I finished university in December 1989 and I started working shortly thereafter. I started coaching a little over a year later in the spring 1991. So basically for almost the entirety of my adult life, I have held two jobs, My full time work withing a number of different industries and companies and my part time work of coaching soccer. Now when I talk about the work in coaching, it's a term I use loosely since financial compensation was nothing at the start and somewhat minimal for a significant part of the time. The coaching profession has changed to the point where AAA club coaches are now being paid stipends and those working with the provincial teams and national training center can make the equivalent 1/3 or so of full time work.
Truth be told, I have had more stability in coaching that in my work career. Since I started working, I have held jobs with 8 different companies / entities with my current position in a cegep for the last eight and half years being my longest tenure. In terms of coaching, my 27 years cover three organizations: club ( 7 years) , provincial program ( 6 years ) and at the university level (16 years) with a year overlap between club and provincial program. For most people that know me, they identify me as being a coach. It's the topic of conversation, is the subject of questions I might get asked " so how is the team doing this year " and probably what has defined the person that I am today at 52 years of age. When asked, I would most often answer questions about " so what do you do?" with some variation of " I work as a ( fill in the blank) , in the field of ( fill in the blank) but I am also a soccer coach with ...... ". From early on in my professional career, I saw work as a means to earn a living that would allow me the financial ability to do build a life and do the things I enjoy. My changing of jobs was often related to looking for new challenges, opportunities or because I had gotten board with the work I was going. In comparing the two career paths of coaching and work, I can now say that I started working after graduation because it is what people do but it took me until 8 years ago to find my place work wise but I feel into coaching by a series of circumstances but I quickly knew that coaching was something I wanted to do. So why is coaching such an important part of my life ? Coaching can be one of the most beautiful, powerful, and influential positions a person can ever have. Some people may call it a job, and others a profession, but in reality, being a great coach is not that at all. It is so much more than that. By being a coach, I chose to work with young athletes. I chose to guide them through the trials and tribulations of learning two beautiful games: sport and life. I was able to be in a position to change their lives forever, not only by making them better athletes, but better people. As a coach, I was a leader, a role model, and a person who serves your athletes, and for these athletes ( and in some cases their parents) I was are a person to whom they entrust their physical and emotional well-being. I never took take this responsibility lightly. Coaching can be one of the most difficult jobs in the world. We work with young athletes in highly emotional and public situations. We keep score, and because of that our work is often judged week to week, even day to day, based upon the performance of a bunch of kids, how well they play, how much they play, and where they play. Every time we coach, our words and actions can have a huge impact in the lives of our players, both positively and negatively. We are faced with moments of success and failure, and with calls from officials both good and bad. Our words and actions in these situations can stick with our players forever. The thing is, we don’t get to choose which things stick, and which ones they forget, so in everything we say and do, we have to choose wisely. Coaching also means you will be dealing with parents. Many of them are wonderful, and will support you and be grateful that you have taken the time and energy to teach and mentor their child. Celebrate them, and be thankful they are on your team. Others are not so wonderful. They have unrealistic expectations for their children and the team. They will be a friend to your face, and an enemy behind your back. They will make life miserable for their own child, and often for you and the rest of the team as well. So besides coaching athletes, I on occasion hard to work on educated them and minimize their negativity, and empower others to do the same. The science of coaching and teaching has evolved tremendously in the last few decades. We now know that many coaching and teaching methods used when we were kids are not as effective as once thought. Fear and intimidation does not work as well as an environment of safety and respect. Lines and lectures are a thing of the past. Rote repetition is effective only to a point. Just because you taught something does not mean your players learned it. Just because you went over it does not mean they retained it and can replicate it in a game. Far too many coaches are focused on running exercises in practice that are successful 90% of the time, when in reality messy practices that replicate game situations are far more powerful learning tools. Every player we coach, we leave a lasting impact. There is no way around this; you will influence every player you come in contact with. What will your influence be? Will it be something positive and affirming that bolsters your athletes and serves them throughout life? Will it be a more fulfilling experience for you and your players, more enjoyable, and more successful? Or will it be something that tears them down, that diminishes their self worth, that makes them fearful of failure, or ties their self-worth with sports success? We all mean well, but sometimes when we are pushing to win a game, or talking to our teams after a tough loss, we say and do things that we later regret. I know in the past I have, and I never considered for a moment that my harsh, personal and often over the top criticism of a kid might follow him or her off the field. But it did. I believe that being a coach is so much more than running a bunch of practices and organizing kids for games. It is about connecting with your players as people first, and athletes second. It is about being passionate, and loving the game you teach, so your players will play