Every Coach Needs A Coach

In my PT clinic, I better have a good reason for asking a patient to do an exercise, or get up and down off the ground, or walk every day, or check their blood pressure, or let me stretch them out into sometimes painful ranges of motion. There better be a why, and usually, it better be a good one.

This idea of ‘reasons’ was drilled into me when I was a student and out on my clinical rotations. Every time I’d come up with a plan for a patient, each of my Clinical instructors, whether they were in cahoots with each other or not, I’ll never know, would drill me ‘why this exercsie? Why this many sets? Why that many reps? What if it’s too hard or too easy for them? What if it makes them hurt? What will you tell them if they come in really sore the next day?’

This clinical reasoning is absolutely necessary in medicine and rehabilitation. It forces me to make great decisions on behalf of my patients. It forces me to think in terms of progressions and regressions.

It has bled into other areas of my life. I find myself consistently asking ‘why’ in planning my soccer practices, in conversations with my husband (I’ll always remember when we were talking about getting married, asking him ‘why’ he wanted to get married. He thought I meant why he wanted to marry ME, but I meant married in general. Like , what about our relationship would change if we got married? That was a long conversation that gave me some insight into what he thought marriage was and what we each expected out of it. )

If your players ever asked you ‘coach, why are we doing this?’ you better have a good reason, and you better stick to that reason. If you’re doing a passing drill to work on speed and accuracy, you have to focus on speed and accuracy. You can’t get picky about effort, focus, concentration (of course, all of those things might improve speed and accuracy), you have to make sure you’re getting done what you set out to get done. You have to have a reason and an answer to Why?

I like to assign an ‘objective’ next to each drill in my practice plan. That way I know there’s 1 thing to focus on, and to look for and give feedback on that 1 thing.

My challenge to you is to look for your reasons for why you do a certain drill, behave a certain way, or ask things to be done in a certain way. You better have a good reason. If you don’t, I challenge you to find a good reason and change how you are doing things.

We went to see Billy Joel at MSG a few weeks ago. He was incredible. I told a patient about it, and how the first half of the show was for real billy joel fans (I hardly knew any of the songs), and the second half was all his hits (a giant singalong with 20,000 people).  She brought up a good point, in taht he must get kind of bored singing the same songs and playing them performance after performance.  Now he’s a professional, and you can tell that he loves performing (he’s 73 with plenty of money, he doesn't’ NEED to be doing concerts still), so I’m sure ‘bored’ isn’t the right word. But that got me thinking. There was a point in this man’s life when he would have killed to be ‘bored’ singing his top hits over and over and over again.  My point is you could be doing something we’re trying to do something that in years will seem second nature to you, will not a big deal at all. It’s going to be a big deal. It’s going to be a problem or an amend that you wish for

What are you dealing with today that you wished for yesterday or a few years ago? 

I walk my dog a few times a day, and last week was on vacation. He loves to swim (He’s a chocolate lab), and when we’re down the shore, I usually am more lenient on the rules with walking (as there are not as many cars or other dogs/dangers), so I walk him on a very long, 30’ leash. He can roam around, smell, explore a neighbor’s tree or steps, and usually comes back to me. If he sees a person or another dog or animal, he get excited and wants to pull to go greet them (he loves everything and everyone) , but if it’s unsafe or the person feels uncomfortable , I reel in his leash and keep him close so he’s safe and so is everyone else.

There are times I walk him with a prong collar and a 6’ leash. These are his training walks, meant to teach him not to pull, stay in a heel, and focus on me only, no other people or animals.

When we’re out on the water, he doesn’t wear a leash (one because he’d get tangled in it and it’d be dangerous) and 2 because I know he’ll come back to me in the water (he loves his mom and is too afraid to get out of my site when he’s swimming in the bay).

I was walking him this moringa and the concept of ‘having a long leash’ hit me. I have players who get a longer leash than others. They can make 2-3 mistakes , or show poor body language once or twice, before I take them out to help them reset. I have other players I keep on a shorter leash, they get 1-2 mistakes , or the minute their body language changes, I take them out. I dont’ think i have any players who I can let off-leash yet. But the goal is they have enough awareness and self control that I don’t need to put them on a leash at all. I can trust that they’ll regulate themselves and are able to fix the problem, knowing that I’m there to help them, but without needing me to intervene.

I challenge you to look at the leashes you have your players on and question WHY you have them on the length of leash you do.

There was a big storm one day and thousands of starfish washed up on shore. A beach walker was there early in the morning and saw the results of the storm. He knew starfish can’t survive long without water, so he started picking them up one by one and hurling them back into the ocean. There were thousands upon thousands of them, and it took him a few seconds to rescue each one. A bystander watched him for several minutes, confused at how this man possibly thought he was going to save all of these starfish. So he curiously asked him, what on earth are you doing? You know you can’t possibly save all these starfish, there are thousands of them, and only one of you. Most of them will die anyway. You can’t possibly be making a difference.

The walker looked at the bystander, picked up a starfish , and hurled it into the sea. ‘I made a difference for that one’. And continued on.

You’re a coach. And that’s a superpower. You may not realize it, but your kids are like those starfish some days. They’re washed up on the beach , hopeless sometimes, and you have the power to be the bystander, and let them struggle and die, or the walker, and pick them up and give them a chance. I challenge you to be the beach walker, not the bystander.

