Coaching Philosophy: Meaning, Creativity, & Passion
It isn’t unusual that people ask me why I chose to do this for a living. My reading habits, background in music, and concerns about the world seem to indicate a guy that would go into law, journalism, or academia. It is not infrequent for friends and relatives to nicely suggest that I direct my future toward one of those sorts of vocations. While I don’t rule out a post-coaching existence in another such field, I have every intention of spending many more years as a coach.
The way that my high anxiety, high intensity nature operates, I honestly don’t think I could wake up every day and go do a job that I don’t care about, and didn't involve connection to a community and to young people. Many are able to neatly divide their job and their passions; the old adage of the “day job.” It works fine for plenty of people.
It wouldn’t work for me.
I have an intense desire to do meaningful work in a passionate manner. I have no desire to spend my days on this Earth doing anything else. Not everyone needs to do it this way, nor is it feasible for every individual, but when I counsel teenagers and young adults, I always tell them that if possible, they should try to find something that fills them with purpose and desire, and make a living doing it.
Human beings have a nature that includes a desire for meaning, to creatively express themselves, and to be passionate about something. People that lack any one of these three things are likely living unfulfilled or deeply troubled lives. To be sure, having all three does not preclude you from trouble and struggle; quite the contrary. But the struggles, stresses, and difficulties attended by those of us with guiding philosophies (a “why”) are qualitatively different from those of people who are struggling through a directionless or rudderless existence.
Teddy Roosevelt said “I have never once admired a man who had an easy life," and Neitzche reminded us that "a man with a "why" can endure almost any "how." I find these quotes to be largely truthful, and applicable to the coaching profession in particular.
With regard to meaning, every human has an innate tendency toward the Good. While our perceptions of reality and of what “good” is are often faulty, we pursue it all the same, in all that we do. To truly do good is to bring about the best circumstances, the most flourishing for the people and the environment around you. It is hard to imagine many vocations that provide a better opportunity to do that then coaching, particularly at the interscholastic level. We get to wake up every day with a purpose; to pour into the lives of kids, guide them to character, strength, and truth.
There are fewer things on this Earth that fill me with more anger than teachers or coaches that don’t appear to embrace that purpose. We have all been around these kinds of people. Coaches who blow off the classroom. Teachers that don’t have any interest in their own content. Guys that walk around all day almost with an intentional aura of irony, as if to say "isn't it ridiculous that I'm here teaching?" I have had encounters before with coaches for whom the very concept of taking the classroom seriously was laughable, and they were not afraid to say so. Mind you, I’m not talking about the days we all have where we take it easy on our classroom kids because we are absolutely spent. Every educator, good and bad alike, has those days. Coaches are at times trying to fulfill two full-time jobs at once. There are days when you have to engage in some self care just to survive. It’s not a perfect world and we do what we have to do occasionally. I’m rather referring to a generally apathetic or (worse) ironic approach to each school day.
One of the many lessons I took to heart from Chad Dunnam was his insistence that there are NO great coaches who are bad classroom teachers. There may be mediocre coaches who are mediocre teachers, but great coaches have a deep sense of pride in what they do each day. That pride and drive to do things well cannot be switched on and off. You either care about your kids (ALL of them, athlete or not), and have a desire to educate and enrich them or you don’t. The skill set used on the field and in the classroom are drawn from the same well. Again, it’s not about having lapses or finding some give and take in your work balance. We have to do those things. It’s about an approach. Do you regularly approach your classroom with a real desire to care for and educate those kids? If your honest answer is no, you don’t need to continue in the profession. The kids deserve better. If you think it’s okay to coast and B.S your teaching every day, how can you possibly insist that the kids work hard and take pride in their performance?
All of this is to say, I wake up every day, not to “go to work,” but to fulfill a deep sense of meaning and purpose. It doesn't mean that I always launch out of bed full of joy. I’m human and there are plenty of days when getting the motor going is hard. Still, I have a deep sense of contentment, even on my worst days, because I know that I get to go do what I love, and I have a reason for doing it. The kids are the reason.
Another thing humans innately desire is to spend time on something creative, that they have some semblance of control over. We want to apply whatever ability we have to something. We are not evolved to stare at the wall or at a screen (There’s a reason that a growing body of evidence links early death with sedentary lifestyles). For me, the gridiron has truly become that place. I don’t really enjoy board games, I don’t fish, hunt, or work on cars. I don’t build things or remodel my house. My creative outlet, my place where I apply my mind and creativity is coaching. As a result, my lines are a little blurrier than they are for a lot of guys in the profession. For many, “getting away” from football and working on a car, building a fence, painting their house, or woodworking provide a nice reset.
I’m just not wired that way.
My idea of “getting away” is quality time with family and friends, reading with or talking with my kids, or having long talks and debates about important things with anyone who is interested in joining me. At times it may be music, playing once or twice a year with my brother, or watching a concert. Other times it’s diving into reading or researching something that interests me. But as soon as my creative hunger starts to present itself, it’s back to football; scheme, program building, organization of materials, practice plans, scheduling, branding, installation, position battles, etc.
Every person is different, but the older I get, the more emphatic I am in my insistence that we should do our best to bring about a society in which people are free and able to pursue what fulfills them creatively, mentally, and intellectually. When people are “bought in” to what they are doing each day, they become more content and resilient. More than trying to actualize this sort of atmosphere professionally as adults, we should encourage and direct young people toward doing the same.
One of the most memorable things a mentor ever said to me when I was young was that, despite all the flaws, headaches, and long hours that come with coaching, one thing kept him coming back year after year; Friday nights.
The lights. The bands. The students. The community. At the small schools, trucks backed up to the fence all around the stadium, filled with families. At the big schools, the anticipation as 10,000 plus people fill up the parking lot and the stands during warmups. The feeling you get as a week of tireless preparation ticks down before your eyes, soon to give way to kickoff. Then, watching your kids take the field, loaded up with your teaching and nurturing, to navigate the 100 by 53 yard gridiron on their own. It’s intoxicating. There is nothing on earth like it, especially here in Texas, where we do it better than anybody else.
Even as I write about it now, butterflies fill my stomach.
Being deeply passionate about what you do, as most coaches are, can be exhausting. The highs are euphoric and the lows can be full of despair. When you spend endless hours working with a kid (sometimes YEARS), teaching him how to accomplish his job to the best of his ability, then see him execute and succeed under the lights, it sends a powerful electric current through your body. That feeling is difficult to describe. It’s why you see coaches on sidelines go nuts on TV and in person when a kid gets a sack, a pick six, or even just downs a punt inside the 5. The coaches on that sideline you see at the bottom of your screen have spent endless hours building presentations, teaching on the white board, repping over and over in practice, and visualizing his guys succeeding. For even seemingly small examples of routine execution, the coach feels vindication, joy, and even relief. All of that breaks through the surface in those moments. It’s then that the passion we have for the game becomes publicly visible, whereas before it was being expressed out of public view, grinding through early mornings, weekends and long afternoons and evenings.
It is the goal of every coach worth his salt to fill his life with as many of those moments as he possibly can.
