We See you, Coaches

Yesterday was National Coaches Appreciation Day. I almost missed it, but it was beautiful to open social media today and see all the smiling faces of coaching colleagues, friends, and mentors around the athletics realm. You deserve the shout-outs! I think social media is amazing for these kinds of reminders and moments to pause in gratitude and appreciation. As someone who has had many meaningful chapters of life (and can be absorbed in the present one) I find social media helps remind me of the impact of places, experiences, and people that I can forget. One of the great privileges of my life is how many wonderful people I have met and been sharpened by during my college coaching adventure. And, without a doubt, I wouldn’t have had a coaching career at all without incredible coaches myself over the years. You have played a role in shaping me in so many ways. Today, I’m stopping, reflecting, and appreciating all of you (even though I’m a day late!). This is also an opportunity to recognize ALL the coaches out there and use this platform, as always, to bring perspective and awareness to those in the business and outside of it.

We are in an era where we put a lot of visibility on coaches – we expect major-motion-picture-type sound bites that catch our attention and inspire. We crave insightful quotes from recognizable names that we can quickly post to a story or share. Our eyes are drawn to the amenities, swagger, drip, and style of big-time programs. We see win-loss records and certain schools on coaching bios, and we equate that with being a “good” coach. We think of the big coaching salaries, the even bigger personalities that earn them, and what seems like unchecked influence around college campuses and within fanbases that even our government officials don’t seem to have. Anyone in the business knows most of this is just the facade of coaching. It’s far from the daily reality or experience of most. The world of coaching is nothing but hard, HARD work. It is also incredibly fickle, the positive attention can just as quickly turn negative, in a moment.

That flashy facade can cause people to get into coaching for all the wrong reasons and attach their identity to something very unstable; wins and outside opinions. The climb in the coaching world can also be intoxicating and cause many to forget why they got into it in the first place. To coach is not a job, it’s a calling. It’s a service field with a platform. With that platform, comes great responsibility. At its best, it is about substance over style and impact over influence. Many stay true to that, regardless of what it costs them in salaries, job titles, status, outside opinions, or even longevity. I want to highlight the people doing it in the places where it’s just doggone hard. I’ve been there, and that’s actually a big part of why I chose the jobs and situations that I did. I chose some and walked away from others, like most of us do, but it took me some time to fully figure out why. I have always LOVED the challenge of believing in people and things that no one else seemed to, and transferring that belief to others. Infusing value, respect, purpose, identity, pride, and a desire for excellence into a group of young women has filled my heart like few things can.

It took me sitting in a head coaching interview that I was sought out for, but couldn’t seem to get excited about, to realize this. This job would have potentially tripled my salary, given me access to anything I needed to lead a program to a national championship, and on paper should have been a dream job and personal fit in so many ways. I would have instantly gained a measure of respect, notoriety, and a boost in “coaching status” as well. It was all so tempting, especially the money at a time, but somehow none of that mattered for me. I was younger and thought maybe I was just idealistic, overly loyal, and crazy, but it helped me realize something that hadn’t yet made sense in my journey and about my personality. I’m made for the things and situations a lot of people would run away from, seeing them as insurmountable. I love helping people recognize and realize their potential. And in many ways, I do my best work behind the scenes, away from notoriety, and attention; an irony about me as a head coach.

That’s largely what made me to choose to play the sport of field hockey at the college level (a story for another time), and what made me a good Mental Health Counselor. As a counselor, you need a huge measure of patience/persistence (growth occurs on your client’s timetable), belief in your clients (your job is to infuse clients with belief when they don’t have it and empower them to own growth), but also reality about the present (going anywhere cannot happen without a plan and realistic/regular assessment about where things are at). Everyday somebody or something comes at you that is unexpected. Many times you are with someone in their most desperate, dark, maybe dangerous, or emergent state. You even work with people who directly push your buttons or are mandated to see you against their will. How do you get someone who doesn’t want to be there to embrace it? How do you handle someone in crisis? What are small wins in difficult situations? It’s what we are trained for.

