Every Coach Needs A Coach

Roy Kent was one of soccer’s most outstanding players. When he retired, he returned to coaching his old team. While watching his successor have a rut during the season, he decided he needed to remind Issiac why he played. So he took Issiac MacAdoo to his home town inside a cage to play soccer, the same place he’d go if he himself got into a rut.

At first Issiac was skeptical of the caliber of players at this arena, but once they showed that they’re as physical and talented as his professional counterparts, he loosened up a little and lost his ‘professional player’ stiffness, he played phenomneally and was doing trick shots, making up handshakes with strangers and celebrating goals like he was a kid again.

Suffice to say, when he took the pitch in his next professional game, he had a different perspective, and a sound reminder that soccer is fun. At the end of the day, we will play best when we are relaxed and united, and that in turn allows us to have fun.

Lewis Howes rides a scooter to and from his office because it’s FUN! He creates time to play in his day because it’s important for creativity, stress relief, and longevity. Fun can look different to everyone. What’s fun for some is NOT fun for others. Whatever your fun looks like, DO IT!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/what-makes-sports-fun-according-to-this-study-winning-isnt-the-most-important-thing/2019/11/27/63c52f06-0d8a-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html

What is fun for some isn’t fun for others. Some people have fun working out, others have fun reading. What all of our players have in common is that our sport is ‘fun’ for them. I’d be curious to find out from my team ‘what makes it fun’ - i always ask ‘what would make a great HS soccer experience for you?’ at the beginning of the year. Often I get answers like ‘winning states’ or ‘playing as much as possible’ or ‘getting along with my teammates and winning games’, which are all fine. But then I ask the group, “If the next team we’re playing called me up and said , you know what coach, you win, we don’t even have to play”, would that win still be fun for you? They always respond “no”. I do that to show them that the winning isn’t the fun part. The trying, the competing, the working together is the fun part. That’s what they love.

I’d encourage you to find out from your team what actually about your sport is fun for them. Set the standard for fun in your practices, and make sure we’re having fun every day.

Fun - at soccer practice every day, we structure it typically as 1) conditioning 2) skill work we need for our game as a team 3) FUN. I always end on something fun, and I got that from Coach Wooden who did the same thing in his practices.  https://www.sportscasting.com/why-did-the-ncaa-ban-dunking-for-10-years

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071437924/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Maybe not the world in our cases, but certainly a kid or two, or maybe even the whole team.  How deep is the fun you’re having? Do you have kids who are comfortable enough within your program to relax? To trust you? They must trust you and each other in order to let their guard down enough to have what’s referred here to as ‘deep fun’.  Think about a dog who trusts his owner and the environment. Maybe it’s a dog that loves to swim. When a toy gets thrown or a person jumps into the water with them, they are completely free to be who they are.  Now think about a dog who is in an unfamiliar place or with unfamiliar people. That same dog in the water may behave very differently.  Our kids are in an environment where fun should happen. They must trust you and your program enough to be themselves and have that fun.

Randy Pauch wrote and delivered ‘The Last Lecture’, when he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I highly encourage you to read it and watch it. It’s moving and has a lot of good lessons throughout it.

One of the lessons he emphasizes is it have fun. The whole lecture is phenomenal, one of the stories I remember from it is that Randy and his team of college students who were studying virtual reality design, got to experience a simulated space trip. That was one of Randy's childhood dreams, was to go into space. To make a long story short, at first NASA was not going to let him ride with the students, but he found a loophole because they would allow a journalist to go with the students. So he got his journalism credentials quickly, and joined them. He tells the story of going in that centrifuge and experiencing weightlessness for the first time, and how much fun he had bouncing around in a tiny capsule with people he cared about.

This is coming from a brilliant man who was dying of pancreatic cancer a the time he told this story. I think the lesson he wants us to take away from it is that life is too short not to have fun. So enjoy your time with your team, every second of it, even if they sometimes frustrate you or challenge you, love them and have fun with them.

You can watch the lecture here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Definition:  enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure Sports should be FUN. We have such an advantage as coaches in that our players generally WANT to be doing the thing we’re doing with them! Think about the average kid’s life.  Wake up (on mom and dad’s terms), eat (whatever mom and dad feed them), go to school (mandatory), do their homework (also mandatory, and usually alone), do their chores, then, MAYBE get to go to their sport (if they have practice that day). If we’re not having FUN at their sport, WHY are we even there?  Fun should be at the forefront of our practice plans, and the reason our kids keep coming to practice. Our kids will remember the fun they had (or did not have!)  on our team more than anything else.

