Coaching for the Love of the Game...

Coaches coach for the love of the game and to impact the lives of their players. In my 20+ years coaching and leading high school athletics, I've never met a coach that coaches for any other reason. I've met good coaches, struggling coaches, and championship coaches, but none cared any less or any more about the human beings they were coaching than another. However, despite this equitable display of care and concern, I have watched how dramatically different they have been treated by players, parents, and community members, as well as opposing players, coaches, and spectators; most often as a direct result of their success. I've seen teams that were 0-15 much more succesfull than teams that were 15-0, simply because of the way they carried themselves and their coach led them, not because of how many points they put on the board or W's they notched in the win column.

Coaches are human. Like you and I, like all people, they are prone to the occasional mistake and even have minor lapses of the "perfection standard" they are held to. However, despite the media hype of coaches going awry, most instituitions have outstanding role models whose only goal is to do what's best for kids, both the individual student-athlete and the team. Never will every spectator agree with all decisions that a coach makes, and often times even when the coach makes a good (or great) decision, it isn't executed by the players on the field; this is not a cop-out on the player's efforts, rather it reinforces the perspective that we all need to step back and consider---who is it that's competing? Young men and women, not professional athletes, but kids putting their best effort forward, not individuals being paid to entertain with their skill. Instead, they are a reprsentation of their school and community, and of the coach that has put in tireless hours preparing them for success. More and more newspaper headlines call into question whether society is losing perspective on what educational athletics, competition at the high school-level, is supposed to represent and the lessons its supposed to teach. I'm certain that disrespect of the game, teammates, fans, communities, and the like isn't the standard for educational athletics, regardless of what you may see at the collegiate and professional level. That is not what we are about, that is not our standard.

We need to continue to work toward a more wide-ranging acceptance of what high school athletic competition is supposed to be, and while I disagree with the lack of sportsmanship evident during professional and collegiate competition, athletes that have advanced to that level of play have done so because of extra-ordinary skill. Nearly ever single one of our student-athletes will go on to be successful in something other than their favorite sport; that's what educational athletics will prepare them for.

Let the players play, and let the coaches coach!

For an interesting and current perspective resource, right here in Michigan...see the link below:

http://athleticbusiness.com/articles/lexisnexis.aspx?lnarticleid=1578855642&lntopicid=136030023