiest” player in the league. He constantly initiated contact with his teammates, throwing an arm around a shoulder or giving head taps. He was, in many ways, the perfect model for Kraus and Keltner’s work.
During the season the study was conducted, Joe Boylan was an intern for the Celtics, hoping to work his way up to coaching. He was around Garnett all the time. To him, Garnett’s edge and intensity stood out right away, but so did his emotional intelligence and the way he made teammates and coaches feel.
“There’s some connection between creating this high-performance environment that balances the intensity in which he worked with the psychological safety of belonging that he gave me,” Boylan said.
As the study pointed out, Boylan noted that Garnett touched and encouraged players more than anyone else on the team. It was natural for him, Boylan said.
In the years since, Boylan has coached for the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Memphis Grizzlies, the New Orleans Pelicans and the Golden State Warriors. Kraus and Keltner’s study comes up often.
“The most common response that I have heard from coaches, which I tend to agree with, is: Causation vs. correlation,” Boylan said. “When you’re winning and scoring a lot of points, there are a lot of high-fives and slaps on the back.”
The question of “causation vs. correlation” underscores the skepticism. But for coaches such as Boylan who prioritize culture and the mental side of sports, the study’s findings remain fascinating. Boylan, for instance, believes it is more of an “if that works for you” concept rather than something “you need to be doing.” He prefers to learn his players’ and fellow coaches’ “love language” to create support and connection.
“I have friends who I know physical touch is their love language, and so I try to be mindful about putting my arm around them, slapping them on the back, squeezing their shoulder,” Boylan said. “If somebody’s (love language) is words of affirmation, I’m never going to miss an opportunity to tell them they did a good job.”
Kraus argues that because touch is proven to calm and encourage people, teams should prioritize it. For Boylan, physical touch is just one piece of the puzzle — a tool that can help create a close-knit organizational culture. It’s not the sole method, but Boylan, Coen and Kraus all believe it can play a role.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Megan Briggs / Getty Images)