If I spent half the time doing the routines I spend hours doing now, thank you children, I might have had a chance at an acceptable level of mediocrity.
What I am okayish at, however, is getting kids to stand in a straight line and then steadily reaching a new point down somewhere down that line. I know learning, and you see silly stuff when coaching. You do silly stuff. And please, If you can do it better (or even marginally worse) volunteer. Please.
Often times it’s mundane arguments over the rules in search of victory. We forget the ultimate goals. Facebook fights over calls, folks yelling at umps. Rule after rule being bounded about.
Snarky memes, no better than locker room jokes spread in psuedo-private chat channels. Sports gets gross. Especially over rules.
Let’s not do the web this way. If people get to shared goals through varied pathways and plumbings who cares.
I call the beauty.
And I try to teach my children to find the beauty in sport. Yet I often fail. I am driven more by passion not to lose than I am to win. I think keeping this in check will help me be a better coach. But what really keeps me driving forward now is watching them succeed at anything they do.
No matter what rules they follow to get there.
Coach flickr photo by San Diego Shooter shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license