Knowing Your Players
*This is an excerpt from a book on parenting that I’m working on. With many friends in the coaching world, I thought I’d share this short story.
Before I got into college coaching, I spent several years coaching at the high school level, riding on hot, uncomfortable school buses, eating greasy fast food in the dark on the way home after games, and putting in long hours in the gym with the players, before, during, and after practice. When I got to college, the food got a little better, but the hours increased. Recruiting, increased academic monitoring, scouting, more learning, and longer travel.
Because of my investment, it was especially painful for me to hear a parent, starting a conversation with our head coach, at the collegiate level with, “I’m a coach too and…”
“I’m a coach too, I understand how hard it is, but…”
“I’m a coach too you know. By the way, why are you running that offense? I don’t like what I’m seeing out there. “I understand you are currently leading the country in scoring but have you ever thought about this…”
“I’m a coach too, I know how it is.”
Sometimes these comments were harmless and probably came from a genuine desire to help and not a place of malice, or anger, or ego. Sometimes it was a guy just trying to make a connection, or start a conversation.
But here is what, “I’m a coach too” meant, most of the time. It meant that they had coached their son or daughter in a rec league for a few years, or maybe all of their years, growing up, and… that’s it.
There was no and.
That was how they had determined that they were a “coach” and that they should approach the head coach, who was making a living coaching, to tell them just a little thing or two. (To be clear, I was just a middling assistant, so I had the benefit of watching this from afar).
I am sure there are some phenomenal rec coaches out there, I won’t go into a deep apology if I’ve offended anyone, though I am sorry if I have, that’s not the intent.
Please don’t see this as an ego trip on my end. I’m no longer coaching, so I too have given up the right to offer too much to anyone who is actually in the arena. When I was, and I would hear the “I’m a coach” guys, and listen to their “advice”, I would think to myself, “No, no you are not a coach.”
Mainly, I thought back to the bus rides, lousy food, bad referees, awful gyms, smelly locker rooms, unreasonable parents, and coaching clinics. I remembered the recruiting trips, recruiting calls, multi-day road trips, and days and nights away from my family. I remembered reading, watching game film, spending my own money to get better, growing pains, and working part time at Chick-fil-A on the 5 AM shift to get where I was.
I thought about the investment.
For me, and again, please excuse my ego, I felt like I earned it, and I was constantly trying to earn it. I was putting in the hours. I could show you the symbolic callouses on my hands from doing the work. I felt like I had earned it, not by default, or because the guy in charge at the rec was incredibly persuasive and needed another coach that year. So when some “I’m a coach” offered his insight into what we should be doing with specific players, or questioned our decisions regarding playing time, roster moves, or substitutions, we were particularly agitated.
Here’s what hit me the wrong way. It wasn’t because, “I’m a coach” guy wasn’t a coach (usually he wasn’t), but because he didn’t know our players like we knew our players. He didn’t know who had practiced well that week and who had not. He didn’t know who had been sick, broken up with their boyfriend, had a major blow-up with their family, or who was questioning their desire to continue playing basketball at all.
“I’m a coach” guy didn’t know who was struggling with their academics or body image issues or whose parents were emotionally or physically abusive, or who was justthisclose to quitting college altogether and going home. He didn’t know who was thinking more about trying to pass Biology than playing a basketball game, or who had come straight from an internship to the game. He didn’t know who would be staying up after the game on the bus to study by phone light.
We knew because we made it a point to know. We were around our players. We ate with them, traveled with them, practiced with them, and met with them outside of basketball to check in with them on academics and life. We knew them. Those other, “I’m a coach” guys did not.
It’s a wonderful opportunity to coach and lead young people. But here’s to those who take the responsibility of knowing their players seriously. Here’s to the ones who never stop investing.
You’re a coach, and I respect you for that.
This year, I’m pulling for you.
Much Love,
Bryan
