Today's thoughts on HS athletics

Last night was a rewarding night for me. Three players that I coached when I was a head coach two years ago stopped by my house to see me before they went to college. They left for the University of Iowa today. I didn't coach them or teach them in their final two years of high school, but we've maintained a relationship in the interim. I'm not sure what they learned from me in the two years I coached them and had them in the classroom; but at the very least I think they learned that they could trust me to talk to and treat them like real people, and that they could do the same with me. We didn't talk about anything important last night; but we were talking, and I think that's the important thing.

I'm having fewer and fewer of these conversations now that I'm not a head coach. And I miss them. As a freshman coach now, I only get to have the athletes for one season. Many of them I don't ever teach in the classroom. Whatever lessons I have for them (or trust I try to build) is limited to a 4 month time period. I have some players from my time here at Mason City who have made it a point to voluntarily converse with me, but the number is smaller than it was when I had the influence of a head coach.

I spoke with a football coaching friend of my this week. He's a head coach, and he's got a plan. He's tired of seeing some of the attitudes he often faces with high school athletes, and he realizes he has a voice as their head coach. He's created a list of around 10 life skills that he wants to emphasize this year with his players. Things like accountability, respect, leadership, etc. And he's really going to teach them. He's not going to post them on a wall as window dressing. He's not going to mention them one day and hope it sinks in. Because he realizes that coaches only get what they emphasize, he plans to take practice time each day to focus on one of these traits and how to improve it. He also wants to spread this to the junior high and elementary students in the district, providing their teachers with short lesson plans for class on Friday's for them to discuss the character trait being emphasized that week by the football players.

I've become a bit disillusioned by high school sports as of late. Maybe even for the past couple of years. That's likely surprising coming from a high school coach, but it's true. Often it's tough to see what the payoff is for kids or adults. I see kids being taught to love personal glory and love the cheers of people they don't know. I see adults pouring out emotion in fairly unhealthy ways in an attempt to see wins. I see tons of money influencing so many aspects of athletics. I see athletes (of all ages) being asked to spend hundreds of hours year round focusing on their sport. All for what? What's the payoff? In the scheme of things, what is being gained?

I'm jealous of the football coach mentioned above, because he is getting to produce some real gains in people. He has that opportunity. He's got a lot of similar ideas to what I've done or wanted to do as a head coach, and he's doing them. He's making it worthwhile for the adults involved, for the players, and for the community. He's making sports matter. I miss that job a lot.

I don't know why I don't get to be a head coach right now. It's tough to believe I can have as much influence without the opportunities that position afforded me. As a believer in an omnipotent and sovereign God, I've got to believe there is a reason. That doesn't mean I have to like it. I can only go about seeking excellence (as discussed in an earlier post) in the situations I'm granted now.

I've reread what I've written above twice now, and I can't seem to find a conclusion to write. Maybe that's because there is none. It's tough to have a nice neat ending to a writing about real life. Especially in a writing that meanders as much as this post. I guess the conclusion is I do believe sports can be important, and I do believe that responsibility and opportunity is often mismanaged at many levels. And right now I have no idea what my place is in any of it.