Episode 20-We Are Family

In this episode of the Gotcha Coach podcast, Coach Rick discusses the impact of being a coach on your family. He emphasizes that family includes more than just blood relatives, as coaches often have a large group of athletes, parents, and assistant coaches to manage. He raises important questions for coaches to consider, such as whether they are coaching to be involved in their child's athletic life or to live out their own athletic dreams through their child. Coach Rick shares personal stories of his own experiences coaching his siblings and children, highlighting the challenges and regrets he faced. He concludes by describing a significant moment with his daughter Shelby, where he realized the importance of supporting his children's individual passions and not pressuring them to fulfill his own expectations. Hey, welcome back, coaches, to the Gotcha Coach podcast, a podcast about coaching for coaches and presented by a real coach, me. I'm your host, Coach Rick, and I'd like to welcome you to Episode 20, entitled, We Are Family, where we'll be looking at and talking about how entering into and continuing in a career as a coach can affect your family, both positive and negative. But before we get into the episode, I want to thank all of my listeners from all over the world. 200 plus downloads, can you believe it? Downloads from Russia, Australia, Singapore, Canada, Japan, and 49 cities across the good old USA. Now, I never thought that my stories on coaching would be of much interest to anybody else, but I hoped that my experiences after 50 plus years of coaching across many different sports at many different levels would be of interest to somebody considering getting into this field. It's because of all of you that I keep this podcast going, and I thank you dearly. Now, the title of this episode, We Are Family, comes from the 1979 hit song of the same name by a group of four sisters called Sister Sledge. The song gained a lot of positivity when the 1979 World Series champions, Pittsburgh Pirates, adopted it as their official team song. If you research the song and look at the lyrics, you'll see how this song depicts how you can accomplish anything if you have your family supporting you. Now looking at this from a coaching perspective, your family can, and probably does, include more than your blood relatives. I mean, think about it, pretty much any sport that you may choose to coach at any level is probably going to consist of no less than 12 athletes, and could be as many as 100 athletes or more. Take into consideration that each of those athletes will have, in most cases, two parents, and you will have as a head coach one to, say, six assisting coaches. You will be surrounded by a group of humans consisting of different ages that amount to at least 36 people, and could be as high as, well, in excess of 300, all of whom you are in control of, and control a major section of their lives. This doesn't even take into consideration your own family and how you interact with them during your season, or seasons, if you choose to coach more than one sport. And remember, you are spending anywhere from three hours per week, if you're a Little League or AYSO soccer coach, to 18 hours a week if you're a high school track and field coach. And that doesn't even include the time you spend planning your practices for all these sports. Now, given all of this, you need to ask yourself the following questions. One, are you doing this because you want to be involved in your child's athletic life? Two, are you doing this because you're living out your athletic dreams through your child? Three, if your answer to two is a reluctant yes, are you prepared to handle the pushback or resentment that you get from your child, or maybe even your spouse? And four, what if one, two, and three are all answered with a yes response? How are you going to handle that, especially if it doesn't work out for you? Now, John Wooden stated, quote, the most important thing in the world is family and love, end quote. Funny thing, though, about family, they can be your most important support group, your fiercest critics, and a pain in your patoot all at the same time. And while they may not always, quote, unquote, like you, they'll always love you. The same can probably not be said about your extended family of athletes, assistant coaches, and parents. So be aware of that. Now if you've been following the podcast from the beginning, you've heard some of the reasons that I got into coaching, as well as some of the bonehead things that I did as a young coach in my 20s, ranting to a reporter who told me that he was doing a class project for his major in college that wound up on the local TV channel. I was very upset over a couple of my AAU track and field team race walkers that got disqualified at a major meet. Well, I looked like a total jackass on the screen and was absolutely humiliated. But was I mad at the results of the race, or was I taking an I'm the coach of these girls and would never teach them to cheat attitude? In retrospect, I have to admit that I do believe that it was a little bit of the latter, and I let my South Tahoe Steppers family down in doing