People don’t usually walk into a counselor’s office and say, “Hey, I’m seeking out counseling because everything is awesome in life and I just want to tell you how great it is.” Your clients typically experience those moments after they’ve done the hard work of seeking you out and healing/growing in their time with you. It’s behind the scenes work, requiring great measures of patience with the appropriately timed challenging/nudging that is based on hard-earned trust, and one day… the day you work, hope and wait for MIGHT happen: Your client suddenly sits down in a session and says, “I don’t know how I got to this place, but somehow I feel better, and life is better.” Or you don’t see that moment in therapy but they reach out to you later and tell you all the ways they have grown and accomplished things they never thought possible. To them it seemed like this magical process that they somehow found their way through, and that’s the beauty of it. As the counselor you know all the things you were trained to do to assist the client to walk into that, but it’s their work, not yours that gets them there.  The point is for them to own that success, not to need you. Those rare glimpses of “wins” are accompanied by a lot of “losses.” Growth/healing is not always easy and watching clients embrace it or walk away from it is a part of the process. When we don’t see the fruit of the labor it can be hard to stay the course.

I share all of this because of the parallels with coaching. We see magical seasons or performances by athletes and we don’t see the millions of intentional ways a coach has worked behind the scenes to prepare and help their athletes unlock that. We so often lack perspective that coaches are an agent of impact and growth in the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in their lifetime. But just like a counselor, coaches can’t MAKE someone grow. Great speeches and inspiration aside, they cannot make someone WANT to win, WANT to excel, or to execute under pressure. They equip, train, and lead the process, but the ownership and execution is part of what makes great athletes who they are. Sure, like any profession, there are coaches that get intoxicated with the power, seduced by the allure of winning, do just enough on the surface to propel themselves up the job ladder every few years without exposure of all the fallout behind the scenes, or enjoy the attention of retweets and likes more than being truly transformative. There are those that use and abuse, and that is WRONG. I would also challenge you to point out a profession or position of influence where this isn’t an issue – we are all accountable within our own hearts to whether we use our gifts and platforms for the good of others or for selfish gain (again a post for another time).

Today, though, I want to highlight all the coaches out there, AND THERE ARE SO MANY OF YOU, who pour your hearts out for your athletes. You are not perfect; you never will be. And by the way, we need to stop expecting coaches to be. We need to normalize coach development and growth, moving away from the idea that it is some innate skillset, and you are either a great coach or stink. Are you perfect as a parent, spouse, or in your job? Are you the perfect athlete or student who has never made mistakes or had a learning curve? Was I perfect in my first counseling session? Absolutely not, and WE NEVER FULLY “ARRIVE” in any of our roles. In fact, I transcribed my early counseling sessions and my whole class and I watched my video back (a regular part of our training) and I shuddered at the way I spoke. My supervisor and classmates pointed out my mannerisms, the way my posture impacted the session, the way I said “Um” more than I ever thought (still do, sorry!). They also pointed out some moments that were surprisingly wise and mature beyond my training; ways my gut was strong and could be trusted. It was hard and the best thing in the world at the same time. In our training it was pounded into our heads, you are NEVER ready for all that comes at you in this profession, that’s why you JUST DO IT. You learn from what you did well, receive what you could do better, get more clear on WHO YOU ARE theoretically, operate authentically from that, recognize the impact of your limitations and bias, receive supervision and mentoring, and guess what…you grow from it all.

This is the same process coaches are in, with way less preparation, training, and continued support. The learning never ends. Just like parents are learning to parent with the challenges of so many new influences on raising children, teachers are learning how to implement new measures to evolve and maximize learning, we can have grace and empathize with coaches taking on these same challenges with very little formal or continuing training. The mentoring pool is also your direct competition, a unique challenge and limitation of the coaching profession. One of the things that has saddened me is the villainization of coaches in a time where we could be leveraging their impact on young lives that need REAL LIFE role models, rather than chasing the unrealistic portrayals of influencers. Real life and real people are complex. Coaching is managing a team full of this complexity. There are unethical coaches – just like there are unethical people; people whose brokenness, pain, or selfishness cause destruction. That is different than a coach exhibiting low moments or making mistakes. If I showed up to your job and watched/evaluated you every minute, or watched how you parented every second of the day, I’m sure I could pick out some unsavory moments you would swear don’t represent you fully as a person or in that role. You would likely ask that I not characterize you completely by a moment or two, right?