Once upon a time there was a king who was unhappy. He had everything he wanted, but felt unfilfilled. One day walking aroud the kingdom, he came upon a street cleaner who was whistling and appeared to really be enjoying his day. The king looked at him funny, but figured maybe he was just having a good day, so he left him alone. A few days later he saw the same street cleaner , just as happy as the first day. This went on for several weeks.

The king finally asked him, hey, how come you appear to be so happy?” The street cleaner replied , “Well, Sir, I have a beautiful wife, a roof over my head, and I earn enough money to put good food in our bellies and spend time with my kids, I have every reason to be happy”

The king was unsatisfied with this answer, so he called upon the wisest person he knew. He explained this to the wise  woman, who told him, "Ah, that’s because the street cleaner is not a member of the 99 club". Seeing how confused at what the 99 club was, the wise woman proceeded to hand the King a bag of 99 gold coins. Go put this on the streetcleaner’s doorstep tonight, and then closely watch how his next few days pan out”

So the king did that. The next morning, the streetcleaner was THRILLED to be met with a bag of gold coins on his doorstep. He counted them carefully. 97, 98, 99  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀he was expecting an even 100. So he counted again. and again, and again. He quickly got angry, accusing his wife and kids of taking that last coin. He spent days and days searching for it, he barely ate or slept.

The king watched from afar as he saw the streetcleaner go from a happy man to a greedy, angry fellow. Then he learned, that once someone comes to expect something, even something as wonderful as a surprise bag of gold coins, they will forget about how good they had it and focus soley on that which they no longer have.

The moral of the story here is that we must remember that at any moment, our expectations can change. At any given time, we may be happy as the streetcleaner was to just do his job and put good food on the table. We must also recognize that if our circumstances change (like getting a bag of 99 gold coins..or in our case, maybe it’s getting a promotion, or in our kid’s cases, more playing time, or their name in the newspaper), our expectations can change too, and those expectations can shape and define our emotional responses to the things that happen to us.

In 1961 John F Kennedy gave a speech before Congress, regarding America's sights to land on the moon. On May 25, President Kennedy challenged Americans to rally behind his call to put a man on the moon. What he said was "If I were to say, my fellow citizens , that we shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of a football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of withstanding heat and stress several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food , and survival, in an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds over 25,000 mph, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun, almost as hot as it is here today, and do all this, and do it right, and do it before this decade is out, then we must be bold. We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they're easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept."

Every year at my player meeting in my parent meeting, everyone gets a one page handout. I have three expectations for each group, coaches, players, parents. The first they all have in common, and that is to be an example. I want our parents to make decisions that they would want their own children to make, I want our coaches to behave in such a way that we’d be okay if our athletes behaved that way too, and I want our players to realize that whether they’re on the field or in the classroom our out on a Friday night, they have signed up to be examples to each other and to the kids in our community.   Then for parents , I expect them to be encouraging, and to be supportive. Encouraging means we cheer for our kid, and our team, and not against the other team or the officials. When their child is struggling, encourage her in that struggle because she needs it to grow. And be supportive - we need the parents in our programs. They support and run our booster clubs, feed their kids, work tirelessly to get them to practices and games. We need their support and we need them to love their kids unconditionally like they already do.   The kids - my expectations after being examples are to be on time, and to be respectful. I can boil it down to Coach K’s 1 rule:  Be in the right place, at the right time, and do the right thing Lastly, as coaches in the program, our players, parents and administrators can expect the following: we will be examples, we will be prepared, we will be professional, and we will be grateful for the opportunity to coach their kids.   If we meet these expectations without a hitch all season, that exceeds my expectations for the season. I fully expect that I may need to turn around and remind our parents that we are encouraging here. Or our players that they’re examples both on and off the field. So having these ‘north star’ expectations in place helps guide everyone’s behavior.

“I hope you do not let anyone else’s expectations direct the course of your life.”  ― Julianne Donaldson  This quote stood out to me because we need to have expectations for our lives, for our own seasons, and for our own programs. I've said it before, if you try to be the best New England Patriots, or New York Yankees, or Los Angeles Lakers, the best you'll be is the second best patriots, Yankees, or Lakers.   Your expectations should be yours and yours alone. Sit down with your team and your coaches and forget about what the newspaper says, or what their parents expect of them, or the other coaches or their teachers at School.   Direct your life and your program and your team where YOU want them to go. In the world people expect us to get married , have kids, buy houses, stay in jobs we don’t like, go on vacation, work overtime, answer e mails immediately.  I hope you realize you have the freedom and capacity to change anything you want. You can be whatever you like and have a life you love, and it can or cannot include any of those things mentioned above.  If you let someone else set the expectations for you, you give them a lot of power over you. Be bold enough to set your own expectations and live them out.