Coachlife

I never thought that being a water polo coach would become an actual thing. I submitted my resume and talked to the Athletic Director at my old high school because I wanted to give back to the sport that had meant a lot to me during my formative years. Little did I know that they (administration) would fire the previous coach and hand me the head varsity job the following season. I knew nothing about coaching, I knew nothing about imparting knowledge (I use this term quite loosely) to kids, I was basically a kid myself at 22 trying to figure shit out.

10 years have elapsed. I’ve been in two serious relationships, been to two family funerals, excelled in my art practice, and lost and won a bunch of games. I’ve seen hundreds of kids go through the system, good, bad, average, and sometimes you get someone spectacular. But mostly it’s like any other job, you go in, go through the drills, hit the marks and try to make your team excel to the next level. At least that’s the way I thought my job was for the first half of my career. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy every moment of it, the highs and low of competition. It’s all quite exhilarating. There’s nothing like watching a kid break through his own personal barriers and become a terrific athlete. Coaching has been my release for all the frustration and anger I used to deal with through violence. You get to release innate male emotions without the red tape of being stuck in a white collar job. It’s been quite awhile since my last bar fight and though immature, I’m quite proud of myself from abstaining from such a debaucherous practice.

High school is bullshit, being a teenage kid is tough. Hormones are pumping through your system and you’re confused and amped up and there’s a lot of things you’re trying to figure out. I get it. It’s part of the job that I never signed up for. There’s been incidents that I’ve gone far and beyond my job description to try to amend a situation with an athlete or parent. Ultimately, I coach a team to win games, if I have a string of losing seasons it could be the end of my career. I’ve seen bloody noses, broken arms, and teeth knocked out like nobody’s business, and you’ve just got

to keep going on with the game. There’s no stop, an injury doesn’t mean everyone stops and boo hoos (It’s a part of normative society now that I don’t quite agree with). Either the kid steps up and continues or the game goes on without him.

There certainly are people who get a bloody nose and stop. And call time out. And want to quit and stop and can’t go on because they just don’t have the propensity to. I get it. What I thought I’d never learn about life through coaching is resolve. A lot of these kids are a lot tougher than I ever was or will ever be, and that’s a good thing. Some have gone on to be marines, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, engineers and those are learned skills. But you can never, ever ever ever ever teach a kid how to be tough. It’s innate, it’s an inborn trait that separates people. To be knocked the fuck down and be seriously hurt and want back in the game. It’s easy to make someone quit, I’ve done it time and again just in practice. I’ve made kids puke, and cry, and quit the team, but you can never make someone tap out who doesn’t want to. Some kids would die in the water if there were no rules.

I thought coaching was about imparting knowledge to a bunch of high school kids. In my mind they’ll always be kids, because they come in as children, 14 year old boys cuddled at the teat with no idea about the world. But there’s also kids who keep surprising me. The quiet ones, the ones with resolve, the ones who would take a beating and stand up and say “may I have another”. And again, you can’t teach that, you can’t train a kid to be tough.

I’ve learned that the win and loss column doesn’t matter. They are in an archive somewhere that won’t matter much next year, much less when I’m dead. Nobody will look me up and think, “wow he was a really shitty coach”, or maybe they will. At the end of the day all I have left of my career are the memories. I get to see kids reach physical potentials they didn’t think was possible. I’ve had several instances where parents tell me that I have “more influence” on their children than they do. I get to mold kids into men, to see them make that turn and understand their self worth and potentiality. I don’t think most people in life get to be what they want. Most people just accept their position. They take jobs to pay their bills, they succumb to their place, they have a boss, they don’t ever live their dream. And at least for one brief moment in a person’s life I get to let them know that they can at least glimpse the possibility. They can take loss and still succeed.

I get to be a part of kid’s lives in very formative years. I get to shape a part of their makeup. I get to see them day in and day out and shape their personalities and their mental fortitudes. I get to play a game with them that requires both physical toughness and resolve. I get to live out one of the passions of my life. I may have gotten older, my body has slowed down, but I get to be young through coaching. I get to be around a live or die attitude based on a game that most people will never understand. Maybe I’ll never have kids of my own, I will never know how extremely hard it is to be a parent. But at the very least I’ll have the memories. I’ve learned what it is to lose. I’ve learned what it is to give everything you’ve got. I’ve learned that most of life is what you put into it, and if you try very hard, it’s mostly all worthwhile.

I also understand that nothing lasts forever. That things change and people change and people move on. It’s just a part of life and I’ve accepted that. I’ve never been a quitter and that’s one thing I can impart onto the team. I’ve always told the kids that there are only three outcomes to any game. You can win, which is obviously the most ideal situation, but the other two outcomes are the ones that really mean anything. You can either lose with dignity and grit, or you can quit and lose with your tail between your legs. That’s most of life. Wins and loss columns that really don’t ever mean much at the end of the day. I coach a game with high school kids. A trivial sport that most kids put on as a bonus on their college applications.

What I want to impart is the thing that is being lost. A live and die attitude based on a self determination. A willingness to sacrifice for your team, the greater good, the very slight belief that you are insignificant in the greater scheme of themes. At the end of the day, I am only a coach, only an artist and my impact will be very little on a greater societal scale, but all I can do is to make sure I do that to the best of my abilities, no matter how trivial those things seem to be. And tomorrow is a new day and another practice and another chance to be great.