So, let’s have patience with our coaches and strive to see the bigger picture. There are SO MANY coaches who are changing lives without gimmicks, notoriety, or any credit. It often happens like those counseling relationships… behind the scenes. There is a level of difficulty those coaches walk their players through both in and out of sport to help them unlock something in themselves that they didn’t even know was there physically, mentally, and emotionally. That’s not something that shows up in a media hype video. It doesn’t sound compelling in a recruiting conversation. The fruit of that labor shows up far beyond the wins or losses and years down the road; in future families, jobs, and all sorts of life lessons that apply to things far beyond the scope of sport.

I want to give a SPECIAL shout-out to the coaches who have CHOSEN… and hear me again folks, there are coaches who are UNBELIEVABLE at this craft... and they have CHOSEN a place that isn’t the big name and where winning is a significant challenge. They have chosen to bring a level of dignity and excellence that exceeds the resources they are given to work with, and it is a daily strain they don’t complain about. They chose a level that doesn’t get the shine, gear, the salary, or maybe even the results that say “you’re a good coach.” They chose the daily grind that doesn’t get the national championship or the book deal. And a lot of times…here’s a secret… those people are the ones who are some of the smartest, most creative, and most talented in this business. Selecting talented athletes is not hard to do, developing talent is a real test. You won’t likely see these folks as a keynote speaker at a convention, or dominating a room. Those coaches make miracles out of sparse resources and players other people didn’t believe in or see the value in. They maximize everything around them without excuse. They don’t need a pat on the back to keep going. Seeing the small wins in their players’ lives is enough. The satisfaction of laying their head on the pillow and knowing they are doing meaningful work is enough.

If that is you, this post is especially for you, and I hope it finds you AND ENCOURAGES you. This business will test your value system. But we need you in this profession. You do the work that transforms lives, transmits hope, and the least we can do is THANK YOU. The sacrifices, the hours behind the scenes, and the seeds planted in lives are rarely seen or appreciated real-time. Only later do those seeds bloom into something beautiful. One challenging part of coaching is knowing we are all defined by wins/losses yet we also must relinquish a certain amount of control of that. Change and growth come in those who are willing. As a counselor, I was trained with the emotional boundary that I couldn’t take responsibility for a client’s refusal to own change. In athletics, we blame and shame coaches for this emotional boundary with athletes. There are special years where the teams and individuals are exceptionally ready and willing and, not surprisingly, they achieve great things. But not every individual and group is ready, and some lessons are learned through failure, as much as coaches would like to see their group avoid that. I want to thank the coaches that keep showing up no matter what for your group — that work is never in vain.

If you are reading this and you aren’t a coach, please take a moment to thank one who has invested in your life. You probably haven’t seen the extent of the sacrifices, but it doesn’t mean they haven’t occurred.

If you are a coach and you do get the notoriety… now is your opportunity to remember when you didn’t; the time when you hoped someone saw you and all you did. Send shine to someone who is “unseen.” I’ll never forget a moment at one of my jobs some years ago. A coworker (who was our university’s head football coach), had regularly walked past our field hockey assistant’s office on the way to get coffee (by the way football coaches seem to drink about 10 cups a day on average). During that part of the year, our field hockey staff was regularly at work around 5:30am and left around dinner time, sometimes later – the day was full of practice (and the exhaustion of me and the other assistant playing in practice along with coaching it), film analysis and breakdown, staff meetings, player film meetings, travel planning tasks, recruiting tasks, and always something unplanned that derailed the to-do list. That coach stopped in our doorway one evening as he passed and said, “By golly (southern accent), you gals work JUST AS MUCH WE DO!” It was as if, for the first time, he had worked around other sports and really SEEN that we all do the same thing, with the same rhythms, responsibilities, and grind. Sure, the stage was a bit different. Less people attended our games for sure. But, the other assistant and I just smiled at the epiphany. You can take the comment as condescending, or you can see it as I do: a moment demonstrating mutual respect where our shared commitment to this calling was seen.

So today and everyday,
THANK YOU COACHES,
for the seen and unseen ways you pour yourselves out!