Do You Really Want To Coach?
Whether you dream of leading a team, empowering individuals to achieve their goals, or igniting change in a younger generation, this book will be a roadmap to your dream destination. Being a coach is unlike any job in the world. Not many other careers, if any, include thousands of people with no experience on the job assuming that they can do it better than the people doing it. A lot of people, in the bleachers or sitting on the couch at home, at one point think to themselves “I could do that.” You might be right, you might be wrong.
If sports are your passion you either need to enjoy it from the bleachers or pursue it fully and maximize every opportunity. What gets lost in the middling in-between of great effort and no effort are coaches wasting kids’ time and leading them astray from their athletic dreams. You have to realize that as a coach, every choice you make impacts highly influenceable minds and sets them on paths that they’ll travel on for their entire lives. It isn’t a job to take lightly. With that being said, not everyone in the industry takes that to heart. Every year thousands of athletes are led by coaches who are there for the sole reason to relive their glory days or to try to fill some sort of void left by a mediocre athletic career. I was once told by a wise athletic director, “there are two types of coaches: type one is the person who is standing on the sideline because that’s the closest they can ever get to playing again. Type two is the one who loves sports and has a desire to use them to impact kids.” It is important to check your motivations before you get started.
My first bit of advice to you is this, don’t do this for anything other than the love of the game. If you don’t truly love the sport you coach, you will burn yourself or your athletes out. There are several reasons to not be the reason you coach.
For any kind of social status - The people who like you for your success will be absent for your failures.
For the money - The vast amount of hours put in will never add up to any more than you could make at a part time job.
To relive your glory days - You have no idea how much pressure your past will put on your athletes.
Coaching should be treated like any career. There should be a long process of deep thought and conversations about whether you should truly pursue this. Ask yourself, “if I’m not getting opportunities sooner than later am I still going to be interested in the process?” If you’re still an assistant coach in 5-10 years will it still be worth it? If not, that’s a red flag. Treat this process like dating. You don’t typically choose to marry someone at first sight. You get to know them. You spend time with them. In the same way, get to know the profession. Help out at camps. Coach a youth team. Ask a coach if you can sit in on their practices. There are many ways to gain exposure and experience. No matter how you do it, educate yourself before committing. It’s better to find out you don’t want to coach during a week long summer basketball camp than in December mid season.
Anyone who is passionate about kids and the sport has what it takes. It doesn’t matter what advantages others have over you. What matters is that your motivations are in the right place. There is a popular, over-used, cliche, “work smarter, not harder”. I disagree. Do both! By working really hard in a smart way you can achieve all of your goals.
