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Jack Welch
I was asked, after all the years I have been a coach, why I keep coaching. I have spent numerous years in college and high school coaching, yet I feel excited to start a new journey each season. What drives a person to continue working when they do not have to?
There is nothing quite like watching a player grow through the medium of athletics. I love competition and camaraderie of working with like-minded people. Each year presents different challenges, and it is fun to develop game plans to attack the challenges. It is enjoyable and sometimes comical.
I want to share several interesting stories putting a perspective on athletics. Several years ago, one of our coaches went to watch his son play his first seventh grade football game. As players ran out of the locker room, he noticed his son had something dropping out of his pants. He yelled for his son to stop running. He told the boy something fell out of his pants. The young boy bent down, picked up the dropped items, and explained to his dad, bite size snicker bars had fallen out of his pants. His dad asked why he had snickers candy in his pants. His son explained he might get hungry because he was on offense, defense, and all special teams. Then his son explained he heard the coaches say a ready man doesn’t have to get ready, so he wanted to be ready in case he got hungry.
Another one of our coaches’ young sons was playing in a T-Ball game. The T-ball coach made it perfectly clear to not let the opposing team score. The coach was emphasizing throwing the ball to the right base. Well, this little fellow thought he had figured out how to stop the other team from scoring. He was playing left field. The opponent hit the ball and ran around first, second, and now towards third base. Our coaches’ son ran in between second and third bases and stuck his arm out and close-lined the little boy, knocking him down. The coaches asked him why he hit the opposing player. The young player was so excited to have stopped his opponent from running to third base and answered that his coach said not to let him score, so I stopped him.
As a coach, sometimes we get focused on the task at hand. We often forget players at any age do not always understand what we are trying to teach them. This is a good lesson for coaches to slow down and thoroughly explain the game.
Coaches also need to be reminded from time to time we are coaching someone’s prized possession. I am reminded of my responsibility when I yearly review a letter a father wrote me. The father stated he was responding to my letter to his son giving expectations for football players on my team. The father said he and his wife agreed with my expectations.
For the next four to five months, he said I would see their son every day and be his surrogate parent.
He will hear you talk at practice, meetings and at games. He said his son would idolize me. You are our son’s role model, and he will mimic your actions. He finished by saying to remember they were giving me their most prized possession.
These funny stories of children first beginning their journey in athletics and parents giving coaches their prized possessions remind me it is an important task to teach important lessons of life. These are some of the reasons I still coach.
Thought for the week, “The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” John Ruskin
Dr. Jack Welch is an educator and college football coach. His doctorate is in educational administration, and he has been an educator, administrator, and football coach, mentoring young minds, for over 40 years. He is also the author of Foundations of Coaching. He can be reached at jackwelch1975@gmail.com.