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Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Volleyball Coaching Life-“Why Do I Coach?”

It is the end of the high school season for many volleyball coaches, while some others are still in the fight for state championships.

Regardless of the results of the season, everyone is breathing a sigh of relief after an intense few months, a time period that seems both extremely short and extremely long. While talking to some of my coaching friends who coach in the Fall, I got a sense that all is not well, worse than the usual end of the season lament.

Coaching is always stressful and stress affects people differently. The feedback is immediate, and as coaches, we are constantly challenged by the competition, the group dynamics inherent in dealing with teams, the level of player maturity, and the interactions with people outside the team, namely administrators, parents, and others. Those are the known factors that have been the nature of coaching since time immemorial.

It seems, however, that more than usual number of my friends are dealing with more challenges than usual this season, much more than any other previous seasons. One factor that comes immediate to mind is the 800-pound gorilla in the room: the pandemic effect on the players and adults. As we want to put that challenge behind us and believe that we have all survived the pandemic unscathed, the truth is that the impact of three years of isolation on coaches, the players, and their adults are yet undetermined. No doubt an army of bright doctoral students in a myriad of subjects will study the daylights out of this period in our history and will enlighten us about the effect of forced isolation on our mental health many years from now. It is unfortunate  that these future academics can’t tell us what the hallmarks of these effects on human are immediately, because we need the information to help us navigate our present; indeed, we need the information just to survive.

Another concomitant factor has a much longer time scale: the slow devolution of our collective mental health while living and dealing with modernity. Many people in the mental health field have told me that the collective mental state of our society is not so robust; that the known negative signs of mental state had risen inexorably, well before the onset of the pandemic. The merging the effects of the long and short-term mental stresses is a perfect storm, which manifests itself in many new ways. The problem that we see in this instant appears to be  ambiguous and amorphous as we are not cognizant of the telltale signs because we don’t know what those telltale signs are a priori. More insidiously, synergistic effects of the long term and short-term stresses may be magnifying the stresses exponentially, without us realizing its potency.

I believe that we need to revisit our personal coaching philosophies and answer the question: “Why Do I Coach?” at the end of every season. It helps us to mentally align our own motivations in context of our realities. This practice will either reinforce our resolve, to give us a reason to continue what we are doing; or give us a reason to call it a day. A look back at our past, our foundational philosophy, helps us to gain a perspective on why we feel the way we feel at the moment and broaden our focus from the daily grind of coaching. “Why Do We Coach?” is a good starting question to ask.  

“I got into coaching for the money”, said no one ever. Most of us started out as volunteers, serving our apprenticeship while learning the vast body of knowledge that is coaching volleyball. A vast expanse of knowledge that encompasses the technical, tactical, intellectual, pedagogical, and psychological aspects of the seemingly disparate, infinite, and complicated range of human endeavors. What keeps us in the coaching cult is, by implication, also very complicated.

We can roughly divide the reasons or rewards for continuing to coach into two broad categories: the extrinsic and the intrinsic. We are all seeking some kind of reward in all that we do. This is not to say that we are all slobbering dogs in a surreal video taking place Pavlov’s laboratory. On the other hand, we are all very needy for incentives to motivate us.

The extrinsic reward for coaching is mostly about recognition. Being recognized for excellence in our coaching, in our administration of the team, our knowledge of the sport of volleyball, our secret knowledge of how to succeed.

The intrinsic reward for coaching is mostly about satisfaction. Being satisfied with reaching the goals established prior to the season. Satisfaction with our own personal progress on our journey toward mastering the art of coaching.  Satisfaction with knowing that our coaching made the difference for our players, whether it is for the individual, a group of players, or the entire team. Part of the intrinsic satisfaction comes from knowing that we are  contributing to the village which guided and educated an outstanding human being.

