Yesterday was the final game of the 2017 Stingers soccer season. We finished on a positive note, going on the road and coming away with a well earned win against a very competitive opponent. After losing a game Friday which eliminated us from playoff contention, it could have been easy for the players to go through the motions on a chilly, rainy day. However they didn't, they showed up and were determined to get the win.
However, that isn't the main topic for today. The topic for today is about the end of a game, of a season and sometimes the end of a career. Whether as a player or a coach, I have always had the mindset that you compete until that final whistle blows. When it does, there is always a sense of relief after a good result or disappoint after a bad one. Sometimes the final whistle in the final game, means another season is done. The end of a season didn't always affect me as a player but as coach. I never really saw it as an end to anything just the transition to something different. My playing career ended over 25 years ago (except for a short lived comeback playing in an over 35 league) due to a combination of injuries, the start of my coaching career and getting married. I never really felt the disappointment many associate with the end of a playing career and I had coaching as a means to stay associated with the game of soccer. However, in the years since, I always feel a down as the realization that the season is done and that the "this group of players" or " this team" will never be again becomes a reality. I have always felt this way from the time I coached at the club level, through the provincial program to the last 16 years at Concordia. This feeling of finality has become stronger in recent years as with the end of the season, comes the acceptance that it might not be an automatic that I will have the chance to return in a few months for a new season. In terms of coaching, there is much less road in front of me than there is behind me. I haven't decided anything but the reality is that the end of my coaching career is close and when I finally do hear that final whistle for the final time, it will end an association with a sport that has become a very important part of my life which has existed for 47 years. When my time at Concordia is done, my time in coaching and my active participation in soccer will be done. I can't imagine that moment even if I can accept it is close. How do I feel about soccer ? I didn't fall in love with the game when I first stepped on the field at the age of five. From the moment that I first set foot on the field to the day that final whistle is blown, it has been a constant throughout the course of my life, player, coach, supporter and fan, I have been them all but soon, I will only get to watch as a fan and maybe reflect on all the times I got to be an active participant. When I first started playing, it was about being with friends, it was playing a sport that wasn't mainstream in Canada yet but the sport that my father felt was the only true sport. It has taught me so much about myself and about life that I will never forget. Lessons like being knocked down again and again, and still having the strength to get back up. It has given me the chance to travel to destinations I never imagined I would see, meet people that I never thought I might meet, create friendships and friendly rivalries. Given me a chance to give back to the community, be a part of seeing teenagers become young adults, players become coaches, and in my own small way, advocate for equity between male and female sport while hopefully contributing the ongoing fight to reduce gender bias and stereotyping in sport. On a very personal level, it become a catalyst in connecting me to my father and to my Spanish roots. Failure is something that is inevitable. It's how you bounce back from that failure that matters. If I would have given up every time something bad had happened either on or off that field, I would have stopped coaching years ago. I am seen as an optimist, sometimes much to much so, but it is how I choose to view the world. I trust in the good intentions of my players and those around me. I believe if you put in the time and energy and do so with passion and desire to leave things in a better state than when you found them, if you truly stay focused on the task, good things will happen. Soccer taught me that practice will never be perfect. In life and in the game, there is always room for improvement. There is always a way to get better and always a time to make it happen. There should never come a time where you say "good enough." Soccer became my release. It gave me an outlet and chance to stay involved with the sport I love. It provided me a way to spend time with people that would become very important to me There are 90 minutes in a game. If you took your life and lived it as one year a minute, how would you spend your time? Would you wait till the very end, scrambling to finish? Or would you throw everything in your twenties and thirties so that the future was taken care of? But then the other team scores. All of the sudden, your plans have been tossed to the side and you're forced to reevaluate. How will you spend your time now? Will you give up? Or will you continue to live and fight until that last whistle blows? There will be a time when the game ends. When the down I feel at the end of a season won't get to be tempered with the thought that in a few months I will be back planning and preparing, I won't get to be counting down to the start of a new season, of meeting new players and reconnecting with returning ones. The day will come when, the final game of a season, will be the final game of a career and a lifetime. But I know I'll be ready. I only hope that there are enough former players out there who can appreciate and respect all the efforts I made to make their time as student-athletes a positive one. That they can appreciate the game of soccer as much as I it means to me. I really hope that I might have been able to give them, even a fraction of what the game of soccer and coaching has given me. What soccer and coaching has given me is hard to really put into words that properly convey my sentiments but in all humility I can only add that I hope my players can appreciate my efforts and realize how much they are a part of me. I consider myself privileged to have coached them, even those who didn't like me very much as it is often with them that I learned the most about myself. The final whistle hadn't blown for the last time yet, but when it does, I will be sad and I will be down, but I will always look back with pride and optimism. To do anything different, just wouldn't be me.
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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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