with passion and love. It is about empathy, making every player feel important, and giving him or her a role on the team. It is about integrity and consistency for kids during good times and bad. It is about being a model of the behavior you expect from your athletes, both on and off field of battle. It is about being a teacher, not only of the X’s an O’s of a sport, but about life, about optimism, about persistence, and about character. No, coaching cannot simply be a job. It must be a vocation, a calling to a place that best suits your skills, your passion and your ability. Wow, that's a lot of information huh ? Over the years, I have crossed path with many coaches who really had no clue about a majority of the above. They showed up, ran training and went home. They measured their own self worth but the successes of their teams. Now, let me share a little counter argument to all of those points about coaching being a calling, how it is powerful and a strong part of defining who you can be as a person, about how it defines who I am as a adult. I can share this second part thanks to the benefit of experience, acquired maturity and hindsight. As much as coaching requires dedication and passion, as much as I personally poured into all my coaching efforts, like a job, it was something I did, not the entire summary of who I am or was. I often used to encourage parents and younger coaches to, as much as possible, avoid asking athletes questions or making statements that subtly reinforce excessive value on winning and their athletic identity (e.g. “did you win?”, “oh you lost again?”). However, my wife recently made the astute comment to me that we often break this ‘rule’ when speaking with coaches. Upon reflection, when I come across a coach for the first time in a while, I’ll ask “how’s training going?” or “how’s your squad looking this season?”. What message does this send to the particular coach? In such scenarios, one coach may perceive me as being nothing more than genuinely interested and supportive, whilst another could interpret the question as a further important reminder that their own self-worth is in fact based on the results of their athletes and teams. Coach identity, similar to the concept of athlete identify, can positively or negatively affect one’s well being. Experiencing a sense of purpose and contribution in a role that we are passionate about can be a wonderful, and sought after, experience. However, for some, decoupling what we do from who are we can be a struggle and, when this occurs, it can feel as though we our placing our identity on the line each time that we lead an athlete or team into competition. However, it is important to keep a few key points in mind when you think of yourself as a coach. Many of us that have the privilege of working with athletes develop a tendency to dwell on and become preoccupied with the performances of the athletes that we work with to an unhealthy level. We can have significant influence on those under our care; with that said, one thing to keep in mind is that we are always just one part of a problem, and will only ever be one part of the solution. Optimal (as well as poor) performance relies on many elements interacting so it is important to avoid placing too much pressure on oneself to be perfect and solve every problem. When we strip everything back, there are only a small number of things that we can control in sport. It can be helpful to make a list of things that you can and cannot control (do this with your athletes early in the season!), and then give those things that you can control your full attention. As a general rule, we think of coaches who have objective success (titles, good win/loss record) as the most successful, but in reality there are many coaches who are doing truly amazing things with athletes who may not even make the podium – this should not mean that they are not as successful, just as winning a title does not inherently signify coaching excellence. We often remind athletes that they are so much more than what they do on the court or field of play; however, we need to ensure that we ourselves heed this advice. Although it is difficult at times of the year, spend time with family and engaged in interests outside of sport. Balance is important for everyone and spending time away will actually make you much more effective when you are engaged with your athletes as you are more likely to feel refreshed and enthused. Also, just as with our athletes, nurturing your life outside of sport will potentially reduce the pressure that you experience in the sporting environment and enhance your performance. So taking all the points above into consideration what does this mean to me ? Well I think back to the statement that is today's blog post title; " WORK IS WHAT I DO, COACHING IS WHO I AM ... OR IS IT ?" So let's be blunt, I am not coaching anymore, I won't coach anymore. I have made the decision to retire from active coach. So does this mean that I don't know who I am anymore ? It has been 3 months since I officially retired from coaching and around 6 weeks of time that I would have been coaching if I was still with Concordia. Have I missed it, do I feel lost not coaching ? To be quite honest, no, not really and somewhat to my surprise. When I started coaching in 1991, I never imagined that I would last 27 years. When I started at Concordia in 2002, I pictured trying it for 4 or 5 years max. I was one of the fortunate ones that had a long run in coaching and that I never took it for granted or saw it as a burden. Truth be told however, for the last couple of years, I was already seeing coaching coming to an end. I was ready to move on and explore something different as a hobby or activity. People still identify me as being a coach and I take it as compliment in the sense that I did it with passion and commitment and worked hard to promote my sport and teams. One chapter has closed but if you book only had one chapter it would boring. For me, life is a series of connected stories, a set of chapters where you arrive to a fork in the road and get to choose which direction to take and then enjoy the ride as you discover what happens next and add those experiences to the sum total of your life. For now, I am sitting at one of those forks, tentatively looking ahead, but I know I will choose a path and might just define a new part of me.
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
|