226 Episodes in, and do you know how easy it is for me to tell anyone i appreciate them? I say it to the mailman, my patients, my players, my AD, my husband and family, my vet, the people who pump my gas, our principle and maintenance staff. Literally everyone. I have to credit Coach Lenny Krebs for that phrase. He signs his e mails with it and a few years ago when we met , he sent me something and it made me feel so valued. So I stole it from him and now that’s how I sign off e mails, my podcast, phone calls, and end of practice huddles.

It’s so easy because I say it literally every time i sign off on a podcast. At first it was awkward to say. ‘I appreciate you’ is not a typical phrase. ‘I appreciate it’, or ‘I appreciate the follow up/concern/service’, is much more common. I appreciate YOU means that I care less about the service, concern, or follow up, and more about you , the PERSON delivering that thing.

I think it’s powerful, I think we need to hear it as a society more, and we need to say it as a society more. I appreciate you.

I challenge you to start saying a phase you've heard and made you feel special and important.

A couple of my kids are struggling with their college essay prompt. My understanding is that they have a lot of freedom to express who they are in those 600 words. They asked me what they should write it on, and I suggested something a little bit morbid. I suggested that they write their own obituary or eulogy. That does two things, number one gives them the opportunity to say Coach Kelley passed away at the ripe age of 104 surrounded by her family and friends. She was a graduate of Catholic University, earned her doctorate physical therapy from MGH IHP (insert their college here)

The other thing it does is it gives them a picture to manifest. It lets them set the terms for their life. It lets them decide what success will look like. Mine sounds like this “She coached hundreds of young women in soccer and basketball, winning several state championships along the way and attending dozens of weddings of her former players. She owned a successful outpatient orthopedic clinic or she helped hundreds of thousands of people recover from injuries and avoid them in the first place. She revolutionized the idea of movement and exercise by encouraging people to move a little bit every day, similar to how they brush their teeth. She was a loving mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. She took great pride in donating both time and money to the Humane Society, The Seeing Eye and gun violence prevention. She officiated at the Division I College women’s level, including a national championship game. She loved her family, her players, her patients, and her dogs. Her memory will live on through her podcast, Every Coach Needs A Coach, and  in a scholarship that helps PT students who have been placed in clinical settings that move them across the country at the IHP.

I am bad at surprises and lying. I enjoy being pleasantly surprised, but I startle and scare easily. I tell my kids what our fitness tests are going to be, and try to give them a timeline of when they will be tested on them. The point of the fitness tests is not to see how fast they are. The point of the fitness test is to get them to prepare to take the fitness test. That preparation puts the miles on their legs and the stress on their body that allows them to make it through tryouts and 2.5 months of soccer 5-6 days a week with a significantly reduced risk of injury. I honestly don't care how fast they run a mile. I wanna know that they have run miles and miles and miles in preparing to run that one that I timed them for. I don't care how many push-ups they can do, I want their bodies to be strong so that when they go up against another player for a header, if they get knocked, their body is strong enough to absorb that impact and not get hurt. I strongly suggest that you tell your players with their expected fitness tests are, don't surprise them. And let them know, but the point of the fitness test is to prepare for the fitness test.

We all know the players who are coachable. They look us in the eye, they give us 100% without us asking for it all the time. They hold their teammates accountable, they are the first to practice in the last to leave. They are eager for extra reps and feedback, and criticism. They know that we love them, and the advice we give country a place of love, and not from personally attacking their character. To me, those are coachable players. If I had a team full of those, we would be unstoppable because we would be locked in 100% of the time, I’d never have to coach their effort or worry about their activities off the field

What is the player’s equivalent to coachable?

If a coachable kid is easy to coach, what kind of coach is easy to play for? I intend to ask my kids this question. If I had to guess, it would boil down to telling them the truth, and holding them accountable. At least for me, those were the coaches who I found it very easy to play for. What would your kids say, and are you meeting their needs?

I have a patient who I tell about our leader ship council, and he gave me what he meant as a compliment, when he told me well, you are a natural leader. I asked him why he thought that, and he said because I'm very positive and encouraging. And I appreciate his telling me that. It's nice to hear. It made me think of a story that Dr. Gilbert tells when he asks his classes at the beginning of the semester that he will give out an automatic a to any student who can find him a particular obituary.

The obituary Hass to say that whoever the person was achieved all they did in their life, without ever practicing. So for example, Dr. John Smith who is the worlds leading neurosurgeon, he never had to practice, he was a naturally good neurosurgeon. Or, Jane doe was the best selling author, she never made any spelling or grammar mistakes, she was naturally good at writing. Or,Mr. X was a motivational speaker. He never got nervous, or stumbled over his words, or lost his composure, or prepared his speeches. He was a naturally good public speaker. The point is, those obituaries don't exist. Anyone who appears to be naturally good at something, had to put in some kind of work to get exceptional at that thing.

I appreciate that my patient thinks I'm a good leader, I acknowledge that I worked hard to develop the characteristics of a good leader and have the courage to display them.

D Rose spoke to the kids, and I was fortunate enough to listen in. He said that there are over a million 11 year olds playing basketball in America today. 4,000 will play in college somewhere. Of those 4000, 35 make it to the NBA, and of those 35, 5 earn starting spots, and 7 get appreciable playing time, for 4 years or so. Then they’re done.

He pointed to the basketball, and said, ‘Basketball is not who you are. You are all unique people, and basketball doesn’t define you as a person. Your work ethic and your roles in your family, are more important than how good you are at basketball.

If one of the best in the world is willing to say that to a bunch of 11 year olds, we can say it to them too. The Ws and Ls don’t define us as people. How hard we work, how our relationships our with ourselves and with each other are what matter the most.