Like many kids of my generation, before the age of specialization in youth sports. I participated in a variety of organized sports. Yes, soccer was probably the constant through of my childhood times but I also participated at different points in hockey, sailing, swimming, water polo, golf and track. I discovered wrestling in high school but I will expand on that a little later. Like most huge sports fans, the wall of my room were plastered with posters of different athletes but I never aspired or imagined sports would be a defining part of my life. I was not generally that most talented is any specific sport not the most athletically gifted but without being a superstar in any way, I found a way to excel in most sports, and I had a collection of trophies and medals as proof.
If I was able to succeed in sports it came down to two areas where I think I was able to stand out among teammates, peers and opponents. First of all, I was competitive, very competitive! Without being overtly demonstrative, I was hard on myself. I never backed down from a challenge and was ready to to make the most of my ability by outworking and outlasting my opponents. Secondly. and this is probably a trait that has served me well throughout the course of my life, I was able to keep my calm through some stressful and high anxiety moments. I never panicked and always look at even situation as solving to be analyzed and solved. When I was still in high school, I came across the poem " IF " by Rudyard Kipling and it really resonated with me. If you know the poem, great than as your read this post you might understand why I identify with it. If you don't know it, I invite you to google the entire poem but I will share the first stanza of it If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: I was neither a popular kid or outcast in high school by any means. In fact overall, I can honestly say that I had a great time in high school even though today as an adult, I can reflect back and realize that I was far from being or even knowing who I was or could become. I had friends, and was in the “middle group”, one could say. I have a prior blog post written a little in jest but that certainly described how today I think of myself being in high school. You can find that post called the "Low Key Nerd" via this link apparently-i-might-just-be-a-low-key-nerd-or-some-i-am-told.html So as I mentioned above, in high school, I discovered wrestling, It is one of those sports where you train among teammates but compete fully on your own. Too small for football, the ultimate cool high sport, and taking part in two other sports with little exposure or success at our high school ( soccer and track), it was wrestling where I quickly excelled. Our high school had a very reputed wrestling team and we competed in two leagues while participating in tournaments around the province. In grade 9, I went 85-0, undefeated for the entire season, league matches, tournaments and provinces but since most of the events took place off campus, I was not seen in competition and most of my exploits went unnoticed. In grade 10, finances forced the school to reduce investment in wrestling and we cut back on the number of events and the team folder all together for my final year of high school. I continued to wrestle via a club but since it was run after school and on weekends, I missed a lit of the fun parts of my graduating year. I started feeling increasingly separated from my classmates. Extended absences for competitions with the wrestling club saw long standing friendships began to fall away as new cliques and couples formed and I was not up to date with all the fun that my classmates were having at what seemed like weekly parties. A possible girlfriend was not on the radar with 3 practices a week and tournaments almost every weekend. The few school dances I was able to attend were awkward. A significant part of my final year of high school seemed like a blur and in some ways still does. However, somehow, I had a certain standing with my group of friends and classmates in general. I was seen as the joker, the guy who seemed to do well academically with seemingly little effort and of course there was the wrestling which was an area where I excelled significantly. I would return from tournaments and word would spread about my success. I could be found lifting in the weight room or jogging on the make shirt track on a mezzanine above our school gym. Classmates knowing it had something to do with my wrestling but not fully getting it. Mondays after big tournaments weren’t so bad. Upon arrival at school I would receive a ton of questions from my friends about how things how gone during the tournaments, regional ones, city ones, provincials and nationals. The summer between Grade 11 and the start of cegep, I went on a french language summer program for 7 weeks, just 3 hours away from home in Quebec City but for all intents and purposes it could've been on the other side of the globe since it was long before emails, cell phones, facetime and the internet. I lost all contact with friends. As we all moved onto into cegep many of my closer friends who had seemingly all participated in sports while in school, stopped. A few continued or played on summer teams but sports remained an important part of my life. I played 3 years of cegep soccer, continued with my club team into the senior ranks, wrestled for 3 additional years including going two national championships. My life was changing quickly and unexpectedly, and those around me noticed. I was completely disinterested in academics, doing just enough to maintain my eligibility for soccer. I found myself moving away from close friends, no longer seemingly willing to conform to the expectations my entourage had of me ( or maybe it was what I perceived they expected of me). I found myself questioning who I was, who I wanted to be, lacking trust in my instincts, and most importantly thinking that somehow, my new outlook on life made me incompatible with my long time friends. As things continued to evolve for me inside, the outside no longer resonated. I thought of myself as an academic failure because I couldn't maintain my usual 80% average with the minimal amount of studying. I sought out new friends who could get me. Started wondering why I never was able to find the right girlfriend, that maybe those around me had seen through the facade I always thought I put out and had discovered me