Over the last few months, since the spring to be a little more precise, I find myself being very reflective about my life, where I am, where I've been, the choices I've made ( or didn't make) and taking an inventory of what I have.
I think there are a few reasons for this reflection, most obviously it being an outcome as I get on in years but also the closing of a major chapter in my life, that being my coaching career, something I have made reference to a number of times in my posts. So why does my retirement from coaching have me reflecting on my life? It started with the Stingers announcing that I would not be back for the fall. The announcement contained a brief summary of my time at Concordia and this was shortly followed up by my induction into the Lac St Louis Soccer Hall of Fame. The presentation text that went along with my induction, was an overview of my years spent coaching. When I review these two texts, I find that there doesn't seem to much to show for 27 years of commitment, effort and dedication to a greater good. Truth be told, the words are nice but it is sad to imagine that something that played such a major role in my life for such an extended length of time can be summed up in a couple of paragraphs. Soccer and coaching is not the sum total of my life, I am much more than a soccer coach but it is the role that most people who have interacted with me in any significant manner associate me with. It seems like it is the first, last and primary thing that people refer to when they think about who I am and what I do. However, there is so much more to me than my coaching. While I don't have kids of my own, I have been with my wife since 1986 and married for the last 28 years and coaching, I have 7 nieces and nephews, two brothers, my parents still living, in laws, I am a mortgage free homeowner, have a full time job, a good life, financially stability that many would consider above the norm, have been lucky enough to travel to many spots around the glove, I many acquaintances although in reality few of what we could call close friends. People are often identified by how they are as parents or with their family, or by what they do as work. My professional career has been somewhat spotty when viewed in a vacuum. For the first twenty years of my career, I held 7 jobs, that's right 7. Do the match it it comes to an average of a little less than 3 years per job. Certainly not the image of stability. It wasn't until my 45th year that I found a job where I fully feel I am where I am supposed. I am currently in my 9th year with my current employer so considered how the first twenty years went. I am pushing the envelope one would think. Now, some context, I changed jobs a few times not by choice but due to closures or restructurings but ultimately, it was me chasing what I thought was the right environment and role. When I felt bored or unchallenged or at the start of some level of frustration, I would start to look elsewhere. Some when I consider, my work and coaching careers, which have until this summer run parallel, one can ask the question, why the stability in one and the lack thereof in the other. When I reflect on my life away from work and coaching, like anyone I can reminisce about the past and think about all the good times as well as all the challenges I have faced. This invariably leads to thinking about going back in time and what I would do differently. How might things be differently for me if I had only ....... However when you look back, how far back to you look ? What if I made different choices academically ? What if I never met my wife, or didn't decide to spend my life with her? What if I stayed at one of those jobs that I chose to bolt from at the first sign of boredom or frustration? That's the issues with rewriting the past, while you might be able to point at critical moments where you might have made a different decision, you can't ever now what might have happened from that point on. As they say, hindsight is always 20-20 as you can judge past decisions with the full knowledge of the outcomes. The truth? I would never want to go back in time and do things differently. No matter what. I would never want to undo my failures, as much as they hurt me. I would never want to unwind the clock and try to skip past the painful moments or try to live a perfect life because it’s my failures that have shaped and molded me the most. Not my successes.
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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