203. Coaching

The only thing I’ve ever done longer than teach school has been to coach. I was going to say the only thing that pays, but the salary for coaching high school or junior high school has mainly been a reimbursement for costs associated with the job that I have incurred. But I don’t complain about that because I still love to coach. I know that when I was in school I had some coaches that I really loved and others that I liked well enough but didn’t feel overly inspired by. I suspect I have had kids of both those persuasions under my tutelage.

Of course, the thing I loved in school and the thing I still love to coach is running. I have always loved teaching kids skills that I know, many of which I still practice but obviously not all. I’m pretty worthless at high jumping, shot putting or throwing a discus. I have never been able to pole vault, yet I coached kids based on what I observed and what I knew about jumping and that vicarious knowledge, their trust in me, and their own skills made them successful. That’s what I really love about coaching. It’s very much the same as teaching, except as a coach you almost immediately expect your athletes to exceed your abilities and to rely on you more for your observation skills to guide rather than innate abilities and knowledge. Unlike teaching you expect your tutors to be better at what they are doing than you are at doing it. You expect that almost immediately. That’s what makes it so exciting and challenging.

While coaching is very much the same as teaching, it is a little different in that a coach can’t really be expected to be able to do everything they ask of their athlete. A teacher is supposed to know what they are teaching and be able to do it while a coach may only know how to suggest something, not actually do it. Coaching requires subtly different skills. The coach must know the ins and outs of the athlete as well as the activity they are coaching. The coach is playing a chess game with living, breathing chess pieces. Because of that, coaching is very fascinating. Of course, a good coach loves not only the sport but their athletes as well. That’s how they get the best out of them and that is also why athletes admire their coaches so much. So, of course, some coaches and athletes sync up better than others because of their personal connections. While this is somewhat true of the student teacher relationship, it doesn’t need to be. A student or teacher can be completely indifferent to the other yet learning can occur. It’s very difficult to get the best out of an athlete if there is no sense of personal admiration and investment.

Also, coaches can be odd ducks with one another. There are many who are condescending and not people I would care to spend much time with. I suppose much of that comes from the fact that coaches are somewhat in competition with one another. Teachers, on the other hand, are almost always people that I would enjoy spending time with because they are innately able and willing to accept you as you are. A coach is probably looking for something quite specific and will have no problem giving you a cold shoulder. Not that a teacher can’t do that as well, they have a severe time limitation and might brush you off out of self-preservation rather than a competitive nudge. My experience with coaches has taught me that we can be a different sort, but that’s not a bad thing at all. I might not like every coach I meet, but I love the job of coaching.