A few months back I told the story in this blog post of how I earned the nickname "Selfish" as a young coach. Even now, almost 12 years later, the story fills me with mixed emotions. It was kind of funny (especially when Coach Sawchuk would call me Selfish), and yet it's kind of sad to think that I acted in a way that inspired someone to see me that way.I've been thinking even more lately about coaching, selfishness, and how big a part both of these have played in my life. The fact is, I'm like a lot of people, maybe the majority. I got into coaching because I had always been an athlete. My identity was caught up in being an athlete, and after taking my playing career as far as that was going to go, the most natural way for me to continue to stoke the competitive fire and be around the game was to become a coach. And so a coach I became.
I'm not trying to tell anyone that my reasons for wanting to coach were completely invalid, they weren't. But I will say this: my reasons for becoming a coach were very much tied up in my desire and need to be around sports. I became a coach primarily because of what sports did for me. And anytime my primary reason for doing anything that involves other people (especially young people) revolves around what I get out of it personally, that's not the ideal situation. It's putting me dangerously close to a place where other people (many of them young people) become a means to an end, and I become a user of people.
Please don't misunderstand me. Coaches absolutely need to love the sport, love competition, want to win, etc. At the same time, coaches who desire to maximize their opportunity to leave a legacy or make a positive impact on lives absolutely need to love the people they serve more than they do the sport itself. That wasn't me then. Hopefully I'm closer to that ideal now. And hopefully, wherever you are in that process, you are moving in the right direction.
80's Lyric
No comments:
Post a Comment