so. This was not what the face of the team was supposed to look like. Then there were the years that I was coaching my younger sister and brother on the South Tahoe High School track team, and because I had it firmly implanted in my young brain that if I didn't treat them badly, then people would accuse me of playing favorites to my family. So I went the complete opposite route and was harder on them than any other athlete on the team. And although I don't really remember them ever saying anything to me about it, I could see it in their eyes and hear it in their vocal interactions with me. I had crushed their spirit. I doubt that I said anything that sounded like an apology to them then. So I'll do it now. I'm sorry, Tom and Colleen, for being the asshat that I was back then. During that same period, I also pushed my sister Colleen to do something in her senior year that was nothing short of trying to live my life through her. Colleen was good, very, very good. And when it came to our league championship meet, I wanted her to be the star. To do so, I had a vision of her winning the 100, 200, 400, and anchoring the 4x1 relay. But if you know anything about high school track and field, a 400 meter race is right before the 100, and no coach, no coach in their right mind would want their sprinter to attempt to do both, right? Wrong. You guessed it. She didn't win the 400 because I was so intent on her being the star that I couldn't see that it was me that wanted her to be that star. Not only did she not win the 400, but she was so tired that she couldn't defend her 100 meter league championship from her junior year. I cost her, her day, her success, her victories. I've never forgotten that in all the years since then. Now, one of the things that crept into my career many, many years later was coaching my own kids while I was also coaching at the high school level. I was constantly trying to juggle things so that I could coach my high school family and still be available for my real family. And the many extracurricular activities that they had, four kids, three girls and a boy, growing up in snow country, South Lake Tahoe, before cell phones were available. Oh, and throw in the fact that I also had a 40 hour a week regular job that put food on the table, and you can see where this is going. I missed many, many of those activities through the years. And I, to this very day, regret not being there for them. But, and it's a big but, I never missed their dance recitals. And yes, even my son took dance classes, and it helped make him a more flexible baseball player. I never missed their music concerts or their graduations, and even made sure that I could participate in all three of my daughter's father-daughter portion of their dance recitals. However, there always seemed to be that underlying resentment when I couldn't be there. As I said before in a previous episode, my brother Bruce was my coach on my son's Little League team, and I missed so many of the games that I always hated myself for not being there for all of his successes and his failures. And then taking the credit in the league for the team's successes, because I was listed as the manager when much of that success was because of my brother. There was a situation, in my opinion, that went a long way to cementing the great father-daughter relationship that I had, and still have, with my oldest daughter, Shelby. Shelby was a fantastic dancer in her youth, and had danced with the Oakland Ballet at the Christmas performance in Tahoe at the Nutcracker Suite in the early 90s. As a South Tahoe High School student-athlete, she came out for the track team because she had exhibited some promise in the triple jump in middle school, and I was the head coach. However, Shelby was a much better dancer than she was a triple jumper, and we had a, as I like to say, a come-to-Jesus moment one day after practice. She wasn't progressing in a fashion that she wanted, a trait that I'm afraid she got from me, and she came to me with her concerns. So here we are with a make-it-or-break-it moment. She told me about her concerns, and I asked her one very important question. Why are you here? Wait, what? You actually asked your daughter why she was here? Yep. You see, it was at this point in my career that I realized, and I'm not totally sure why, that my kids might be doing these things because of the need to please their dad. This was not what I wanted for my kids. Her response knocked me off my coaching-slash-dad pedestal. Basically she told me that, quote, I'm your oldest child, and I want to be a success for you as a coach, end quote. Now, I'm more than likely paraphrasing what the actual words were, but this was about 24 years ago, and the actual specifics are kind of sketchy. But the moment is forever. I remember telling her this, quote, God has a plan for you. You are an amazing dancer, and that's where God wants you to put your efforts. And I am proud of you. Whatever you go and do, and whatever you decide, trust me, your calling is in dance and not in track. And while I'm humbled that you want to make me happy by being a track athlete, I am more proud and happy for you as a dancer. And keep keeping with your heavenly