Monday Morning Motivational Message - Coaching

What type of coach are you?

My brothers and I were all college athletes. We grew up playing football, baseball, and basketball. Two of us went to college on basketball scholarships. My youngest brother was a pitcher on the University of Notre Dame's baseball team.

But the one thing we had in common was great coaching.  We had coaches who cared more about us as people than they did about us as players. 

Their credo was not, "What can I get from these players," but "What can I give to these players." They were interested in developing young men, not adding to their record.

That's what a good coach does. They use the medium, whether it's sports, academics, art, business, etc., to develop the character of their charges. A good coach plays the long game.   

They measure their impact not on how the season turns out but on how their players turn out during the seasons of their lives.

If they are successful, they mold young, immature, impressionable children into productive members of society who positively impact their businesses, communities, and families.   

They take kids with attitudes who are emotionally immature and tell them to cut their hair because they will be a better player if they can see, stop using profanity when things don't go their way and, focus that fury on winning, and stop acting like they just won the national championship when they made a wide-open layup (which is something they are supposed to do anyway). 

Coaches take the repeated uncomfortableness in every practice and game and get you comfortable living in that uncomfortableness. They hold you to a higher standard than anything you hold yourself to and get you to believe in something bigger than yourself. They demand you give your all for a noble cause. Without realizing it, that noble cause ends up being you and your teammates. 

Sometimes, you're unsure if they like you because they challenge, criticize, and harass you to do better when you think you're doing your best. Eventually, you realize they don't like you - they love you. Because who would spend the time and effort pulling the best out of someone they didn't care about? 

That is what a good coach does. They fill you with the belief that you can do everything, even when you feel you can't do anything. Using the microcosm of a game, they teach you about the fundamentals of a position and your place on the chessboard of life. And while you are learning about the sport, miraculously, you learn how to be a better teammate, be coachable, take criticism, lead, budget your time, and win even when you lose. In short, you learn about yourself. You learn about life. That's what a good coach instills in their players: how to succeed in life.

Please leave me a comment about your thoughts on the value of having a good coach. Your opinions and perspectives are valuable, and I enjoy hearing from you.