to be a fraud... .so I started acting accordingly. Many of my friends moved onto university and my parents started to panic, that I was falling behind, that I would never find a good job or make something of myself. I managed to finish my cegep degree, took a year off school and slowly started to find some balance. Through this all, soccer remained. I found a new team to play with, and rediscovered my ultra competitive self. The success fed my confidence and the confidence fueled my drive. I went to watch some female friends playing with their team and spotted a new player on their team, I romanticize the moment I first saw her a bit I am sure but it was like I light went on. It took a while for me to get to ask her out, but once I did, we have been together ever since ( 32 years and counting). So soccer, one can say, really had an impact on my life since it led me to meeting my wife. I was not ready and motivated to get on with my life. I enrolled in university fully intending to get through it quickly ( I finished my degree in two and half years) but injury prevented me from playing university soccer and not long after ended my playing career at the age of twenty-five.... but.. coaching, ah coaching.... this new chapter started out of not being able to play, attending all my fiance's games and still loving the sport with a burning passion. It wasn’t long before I found myself back on the field, in the new role of coach. I started out with so much success as a coach, league and provincial titles, medal at nationals, being asked to coach our provincial team, work with national team hopefuls at the training center. It was one step forward after another. I had never had that much success in sports, nor experienced that kind of high. But the process of my evolution as a person started to dictate how I was as a coach.T hat something that had changed within me was only changing more, exponentially, as it wasn't about having a singular focus on wins and losses, out competing everyone, but about finding my voice and my passion. I could no longer play the sport, but my coaching allowed me to give back in ways I had never imagined. I was no seen as a trend setter, someone who chose to coach female sports, who was apologetically advocating for equitable treatment, resources and support for female soccer. I learned to see the game and sport in general in a new way. It wasn't just about the results but about giving back, providing opportunities for younger generations to develop skills they could take with them belong their playing days. There was a bigger picture and I was in my own little play filling in some of the missing pieces. I stood for something, I was known for something. it gave my confidence, it gave me purpose and it helped me grow as a person. My calmness in the face of stress and adversity remained an asset. Everything was always a teachable moment, a chance to learn and teach, a chance to discover something new. Most importantly, I learned that it wasn't about being driven by the need to prove myself, but rather to take pride in what I was doing. To accept that I could only control about doing my very best and worrying about the things within my control. Others would judge me and my efforts through their own perceptions and I couldn't be worried and guided by others' judgements. I wonder what would happen to sports and even life in general if people had less urgency to prove themselves through performance and claiming victory; if they cared less about winning, pushing themselves hard, and seeking approval in the eyes of another; if they could enjoy the process and learn from their experiences without fearing failure at every turn. If you listen carefully to professional athletes you will hear their need to prove speak loud and clear. How many times have you heard an athlete say, “I still have something to prove”? Where is this need to prove coming from? What motivates their intense drive to achieve? Perhaps they are still trying hard to make their parents proud. Maybe they, unconsciously, want to receive just one loving blessing from their mother or father to prove they are worthy. Maybe they believe that without external validation from high performance they are not enough. From my experience in leadership roles whether in coaching or management, I’ve discovered that the insecurities that come with believing you are not (good) enough, worthy, or lovable, are common core worried shared by a lot of people. For many, as it was with me as I went from teenager to young adult, these unconscious beliefs make it hard for anything to ever be enough. Until you feel enough in yourself, standing in a felt, embodied-sense of self-absurdness, the fear of failure, disappointment and what others' might thing of you will keep driving you forward. Until your need to prove lessens, and you are able to live in the moment and take things as they come, you may always be left starving for more or worrying about what might go wrong instead of thinking about what is going right. Even speaking for myself,I ’m not “there” yet, nor am I sure I ever will be. I have stopped coaching, that thing I did for so long that gave me so much that I wonder where will I get that drive from, what will fuel the voice I have discovered, and what will keep my waking up each day looking ahead to new and exciting challenges. Truth is that life sometimes, on its own, can never give us what we want all the time. However by keeping an open mind to the possibilities, do we discover something new and avoid getting caught in routines that make life seem frustrating. Remain calm, not being overly expressive of one's feelings and showing vulnerability does not mean being weak, spineless or without ambition. You will still try to do your best, strive for excellence, and grow as an athlete, businessperson and individual; but you will be driven less by worry of failure or not living up to others' expectations. Instead, your actions will come from a desire to give more than take; from a sense of purposefulness drawn a sense of purpose that even is small ways, you can make a difference. For me this came from the discovery of engaging in sport via coaching, something that I never imagined and bringing those experiences into my life with a similar sense of purpose.
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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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