January 31, 2007
8:52 PM
I am a horrible coach, I am a horrible person! I feel ten inches tall, and I am sure that is how I made my players feel today and that’s not what I wanted. I go to practice with the right intentions, but I get there and do it all wrong, and now I am left being torn up inside, and feeling like today has got to be my worst day ever. As a teacher as a coach, I have succeeded in making two students cry, broken their spirits and for what, two of my best students went away from school a lot less of themselves than when they came in, and that was not my plan, my hope my goal, and as far as my standards are concerned I have failed! I want to be so much better, I want to be everything to these kids and I would give my life for them, but lately I have not been showing that to them especially while coaching. I had such high hopes and high aspirations and high expectancies of what coaching volleyball was going to be like, but now I see that I am doing it all wrong. I AM DOING IT ALL WRONG!!! I have bitten off more than I can chew, and am choking on the pieces, and drowning myself, and am taking the girls team down with me. I thought that coaching both guys and girls would be easy, but no way is that easy, its like trying to teach kindergarteners and college students at the same time, each need a different level of teaching and working with, and I am not saying that any one of these groups are like kindergarteners, its just tough! And both are equally difficult. You see I had expectations of being this amazing volleyball coach that was going to be bringing all this awesome experience and knowledge and be able to teach these kids how to play “real” volleyball. Boy could I have been more wrong. No where have I ever felt more like being an “unwitting imperialist” than I do with coaching this team I have gone about it all wrong, because who said that I have all the answers, who said I had any, and who said that they were playing volleyball the wrong way anyway! It sucks and I hate every piece of myself that has brought on this misery not only to myself but to my players, because I know that it has made my players miserable. For the past four days of practice all I have done is yell and scream, and made these players suffer. I have been giving them the workout of their life and forgot about the most important thing about playing a game. Having fun! I have to be honest, I think the fun to suffering ratio has been completely lopsided since we started practice, and now I am at a point where my best player wants to quit. I don’t know what I have done, but what ever I am doing I am doing it wrong, and I don’t know how to do it right, and I am suffering from pushing the envelope to this point. I am the coach that told myself I never wanted to be. I remember playing little league baseball, and I sucked at baseball, and I remember striking out in the Tournament of Champions, and after walking back into the dugout, one of the assistant coaches reamed me, he just let me have it, about how much I sucked and how my heart wasn’t in the game, and a whole bunch of other stuff that just makes you feel like you are 10 inches tall. I was 10 years old. How quickly I forgot what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that, and that’s all I have been dishing out to these girls, and I hate myself for it. I really do. For becoming the coach I never wanted to be. I have been so caught up with my own personal agenda that I have forgotten the importance of having fun, and that it doesn’t matter what I want, but what the girls are enjoying, because if the girls aren’t enjoying it why should they be there, and I think that is the point that Jane is at. I have pushed her to a point where she no longer enjoys her most favorite sport, the one sport that she would do anything for, and so now she wants none of it, she didn’t sign up to be yelled at and to be in tons of pain, but she is, she is in a lot of pain, and she still gives her all, and its still gets her no where. The level of playing ability is so low, and so I thought well “I am a gift to these girls because I will help them be great”. But that’s not the way it works, its not me who is going to teach them anything but they who are teaching me. They are teaching me, what it means to live with compassion and steadfast love, a love that challenges, but not a love that crushes. And if I want to have any team left to coach. Still everything that I can think about is doing my best for these kids, and I want these kids to have an amazing experience, which continues to point towards the direction of forgetting myself and putting the kids first. Forgetting my agenda of creating world class athletes (not that I am capable of that anyways) but of simply allowing these students an opportunity to get together and have some fun. That is the whole point of sports. And if I can help bring that about maybe I will have taken a step closer towards being a better coach, but until then I have a lot to work on, a lot to digest and think about, and I am finding that throwing up all that you bit off to chew is a lot more difficult and painful on the up chuck, but still I think that it’s the only way that I will be able to start afresh and be able to truly bring some more meaning to this season, with a lot more fun. God be with me, I cannot do this alone!
March 26, 2007
6:40 PM
Win lose pwa pwa chok! That’s really all it comes down too. Its funny how the biggest lessons in humility and justice come from some of the most insignificant things that you do in life. Or at least for me here in Chuuk. Coaching would have been the last thing that I would have expected to do, but in the end, I think I was the one that got the most out of these seasons. I have learned so much about myself, my desires, and how those might be affected by the people you lead. It’s a rare and amazing opportunity, your first year of coaching, you will only get one, but I know for sure that the failures, mistakes, and losses do not stop here. There are still many errors to be made, and many losses to suffer, but in the end, as long as we came out had a good time, but more that the students had a good time, they had an opportunity for that short bit of time to feel a part of something, a responsibility to someone, there’s growth there's joy, there's love! Win lose pwa pwa chok!
Note: "Win lose pwa pwa chok" is Chuukese for, whether you win or lose still be happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment