After enjoying the down time in my first summer where soccer whether coaching or preparing to coach is not part of my plans, I am finally back on my blog to share some thoughts. Most of the recent posts and tweets that I put out related to looking back over my coaching career and what it has meant to me, but today I want to share about what it is to look forward, to the transition from being a coach, to simply being someone who watches the game of soccer simply as a fan.
I have enjoyed this summer is a very different manner than the last 16 for sure ( the time I have been at Concordia ) but it is actually the first summer in 27 years where coaching in any manner is not part of it. I can honestly say I have moved on and I am at peace with that chapter of my life being closes. I am sure there will be some moments where I will miss it, or wonder if I still could have the drive and passion to coach a team but while in life I feel it best to never say never, I think that coaching for me is truly a thing of the past. As I type these words, I actually have a team picture right above the text window of the 2017 Concordia Stingers, the last edition of the team I coached, and when I look at it, I don't feel remorse or sadness but just fond memories of my time coaching and a sense of accomplishment. This past Saturday I took my nephew to his first live Montreal Impact game. He is going to be 11 and in the last year has really started to take an interest in various sports, the teams, the athletes, how the games play out. As he sat beside me, we discussed happenings from the game, talked about the strengths and weaknesses of the players and I could really feel a difference in my view on the game of soccer. I was still sharing about soccer but simply as a fan of the game with my nephew and getting to pass along my passion for it. However, I will admit, it was also the first time all summer, as I watched live soccer, that I felt a little void thinking I would no longer be patrolling a sideline. In any case, to today's subject, life after soccer and the transition away from coaching. A common quote in athlete transition is the notion that “athletes die twice” – once when they retire from sport and the second at the end of their life. Does this mean that Sports Coaches potentially die three times? While I don’t necessarily agree with the sensational language of the phrase above, I have experienced transition challenges in both my retirement from sport as an athlete and then again as a coach. The reason coaching parallels athlete experiences is that the demands of coaching these days are equally obsessive as those on players, and at times greater. What’s more, for many athletes, coaching is sort of purgatory between the end of their careers and life after sport, a perceived refuge from retirement, chosen often because of a lack of other options. This means that many transition challenges are left unresolved from playing into coaching rather than being properly addressed, with coaching more the path of least resistance than a real evaluation of the best long-term match to an individual’s career opportunities? This last paragraph is quite indicative of my situation and what led my into coaching. I stopped actively playing soccer at a relatively young age ( 25) in part due to chronic pain relating to an accumulation of injuries and a certain loss of the passion to continue playing. Coaching wasn't per say a transition from playing to not playing but it was a way to stay involved in the sport. I have written previously about how and why I got into coaching so I won't cover that again here ( feel free to read some of my prior work), but coaching did extend my involvement in the sport which truth be told, long exceeded the number of years I spent playing it. I also think coaching grew my passion for the game on the whole and of course told me many valuable life lessons and was a big part of the person I became. And it worked, for a while…for 27 years in fact. I had a hugely enjoyable career, worked with amazing athletes and colleagues and got to achieve many of the goals I had aspired to as an athlete, including being involved twice on the international stage at FISU games getting to proudly wear the Maple Leaf. As an athlete – I was what I guess is commonly called and honest, hard working player. I wasn't the most talented, the biggest the fastest, but I played to my strengths, made the most of my ability and had some success by being ultra competitive, a good teammate and willing to played a more discrete role. Without knowing it, I think my transition into coaching actually started my last few years playing as I found myself being a more vocal leader. Looking at the game to find ways to best deal with opponents, make suggestions to my teammates and the last 2 years, actually being a sort of player coach for many of the games. Right away, in my first year as head coach, the decision to stop playing was very easy. I had found something to do that was much more interesting and rewarding the playing even if at that time, I didn't truly appreciate everything coaching was and certainly had no idea what it would become for me. So the transition from playing to coaching was relatively easy..... but not the transition from coaching to not coaching........ Coaching was not my full time job ( even if sometimes it felt like it) so I don't face the situation that someone for whom it is a profession might face. I still have my day job but I still will have to face many of the same factors that any coaching walking away must deal with. My real life transition will be when I retire from my working career but having said that, from a coaching perspective I do think that there are some unique challenges and realities facing coaching who decide ( or it is deciding for them ) to stop coaching. On top of the traditional challenges of getting caught up in the atmosphere of elite sport, coaches do have some unique contributing factors which contribute to their transition process;
There is one exception to this rule especially if we consider professional sport, in that coaches, specifically support coaches, will quite often have public profiles that are significantly smaller than the athletes they coach. This can lessen the immediate impact of everyone knowing you are no longer involved in elite sport, but it also lessens their ability to leverage their profile into alternative career paths. For many coaches, the team brand is effectively their brand – great if the team has gone well, not so great if it’s been a tough season. For this reason, it is extremely important that coaches develop their own identity and value alongside sport for life after coaching. I have often said that being a competitive and successful student-athlete or athlete in general is a great way to prepare for a the job market but one could argue that not only is this also true for coaching looking to move on into other professions but is actually more of a benefit. Why? Because coaches have proven managerial skills that are more immediately transferable to different settings. Coaching competencies that are desirable in the general employment market:
Coaches, like athletes, can find ways to invest in networking, mentoring conversations and experiences in work environments that challenge them and allow them to research other interests outside of sport. Often they have much to share and the void that comes from coaching no longer being part of their lives can be filled by something else. Coaches just need to understand how to shape these situations to be a two way street rather than viewing them as just a knowledge dump from high performance sport to business and not the other way around. In my specific case, I often found the my much of my coaching experience could help me in the workplace but at the same time, I was able to use my managerial experiences from the work place to adapt when coaching. Many coaches who were around when I started gave up on their coaching passion because of the instability of coaching careers and the lack of professional or personal support. Coaching especially in soccer wasn't seen as a career opportunity but rather a pass time or volunteer activity so stopping coaching was not much different not perhaps giving up a hobby, However in the last quarter century times have changed and we are seeing more and more individuals able to make a living as coaches albeit sometimes by having to take on 2 or 3 part time roles. Hopefully the the investment in coaching will continue and developing coaches in this way could support longevity in their chosen sport by investing in the person as well as the performance, the same way that athlete welfare is starting to be viewed. Overall, whether you want to continue your career in coaching, or whether you are looking for your next challenge, developing identity and self-worth outside of the sporting environment really helps with the transition once coaching is done. There are various saying about coaches, like every coach has an expiry date or coaches are hired to be fired. When I was involved in coaching, emotionally, I couldn't imagine a day when I wouldn't be coaching although logically, it was always simply a matter of time when I'd have to give it up. For me, I will live two retirements, one from soccer and one from work. I am not sure which will be harder, giving up my passion, or giving up the job that gave me the financial security to live my passions. For now, life is full of possibilities, I can seek out other activities and passions and use the extra time I have to enjoy life differently. As time passes, I am sure that the coaching bug will be less and less present and when I think about coaching, I won't miss it but simply remember it fondly. I'll tell you a little more as of next week and as the season progresses.... when I normally would be on the field and I am not.... to be continued.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
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
January 2023
Categories
All
|