beliefs. I reminded her that the Bible says, quote, bloom where you are planted, unquote. And dance was where God planted her. She cried, I cried, and she left the team. But we both had a better understanding of where we stood with each other. One of my better family interactions as a coach and a dad. This set the stage for my remaining three children and how they would interact with their dad, the coach, when they came into high school. Courtney, number two daughter, had no track and field talent, but she had an extraordinary skill as an organizer and proved to be the best damn team manager I ever had. Brittany, daughter number three, was a thrower, shot put and discus during our time at Douglas High School in Nevada and was a very hard worker and achieved some success, but felt a calling to help out her old man when she graduated and decided to help me with the newbie throwers on the team. And my only son, Caleb, had no talent for the sport, which was okay, because he was a fantastic musician and thrived in the high school music department. While I had made several mistakes in my coaching career, the biggest one that I made was in 2023. Yep, that's right, just last year. I forgot who I was and why I was doing this. I put pride and recognition in front of the main reason that I evolved into this career. Remember, I started out at the bottom of the coaching ranks in Little League, in AYSO Soccer, and in my initial high school track and field coaching career. This was the first time that I knew that I had a chance at a team league championship as a coach in high school. Since the year that my 10-11 girls lost that AAU NorCal cross-country championship by one point, 38 years ago, this was the first time I knew I had a winner. As I shared in an earlier episode, I had several football players who were instrumental in our inaugural success during their sophomore year that decided to forego running during their junior year because of their desire to improve upon their football skills. I lost it. I lashed out at them and their parents in an email and just completely came unglued. The next day, after much reflection and some prayer, I reached out to each of the athletes and their parents and apologized for my reaction to their decision. While many of the parents, who were not directly involved, told me that they admired my passion and threw their support behind me, the rest of the team members were very concerned by what I had said and done. After all, these were their friends and I had just blasted them. So to speak, as they say, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube after it's gone out. That's what I did. I had already said the words and no matter how many times I apologized or how sincere the apology was, the damage had already been done. This was the start of a downward spiral that I experienced with some of the more inspirational parents on the team, which led to my leaving the team after the first meet of last season. I was hurt. I was flabbergasted at the events and accusations being made against me and I was amazed at the lack of support from school administration when I brought the event and accusations to their attention. In retrospect, which is usually easier than when it's present, I wish I had thought things out and done things differently. I truly miss not being the coach at Twelve Bridges High School, a program that I built from the beginning as a team with only 9th and 10th graders. Yes, they won their first league championship in track and field last season with their boys team and they won both the boys and girls league championships this year and it hurts. It hurts big time to not be involved. I mean, come on. If you're really truthful with yourself, what is one of your goals as a coach? Yep, leading both your boys and girls team to a league championship in the same year has to be at the top of your list, doesn't it? In this case, I failed my family, my extended family of my athletes and their family members and I regret that portion of my career every damn day. I saw something on Facebook today and wanted to share it here with you. Quote, a coach's worth isn't found in their win-loss record or on their resume, but in the impact made in their players' lives, end quote. In this case, I didn't have much worth. Coaching is difficult and it's not intended for everyone. Much like one has to do in any relationship, decisions have to be made and they can be tough and consequential. All that I am attempting to say right now is be careful, think things through, pray about it if you're inclined to do that and above all, be ready to accept the consequences no matter what they may be. Well, that's going to do it for me and the podcast for the summer. I'm taking some much-needed time off from the show and spending it with my family over the next three months, beginning with a much-anticipated bucket list trip to the Bahamas next week. Until I return in September, tell your friends about the podcast and that they can listen to it on Spotify, Amazon, Google and almost anywhere that you get your podcasts. In the meantime, take care, be safe, laugh a lot and tell someone that you love them. I'll talk to you soon. Have a great summer.