Forever Coach

If you have any experience playing sports or being mentored, you likely have encountered at least one person that I like to refer to as a Forever Coach. Someone who impacts you in such a way that their guidance helps to create the very foundation that your life will be built upon. Someone who’s teachings and legacy stay with you for the duration of your life as if you just felt their impact for the first time yesterday.  I was introduced to my first Forever Coaches early in high school, which I wholeheartedly believe is one of the most crucial time periods in a young person’s development.  So crucial in fact that I’ve dedicated nearly twenty years of my life working with high school students.

It is my belief that each one of us has a purpose and calling in this life. Sometimes that purpose is to achieve individual greatness and other times it is to be a strategic piece in someone else’s story of triumph.  Like a blessing placed along someone else’s path according to a plan that was set in motion long before they were even born. I was fortunate enough to have multiple once in a generation coaches placed along my path who took an underconfident young man with what seemed to be very limited potential and molded him into a man of character who would go on to achieve things that nobody ever thought possible for him. A young man who would learn to believe in himself through the tough love, support, and guidance of his Forever Coaches and eventually achieve things that I’m still not sure he was capable of.   

I sit here on this mild, late winter day in North Carolina, and my soul can smell spring just around the corner. I can sense it as if it were my internal compasses true north. After all, spring is when my new life started. Where over twenty-five years ago I began to shed the thin skin of a teased, talentless kid who had no idea where he fit into this world and replaced it with the gift of armor that my Forever Coaches would help me forge over the next few years. It was a truly amazing transformation that only God, my coaches, and my support system could have made happen.  Love can make you remember things in accurate detail, things that are impossible to forget.  I guess that’s why springtime is so special for me because that is when I fell in love with track and field.   

When people meet me today, or anytime over the last twenty years or so, they can never believe that I was once a shy, timid young kid who was scared to death to be the center of attention or take one step outside of his comfort zone. I suppose it’s tough to fathom that a 6’6” 200 + pound man could be anything but the image he portrays and his stature embodies.  However, what people see today is the result of many years of lessons, influences, and practice. Yes, I can see how it is hard to imagine that someone wouldn’t be able to see through that guy and into what he used to be before he learned valuable lessons about faith, hard work, character, and love of sport.

Thanks to my Forever Coaches, I’m not that fragile young man anymore.  However, I could easily still be stuck there if not for their influence. It is terrifying for me to think of what my life story would look like if I had never met them and developed a love for sports.  I do not like to play the “what if” game but I do think it’s very important to acknowledge that part of me did exist and use my stories to inspire others.

While my coaches helped to forge that new coat of armor that would ultimately be the catalyst for my life’s successes, they were wise enough to not push that kindhearted young man clear out of the picture. They knew that off the playing field, I would need some of those characteristics to succeed in other areas of my life. So, while they worked hard to let loose the potential that was deep inside me, they were also careful enough to teach me and leave intact crucial pieces that would help me succeed in life after their sport was over. They taught me that I didn’t have to change everything about who I was to be successful, I just needed to find balance.  

Although there were many things that were truly special about my coaches, their ability to mold young minds through character development may have been their finest quality.  They took their sport and goals seriously, but never at the expense of breaking a young persons will or allowing them to be a bad teammate or display poor sportsmanship.  With them, sport was life and while you were training and competing, nothing but your best effort was acceptable.  Excuses did not exist and were not tolerated.  Respect for the game and your teammates was non-negotiable.  Poor sportsmanship or foul language was swiftly addressed with physically exhausting consequences.  When you were in their presence, you were now in their world.  300-pound bullies would go from pushing around their classmates to quivering in their shoes at the very sight of my coaches or at the sound of their thunderous voices.

There has never been any doubt in my mind that those men were gifts from heaven meant to make their community a better place.  They entered this world and lived this life with specific purpose and honored their calling.  That is why their memories will never die, even long after they have passed on and received their ultimate reward for the work that they did here for me and so many others.  Maybe their names will fade from the minds of future generations, but the way that they made us feel will never perish.  It will never leave because when someone makes you feel good about yourself or your abilities, their memory sticks with you forever and instills in you at the very least a subconscious desire to do the same for others. 

Due to their influence, myself, and many others have gone into coaching or teaching and passed on their values, lessons, and philosophies.  Every generation of Forever Coaches is responsible for influencing the next who will ultimately adjust to the times. They put their own spin on their title to ensure that the core values necessary to change lives are absorbed by each new and more difficult to reach generation.  As times change, so do people and it becomes increasingly harder to reach them in a meaningful and impactful way.  This is why timing and adaptation is so important for coaches. 

I’m not sure that my coaches could step into today’s world and have the same impact that they did for my generation.  As a matter of fact, I believe they would end up in trouble with the tactics that they used back in their day, tactics that were 100% effective during that time.  That is exactly why each new generation of coaches must take their timeless and proven methods and put a new spin on them, it is our duty.  I’ve had to adapt a lot over my own coaching career, things I did early on would just not work today.  I can think of multiple athletes over the last four or five years that I would have lost with my coaching mindset from twenty years ago. 

