This coming week I will be doing a talk on how sport teaches life lessons.
The majority of kids who play sports when I grew up played multiple sports and many went on to play beyond high school, but unlike the craziness we have seen in the adultification and professionalization of youth sports I am many of my colleagues have highlighted in recent years, we continue to play sports because we loved the game, had met and met great friends, wanted to continue being active and so on.
The first slide that I will be sharing for the talk this week revolves around the various life lessons that I learned both as a player and now as a coach for decades and thought I would share the #1 life lesson I learned early on…Commitment … and will share others in a subsequent post.
Commitment: As a Player
Probably the greatest life lesson I learned from sports was the importance of commitment which was a result of losing my father when I was 8 years old to a tragic accident mid way thru the baseball season that he had stepped up to coach my team. My father had played baseball all the way up to AA level and I remember how excited I was when he said he was going to coach my team.
Due to the nature of his job, this was the first, and sadly the last time he was able to do so which is one of the driving reasons why I committed to coach as a many of my kids teams as possible, but one of the things he use to share with me over and over again was the importance of honouring your commitment.
When he died it was half way thru our baseball season and at the service I remember telling my mother and Nanny (grandmother) that I was going to quit baseball because I lost Dad and could not finish the season as a result.
To which both said, No, your Dad would not want you to and you will finish the season.
I was able to as one of the assistant coaches took over as the head coach of the team and remember how he pulled me aside when came back for the first practice after my Dad died and he spent what seemed like an eternity with me in the dugout talking to me about how he would do what he could to help me, offered to be a sounding board whenever I wanted to talk and even offered to drive me with his son and wife to all practices and games as my Mother did not drive.
As a result of the support that he provided me I finished the season and continued to play many more years, including the competitive level and then played and then played both hardball and Competitive Slo-pitch as an adult for many years.
Commitment: As a Coach
Fast Forward to when I was coaching a minor hockey team of the same age (they would now be U9, then was Major Novice) and my life came around full circle.
Just as the season was starting up, one of my players lost his dad in a very similar tragedy as I did and I am unsure who was more messed up, he and his family or I. It brought back a flood of memories when I was the same age as well as all the emotions I dealt with over they years and thanks to great coaches they kept me on track to stay the course or I could have gone in a completely different direction.
For the better part of the season I would call his mother, go visit him at home, chat with him when he did come to practices and games (I told him to take whatever time he needed when he was dealing with emotions) but much like I did finishing my baseball season, I made sure that he finished the hockey season including an end of season tournament where one of my favorite memories was him playing game boy on a bench with a huge smile on his face with my son beside him eating a hotdog and another player.
That summer he reached out to me with his Mom and said he needed to take the year off, he missed his Dad so much and the rink just brought to many memories.
I made a deal with him he could take the year off provided that he made a commitment to return the following season as that is what his father would aspire for him to do and he agreed.
I went to his house several times that season and even took him to a Canucks game thank to comp tickets I received from the association, and when registration time period came up in May/June the following year I went to see him and his Mother and he agreed to sign up for the following year.
The only stipulation?
That I had to be his coach.
I said to him … without hesitation although I did not know at the time what I had in fact committed to.
Later that summer my son tried out for and made the AAA team which I was asked to co-coach but I still honoured my promise to coach 80CC (my nickname for the player as he also loved Motor bikes) and reached out to the division manager that I would protect him in the draft as we were able do for our sons.
He said – no brainer, great that you are doing what you’re a doing but are you sure you can handle two teams?
Fortunately at the time I had a lot of flexibility as was self-employed and told him yes and was able to make it work even though there were weeks where I was on the ice 6 times or more plus I was also in the early years of facilitating Hockey Canada NCCP clinics for BC Hockey.
Several times that year the parents on the AAA team would applaud me for stepping up to coach him as well as the rest of the kids and we brought my team on the ice a few times to scrimmage and even affiliated him to come to practices when he was up to it.
On our other team I asked my daughter to create the sign “Play Like a Champion Today” (which is now at the top of the stairs in my office) that I would bring to every game and before the game in lieu of talking about systems, tactics we would talk about core values like sportsmanship, communication, selflessness and many other life lessons that I wanted to instill in the players as my coaches had done for me.
He made it to literally every practice, game and tournaments we entered that season and at the end he walked up to me and extended his small 10 year old hand and said “Thanks Coach”
There are some memories that you have as a coach, and that was one of them, to be able to help a kid who lost his father much like I had reminded me that everything happens for a reason, and it also reminded me of the biggest life lesson I could have learned, the importance of commitment.
Although my son and my paths went in the AAA path, 80CC continued to play every year at the recreational level and was one of the top players and could have played competitively but opted not so he could snowboard, bike, water ski and various other activities.
His mother would share with me over the years had it not been for my commitment to him to ensure he stayed on track, she really was not sure where he would have ended up.
The same held true for me, had it not been for the great coaches and teachers I had growing up, who knows where I would have ended up.
Fortunately for me, the importance of commitment and numerous other life lessons I learned helped steer me down the right path which is all I have aspired for all the players I coached and now remind coaches to do the same.
Remember, your calling as a coach is not to make a living, it is to make a difference developing youth into adults.
Please ensure that your legacy is a positive one and you are not a kids last coach