In many ways, extrinsic recognition is about how others think of us; their value systems and judgements all intermingling with the facts of the situation.  In the Stoic sense, the extrinsic recognition is completely out of our control as the recognition comes from others, their opinions, personal mythologies, and biases play significant roles in how that recognition is delivered, what form that recognition manifests itself, and whether the recognition is given at all.  

Intrinsic satisfaction comes from how we view ourselves. In the Stoic sense, the intrinsic satisfaction is completely within our control as the satisfaction derives from our own assessment, our reaction to our perception of the factual events. There are no external recognitions involved so the feelings that we feel are completely up to us.

As we are complex beings, the extrinsic recognition and intrinsic satisfaction are always mixed as we assess the results from coaching. We will, more often than not, mistake our personal need  for intrinsic satisfaction with our ego’s desire for extrinsic recognition. We will look for appreciation/recognition  from others as a validation of those things where intrinsic satisfaction should be plentiful reward. This thinking is what sometimes creates tension within our minds because we are all Pavlov’s dogs when it involves our egos. It matters to us that what we do matters to others. It matters that the recognition of others about what we do, as ephemeral as that recognition is, is expressed for all to take in and note.

Am I stating that we are all fools for public adulation? No.

I am saying that public adulation does not hurt our feelings.

Should that hunger for public recognition be the main driver of our efforts? Should that recognition be the main motivation for what we do? Is it the reason “Why We Coach?” I don’t know. I can’t speak for others.

I do know that I don’t flinch or run away from recognition, and I must be vigilant in observing my reaction to the recognition, and do emotional triage on my reactions to what happens so that I can separate those recognitions that is out of my control with the satisfaction that I derive from my reactions that are within my control.

My hope is my friends can have the time and peace, critical thinking skills, and mental acuity in these difficult times to sort through their realities from their myths, their long term state of personal joy from their short term moment in hell, and the validity of their long term personal philosophies from their transient unhappy reaction to an unpleasant reality.

In short, I wish for them. Wisdom.

Sunday, October 9, 2022

Words-For or Of?

At this point in my life, I have started to pay more attention to words, what their meanings are, their etymology, how the words are used in common usage, and most importantly, what the words mean to me.

As a teacher and a coach,  I have the occasion to express my joy from the achievement of my students and players. Even though the feelings I express are sincere, I sometimes have problems with how I express my feelings.

Recently, the simple phrase: “I am proud of you” has captured my attention. It is the implication of the sentiment of what the phrase says versus the true sentiment of what I am trying to express. The key is the word “of”. I am not good at parsing sentences, but here is my analysis of the problem. The word “of” implies that I take pride in what you have done. But should I be taking pride in what you have done? The pride that is expressed is mine whereas the pride should rightfully be yours for doing whatever it is that you have done. The word “of” puts me in the middle of the action, making me the center of attention.

It is natural for us to use the expression: “I am happy for you”, we don’t give it another thought. In my parsing, the happiness is naturally yours, the word “for” implies that I am not the center of attention, you are, and it is your happiness that we are celebrating.

It seems to me that we really should be saying: “ I am proud for you.” The change is seemingly minor yet profound. It refocuses attention on the person who has a right to be proud, the person  who has accomplished a laudable feat or feats rather than someone who did not have a direct connection to what was accomplished.

I further thought about why we say what we say. I am not saying that we deliberately seek to take the credit from the person who we should be focused on. Very few people are as obtuse and offensive as wanting to deliberately draw attention to themselves, but I wonder why we do this, other than the fact that the saying has become a procedural response; it seems like it is second nature, it just rolls off the tongue.

I further hypothesize that we want those who are the recipient of our expression to understand that we celebrate with them while also subtly imply that we have something to do with their pride. We are taking credit for the accomplishment by proxy: I am proud because I think I influenced you enough to so that you are able to accomplish what you accomplished; that interpretation just detracts from the sincerity.

I am going to stop saying that. I will, however, say: I am proud for you.

Parenthetically, Word just suggested that I need to substitute “of” for “for” in my last grammar check.