Coaching Takes Heart

There is a lot that goes into coaching. Coaching involves practice planning, game planning, scheming, developing players, building relationships, and winning games. In today’s day and age, coaches get fired if they don’t win enough. But they also don’t get paid for when they do win. Coaches coach because they were born to do it. There is no other reason why a coach (that isn’t a professional coach of some sort making millions of dollars) would coach. These coaches love to compete, they love to impact lives, they love to lead and challenge kids. Some coaches are motivated by winning. Win at all costs. And that’s why they coach, they love to win and they want to win as much as possible. So, that’s what keeps them driven.

The problem is, if you have a win at all costs mindset, a lot of things can go very wrong because at the end of the day, you’re dealing with relationships. Players want to give coaches their all because they know you care about them and they trust you. They don’t want to give coaches their all because they feel intimidated or threatened, even though they will to please the coach or to gain playing time or approval from the coach.

Some coaches will even bribe players with shoes and apparel in order to get the most out of them on the court or field. And with teams that are full of kids, it’s a good thing the shoes and apparel can all be sent in big shipping supply containers like cardboard boxes. Without these, the coaches couldn’t get the players their bribed shoes and apparel, and the players wouldn’t play hard for the coach. Therefore, the team wouldn’t win games and the coach would be fired. Funny how cardboard boxes full of apparel can coax kids to play, huh?

But most coaches are teachers, so just because they were fired from coaching, they could still keep their teaching jobs. And since they’re not even paid well to coach, they’re not missing out on anything substantial. However, most coaches that get fired will try to get on at another school because of that deep passion they have to “coach” and what that means to them.

Like I said earlier, you must be born to coach, otherwise there would be no reason to put up with the community, the bribery, the parents, and the disrespect of the modern day athlete. They don’t respect authority figures like kids used to.