When I first started coaching, some umpteen years ago, I had a conception of what a coach was suppose to be. He’s a leader whose word will be obeyed. He’s a motivator who pushes players forward through his own sheer will. He’s a tactician in the middle of a war. Talk about a misconception. Of course a coach is a leader, a motivator and a tactician but not in the image I had fashioned. With the passing of each season, I learned more about coaching and about being a man than I had ever bargained for in my life.

Coaching is kind of like being a parent, only the handbooks are better and there are more of them. In both cases you’re really not sure what you’re getting into until you are there. Oh, you can try to prepare, you can read, watch, ask questions and so forth but until you jump in with both feet… And in both cases, you never realize the impact you will have until it’s too late.

My first year as a football line coach was spent in a youth program. I wanted those kids, those linemen, to be the toughest squad on the team. I wanted everyone else to respect them and be in awe of their power and tenacity. To that end I worked them everyday. Drills, push-ups, one-on-one, tackling, block and shed, drive blocking and something I called “King of the Hill”. I pushed them like no other squad on the team. They were the meanest, toughest nine and ten year-olds you ever met, yeah, nine and ten.

One of them, the biggest of the group, came from a broken home. He never knew his father and was court ordered to live with his grandparents as mom had a habit and could not care for him and his younger sister. I paid no attention to these facts but to the matter at hand, football. As he was the biggest, my expectations of him were the greatest. I pushed him harder than the rest, rode him the most and displayed my distain at his short comings more frequently than with the other players. Basically, I was a real jerk. Things culminated one day on the practice field late in the season. I was chewing him out in front of the team, God, and half of Texas. He responded by yelling back, bursting into tears and running off the field. I’ve never felt smaller. All the right words and apologies couldn’t make up for the wrong I did this young man, this boy, though I tried.

I don’t know where he is now or what he’s doing but I owe him a lot. He taught me to first think about my players and not myself. He taught me that each and every player is different than the other and therefore should be handled different. That what motivates one doesn’t necessarily motivate another and that as a coach, I need to look at each player as an individual and get to know them as such. I learned that although there is a time and place for yelling, there is also a time and place for quiet guidance. I learned that not all players can be pushed or motivated in the same way. I hope I didn’t do any permanent damage to this boy because I also learned that the things we do and say, whether for good or bad, can have a lasting impression on these kids, just like being a parent.

Okay, usually I’m figuring X’s and O’s or watching tape or reading about Vince Lombardi. So, how do I find myself here? Simple, my wife. You see, she seems to think I need to do this and that you are going to be interested in what I have to say. Why would you be interested? Well, let’s give it a go for awhile and see if the answer comes to us both.

I don’t proclaim to be any kind of coaching god or have all the answers or some incredible insight into the game or coaching for that matter. What I do have is year’s of experience reading, controlling, training and coaching people. Years of listening and observing. At first, as a police officer and later as a coach. I have witnessed first hand the human spirit at it’s lowest and at it’s zenith. That has to be worth something. All I’m going to do here is try to talk a little football and share some of my life’s experiences and hope in some way, you the reader, can take something positive from it. There might not always be a lesson in it, hell, it might only be a funny story but I’ll do my best.

So, hang in there for awhile and let’s see how it goes. One coach to another, one coach to a player or just one guy to another guy. Now, I’m sure I have some film to watch or a Lombardi-ism to learn. Catch you later.