Personally, I don’t think kids have changed all that much.  Sure, it’s easy to look at a photo of a kid from 1980 jumping his bike over 5 of his friends laid out on the ground, all dirty and covered in bruises and scrapes. Take that photo and compare it to a video of some kids today dancing around in front of a cellphone so they can post it on a social media platform for likes.  It’s easy to see that times have changed and say there is no comparison and to insist that it is the kids who have changed, but they really haven’t.  At their core, young people still crave attention from the adults and other kids in their life and they also crave discipline and direction even when it seems like they are fighting it. 

In the bike jumping picture, you know darn well that kid flying over his friends is doing it for the attention and admiration of his buddies laying there on the ground and for the stories to be told later.  The Tik Tok kids are doing the same thing, although instead of just a few of their buddies seeing it, the whole world can see it.  THAT is what has changed and that is why kids are more sensitive, harder to reach, and more likely to give up on their dreams than they were 20 years ago.  One moment of brief stupidity or one awful comment from an internet troll can ruin their confidence and lives forever.  I thank God constantly that I didn’t have to grow up in these times, because I was a flawed young person always seeking that attention and approval.

It is very true that times have changed drastically and quickly with the development of technology.  It is harder than ever to grasp anyone’s attention these days, especially young people.  This is why coaches are more important now than maybe ever!  While times change, core values really do not.  As a coach, you are one of the very few people who get a young person’s nearly undivided attention, you get this during practice and games.  You are blessed with that time to get through to them when all they have to focus on is the words coming out of your mouth and the actions that precede and follow them.  They are in your world during that time, just like I was with my coaches back in the day and I’m certain you were with yours. 

If you lead by example, teach character development, and hold the line as an authority figure, in my opinion there is no other profession on earth that can have the impact that a good coach does.  Young people want to be led, they want to make you proud, and when you do it right… sometimes they want to be like you.  If you’ve never understood the importance of being a coach to a young person, read that statement again.  Many times, you are amongst the best or only positive influences that a young person has in their lives.  Their time with you might be the best few hours of their day or week and the only chance they get to absorb important life lessons and learn how to not only succeed at sports, but at life.  If that doesn’t make you want to start living YOUR best life possible, I don’t know what will.

I’ve lived a healthy life and always done my best to be kind, appreciative, respectful, and hard working. Those were all direct observations from my coaches that I absorbed like a sponge which have led me to where I am today. Imagine if my coaches had taught and embodied poor lessons and habits.  I’ve made lots of mistakes too, but I’ve learned valuable lessons from every single one of them thanks to the growth mindset my coaches instilled in me. 

I have two predominant driving forces in my life that keep me in shape, knowledgeable, and motivated especially during difficult times.  The first force is my calling and desire to always honor my Forever Coaches by passing on their lessons and embodying their spirit.  This force has guided me through most of my life and ensured that no matter how many times life knocks me down, I always get back up.  Not only do I get back up, I stick my chin right out and dare life to do it again because that coat of armor my coaches built for me gave me the confidence to believe that I’m always capable of more than I know. 

I work hard to be like my coaches were, I stay fit and strong, and I get out there in the trenches with my athletes.  Most practice days, you can see me right there with them running those stairs, lifting weights, or tagging along on their consequence laps to explain exactly why they are doing them.  My coaches did that and there is just something about your leader fighting alongside you that makes you want to do anything for them.  In my eyes, I’ll never be the juggernauts that my coaches were, but I just try to do my best impression with my own twist.  Rest assured though, their legacy will live within me as long as I’m here, and I’ve already seen it passed on to a few of my athletes whom I know will pass it down once again.     

The second force that drives me are the athletes themselves.  Of course, for the obvious reason that I need to lead by example and understand the microscope that a coach is under.  That reason alone keeps me going year after year, however, the force I am talking about here is the strength, youth, and energy that I draw from them.  When my tank is low, when I feel like resting or not giving something my all, I think about all the young people I coached who trusted me and dug deep and accomplished the things that I saw inside them.  Many of my workouts and training sessions are fueled by the memory of their growth and gutsy performances. 

Most of all though, when it boils down to it, it’s really because under this coat of armor, I’m still just that thin skinned kid who wanted nothing more than to be something special and make everyone proud of him.  I want to always make the coaches who helped build me proud, that’s why I still find things to compete in to this day.  I also want to make my athletes proud to say that I am their Coach, that’s why I give it my all to prove to them that although I will never be as good as I used to be, I will also never quit or settle for less than my best.

I believe that it is a lot harder today to coach than it was years ago, but I also believe that good coaches still impact more lives in a single sports season than most other people do in a lifetime.  For some, sports are the ticket to a better life, college education, or even a career.  For others, they may just be a fun time with their friends doing something that they enjoy.  It doesn’t really matter what brings them to you, it just matters that they are there.  And while they are there, they deserve a Forever Coach, even if they never play your sport again.  That’s what I got… and that’s why I’m here today. 

Every coach or mentor has the ability to significantly alter a young person’s life for the better. It has become my calling and mission to motivate and inspire coaches to be the best version of themselves possible and help them realize the potential that they have to change lives!