The power you have

I attended a magnet school for performing and visual arts in high school.  We always joked that our stands were packed on Friday nights to watch the halftime show, not to watch the football game (for real, though, our band was lit, if marching bands can be such a thing).  I was also the second graduating class, so our population was lower than most schools in the area, and I think that also led to our sports being not great.  I joined the swim team and the soccer team along with a number of other choir nerds, band and orchestra geeks, musical theater and drama fanatics, and some visual art peeps.  Needless to say, we rarely went .500 in a season.  

My junior year, we got a new soccer coach.  Coach V was a young (late 20s) math teacher from Maryland who had D1 golf experience, but who had played soccer most of her life.  She held a meeting with all the girls who were interested in playing and our parents, and gave off an air of actually knowing what she was doing (as opposed to the coach we'd had my sophomore year).  We were captivated.  "A real coach!  A female!  She's young and funny!"  That year she encouraged us, pushed us, helped us with our math homework, taped our ankles, and brought in friends to help run clinics.  After the season, she started a little run club with a few of us and we'd run around downtown Tampa, or we'd meet on Bayshore Blvd, or at a local park, and sometimes after she'd treat us to ice cream.  She spent time getting to know us on a personal level while still maintaining appropriate boundaries with hormonal and dramatic high school girls, which was probably very difficult considering some of the yahoos we had on our team that year.  I couldn't even tell you our record that year, or if we even won one game.  But that didn't matter-- going to practice, traveling to games, the run club, it was all fun because we all knew that we were cared for.

Coach V got poached to teach at a new school at the end of my junior year, and we were all devastated to see our coach leave.  The next year we had a volunteer coach who was the dad of one of the girls on the team, and it was a very different experience.  I also couldn't tell you our record that year, but I remember very little of that year in general.  It just wasn't the same  

I graduated high school in 2000 and have spent some time since then trying to find Coach V.  I was finally able to make a connection in 2019 (the single thing I will ever thank social media for) and we met up yesterday.  23 years have gone by, but she still remembered little things from that soccer season; it's cool to think that a "bad news bears" type of team so long ago still had a place in her memory.  

This is the mark of an amazing coach.  I spent a year with this person almost 25 years ago, and it was so impactful that I wanted to reconnect.  What can you glean from her coaching style that you can incorporate into your own?

1. Mutual respect:  We were expected to respect her as our authority figure, and she respected us (even when some of the girls got a little rowdy or wild.)  Some girls ran A LOT of laps around the field, but the thing is, they ran the lap and came right back to the drill we were doing.  There wasn't any, "She hates me!" And then, everyone just moved on.  No grudges, no judgment.  
• The "moved on" is, in my opinion, the most important part of mutual respect.  You can't say "I will respect you if you respect me" and then hold a grudge when an athlete does something wrong.  We have to remember basic psychology and biology-- the human brain is generally accepted to be fully developed at the age of 25.  That means athletes are going to do dumb stuff.  Once we accept that as truth, then we can focus on how to deal with the dumb stuff they do, without holding a grudge against them or making them feel bad about the fact that they're functioning with brains that aren't fully developed.  
2. Presence:  She was there for us.  Whether it was related to soccer, school, or even our personal lives, she was there to listen, offer assistance, and encourage us to do better.  
3. Boundaries:  She established clear boundaries with us.  Even though she was present, she was still an adult.  She didn't try to be our friend, she didn't try to get into our business.  I think this is really hard for some coaches today to understand-- you can be kind and open and authentic without being inappropriate.  
• You cannot be present appropriately for your players without establishing clear boundaries.  This is non-negotiable.  But "boundaries" does not mean that you're cold and distant, it means there are lines that are not crossed related to appropriateness.  And it also relates to how things are talked about.  If your boundaries are fuzzy, it is very confusing to players and they don't know if you are a friend or authority figure; and the lines get fuzzier and fuzzier as time goes on.  Once those lines are blurred, it is exceptionally hard to get back to an appropriate coach/player relationship.
• The easiest way to consider this is to realize that your players are not your friends.  They don't want to know what you're doing on Saturday nights, because they don't know how to process that (very inappropriate) information.  Further, they don't want to know about the rager you attended at their age and the 3 minute keg-stand you performed.  If you're still not clear, set some time aside to watch "Old School".  And you shouldn't want to know about their antics either, unless they directly impact your team (i.e., broken team rules, players hurt or injured, etc).
4. Encouragement:  She made us feel, always, like we could win the games.  Even when it was very clear we lacked basic skill, we went into games thinking it could go either way.  She never made us feel down on ourselves, never discouraged us, and never judged us.  And this isn't to say she was a Pollyanna type-- she definitely knew we were going to get stomped every time, but she didn't let that get to us.  We just played.  

At this time of year, we are often compelled to be extra grateful-- there's a holiday named for it, after all (although that can be problematic, but that's another post for another time).  So today, I am so thankful for the coach who impacted my life so greatly.  While I went on to play soccer in college (badly, LOL), the skills and drills aren't what I'm thankful for.  I'm thankful for the role model she was and continues to be for me and for other young people.  

Thinking back over your career as a player or coach, do you remember coaches who've had such an impact on your life?  Have you reached out to them?  You should.  And you should also jot down the things that made that coach so important in your life.  Chances are, it's not the X's and O's you'll remember.