I recently found an essay I had written six years ago during my last season as head boys coach at Nora Springs. It describes the events of one week as a coach of small school basketball; and reading it now helps to culminate this entire series I've written about what is right with sports. It's a little lengthy, but I think it's worth the read:
One Week: 1/21/07
As I look
back over the past week, I realize that everything good about small school high
school sports revealed itself in my school.
It was a common week in the middle of January for my team and I, with a
Tuesday night and Friday night game; but when I look closely, I realize that everything
about this week whispers reminders about why I decided to coach high school
basketball.
Tuesday
night was difficult. We were thoroughly
beaten by a good team. We spent Monday
and Tuesday focusing on what we needed to do to be successful, watching film
and practicing and preparing for that game.
We showed up and played poorly.
We made mistakes we haven’t made in two months. We did very few of the things we said we
needed to do, and very few of the things we’ve emphasized as team priorities
throughout the year. We did not have
much fun, we fell short of our stated goals for the day in numerous ways, and
we arrived home late that night loaded with disappointment.
I do not
enjoy that part of coaching, but it is reality all the same. The events in the twenty-four hours after the
final buzzer, however, speak volumes.
Immediately
after the game, we shook hands with our opponents. The opposing coach was gracious, and all of
his players took the time to look me in the eye and shake my hand. Whether in victory or in defeat, this is not
true of all teams. I grow weary of
teenagers who find themselves too important to either look at me or offer me
their hand, and I appreciated the show of mutual respect.
In the
locker room after the game, one player stayed after to discuss the game, our
team, and his role in both. The next
morning, another player met privately with me to discuss a misunderstanding and
a question about something that had occurred during the contest. I mention these two meetings only to point
out that these players faced struggles, confusion, and frustration head
on. They did not let negativity
fester. They didn’t allow themselves to
assume anything. They confronted, and
they sought answers. They acted as
adults and showed they’ve learned what so many others in this world have
not. The lessons on the court
transitioned to life.
Losing a
basketball game is not a tragedy. It’s
not even close. Tuesday night was a game
played by adolescents, and I refuse to act otherwise. Having said that, though, the players
experienced disappointment in something that was a priority to them. They sacrificed time, effort, and emotion to
something, and they did not receive immediate rewards. They risked themselves in front of people,
and they fell short of what they were working towards. Whether that is in a game or not, it is
difficult. It carries with it a great
deal of emotion; and depending on the level of commitment from the player, it
is a heavy burden to bear. So what did
they do fewer than eight hours afterward?
They went to school. They didn’t
take a sick day; they did their job.
They recognized that despite their disappointment, they had
responsibilities.
In
Wednesday afternoon’s practice, we went back to work at a new goal. We evaluated ourselves, studied our mistakes,
and risked time and energy and emotion for uncertain rewards on Friday
night. We decided to improve our
weaknesses and display our strengths. We
moved on and began chasing success again.
Wednesday
evening I went to a player’s home to pick up film from our game. A parent volunteers to watch his son’s games
through the lens of a video camera and record them onto DVD’s so that our
community’s team can improve. He invited
me in to watch part of the tape on his big screen television, we had a good
conversation, and I left appreciative of his efforts.
The efforts
of that parent do not stand alone.
Tuesday night after the game, just like after every road game, a sack
lunch was waiting for the players and the coaches. Parents from our girls team volunteer to keep
the scorebook and to run the scoreboard and clock. Other parents spend time in the concession
stand in an effort to make money for our programs. These examples don’t begin to describe the
voluntary giving associated with high school sports.
Thursday
night we practiced again and watched film.
After practice we helped set up the gym for the wrestling meet there
that night. The wrestlers similarly take
responsibility for events in the school by doing the same on basketball nights.
On Thursday
night an extremely popular retired teacher who has recently moved away came
back because he “wanted to see a game or two.”
He would have likely come back anyway, but the wrestling meet on
Thursday and the basketball double-header on Friday gave him the excuse he was
looking for. His mere presence lit up
kid after kid after kid in that gym.
Friday
night’s games continued to remind me of how important small school high school
sports are in this state to so many individuals. Before the game, as before most home games,
my assistant coaches came over for a pre-game meal made by my wife. In that mix of coaches are three former
players. These college students
volunteer their time because they know how important this is. They want to be a part of this, they want to
help other kids where they’ve been helped, and they want to prepare themselves
to help people throughout their lives, whether through coaching or
otherwise. They are excellent, and they
display what is good and valuable in this setting.
I had
family come to the game. My parents, my
sister and her husband, and my aunt drove 2 1/2 hours to see this game, these
players, and me. My mother-in-law
diligently took stats throughout the game, a duty she has not missed in my
three years as coach here. Our players
also had family and friends there to see them, a situation that may not be true
on a Friday night without this game.
The game
turned out well for us, as we both won and improved on many of our struggles
from earlier in the week. Our players
were rewarded for their commitment. No
one performed perfectly, and we still found many areas for improvement. But we did well, and we got to smile
together. In a clear attempt to cross
generational boundaries, the celebratory music in the locker room afterward
ranged from “Danger Zone,” Kenny Loggins’ hit from the film Top Gun (even I got motivational
goosebumps), to rap music I’m sure I don’t want to know the lyrics to.
My family
huddled around me afterwards, grasping a few brief minutes before their long
drive home. The players went to see
their families, their friends, and their girlfriends and accepted
congratulations. A player approached,
asking to see the stat sheet. We
emphasize stats on our team, as we get immediate results about certain areas of
the game. In victory, this player wanted
feedback about his performance. When he
handed them back to me, I asked him if he had fun. He smiled, paused, and said, “Yeah. I like winning.” I do
too.
Post game
on a Friday night is a good excuse to get together, so the coaching staff of
both the girls and boys teams, along with other staff members and family, sat
in a living room telling stories. The
retired staff member mentioned before was there with us after being at the
game, and in those shared moments we laughed harder than many of us have in a
while. We shared our educational
experiences, reminisced about legendary characters, and remembered all that is
good about coaching, teaching, and the educational process that our government
and policy-makers and educational reformers seem to have no idea about. I’m sure we were not the only gathering of
townspeople that night, meeting because they were at the shared venue of high
school basketball in our town.
On Saturday
morning, my wife wrote her own report of the game and emailed it to over thirty
people across the country and other parts of the world, friends and family who
have come to know our players on a first name basis and who eagerly await their
“Eagle Update” following the games.
The press
covered this event and hundreds of others in the state through the sports on
the nightly news and in the paper on Saturday morning. Athletes were recognized as newsworthy, and
they are. I’ve come to realize, however,
that although they reported the winners and the losers, that only tells a small
part of the story. If anyone asked a
coach how many wins they need to be happy, the response would likely be “just a
few more.” I know I could coach an undefeated
season, and I would still not find contentment, not satisfy my desire to
win. My contentment and my joy, and that
of so many others, comes from all the other good things I saw this week.
