09/20/2026
Something to think about:
CONFESSIONS OF A COACH:
There is a side of coaching most people will never see.
You see the game.
You see the lineup.
You see who starts.
You see who sits.
You see the substitution you wouldn't have made.
You see the decision you disagree with.
And from the stands, it's incredibly easy to decide what the coach should have done.
What you don't see are the hours before and after.
You don't see the practices we've replayed in our heads. The lineups we've written, erased and rewritten. The conversations with players who are struggling. The athlete we're trying to build confidence in. The one we're pushing because we know she's capable of more. The decisions we agonize over because there is almost never a decision that makes everybody happy.
You don't see us go home after a game and replay every decision while everyone else simply goes home and sleeps.
You don't see the time taken away from our own families.
You don't see how deeply we grow to love kids who aren't ours.
You don't see how much it hurts us when one of them hurts.
And you definitely don't see how many times a coach has to swallow criticism, accusations and opinions from people who have never once stood on this side of the court/field carrying responsibility for an entire team.
Because here's the uncomfortable truth:
Coaching would be a whole lot easier if it were just about the athletes.
Athletes can handle being coached.
They can handle being told, “You need to work harder.”
They can handle learning that someone else earned the position they wanted.
They can handle disappointment.
They can handle being challenged.
And more often than not, they'll come back to practice the next day ready to work.
Sometimes it's the adults who can't.
Somewhere along the way, sports started becoming less about teaching young athletes how to handle hard things and more about adults trying to remove every hard thing from their child's path.
But I didn't become a coach to make sure an athlete never experiences disappointment.
I became a coach to help teach them what to do with it.
Work harder.
Be a good teammate anyway.
Ask what you can improve.
Earn what you want.
Celebrate someone else's success even while you're working toward your own.
Learn that sometimes life says, “not yet,” and that doesn't mean “never.”
THAT is coaching.
And no, I won't always get everything right.
I'll make the wrong substitution.
I'll say something I wish I'd worded differently.
I'll second guess myself.
But one thing I will never have to question is why I do it.
I don't do this for the parents.
I don't coach for applause from the stands.
I don't make decisions based on which parent might be upset with me afterward.
I coach for the kids.
For the girl who needs someone to believe in her.
For the one who needs someone to push her.
For the one who needs to learn she's stronger than disappointment.
For the one who discovers what she's capable of because somebody refused to let her settle for comfortable.
And for the team learning that sometimes you have to put WE before ME.
So criticize the lineup.
Question the rotations.
Disagree with the decisions.
But understand something before assuming a coach doesn't care:
Sometimes the decisions that make it look like we care the least are the ones that hurt us the most to make.
Because we in fact do love these kids.
We know when they're disappointed and it hurts us too.
And we make the hard decision anyway because our responsibility isn't to make every moment feel good.
It's to help prepare them for a life where not every moment is good, because it won’t be.
So when the noise gets loud, I'll remind myself:
The noise isn't why I started.
Those athletes on the other side of the whistle are.
And they'll always be louder. 🤍
