Episode 19 Why? The success and mistakes of coaching

The podcast episode titled "Why?" discusses the journey of a coach and the lessons learned throughout their career. The host, Coach Rick, shares his personal experiences starting from his involvement in Little League baseball to becoming a coach for a girls' track and field team. He emphasizes the importance of experiencing both success and mistakes in order to become a well-rounded coach. Coach Rick also mentions the influence of NCAA basketball coaching legend John Wooden and his principles of success. The episode concludes with a discussion on different perspectives of success and the importance of continuous improvement. Hey, welcome back, coaches, to the podcast called Gotcha Coach, a podcast about coaching for coaches and presented by me, a real coach. I'm your host, Coach Rick, and welcome to episode 19, simply titled, Why? We're going to talk about the successes and mistakes made during a coach's career, and in the episode, we'll look into why I initially got into coaching, how that reason evolved over the 50 plus years that I was in the career, and how the teachings of an NCAA basketball coaching legend changed my focus on both success and mistakes that I had made, and how you, as a coach, need to experience both in order for you to become a well-rounded coach. Now, in the beginning, back in 1967, 68, I knew how to play one sport, baseball, and when my youngest brother started out in t-ball, my dad decided to manage his team and asked me to help him. At the age of 14, I loved the game, and living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I attached my allegiance to the San Francisco Giants and Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, and the rest of the Giants team. I remember sitting in my fifth grade classroom in San Jose, California, with my transistor radio and our teacher allowing me to turn on my transistor radio to listen to game seven of the World Series against the New York Yankees, so the whole class could listen. And I will never forget the reaction of my classmates when McCovey hit the line drive with runners on second and third and two outs and the Giants down by one run in the bottom of the ninth that was snagged by Bobby Richardson ending the Giants' quest for a World Series championship. Now, when our Little League season started, I was in heaven. It turned out that I had learned just enough from my uneventful career in Little League to be able to impart the necessary knowledge unto the young minds that were presented to me and my dad. Now, note this, I have no idea whether my dad ever played baseball when he was growing up. Little League, as we know it, wasn't formed until 1939, and my dad was already 16. So I'm pretty sure that all he had was unorganized at best and possibly constituted a form of stickball, but I seriously doubt that since stickball was basically an inner city game and my dad wasn't raised in the inner city. But he was a very kind and considerate man who loved his children and felt that, starting at his youngest son's age group, this was the best way to show his family that he supported their athletic endeavors. Prior to this, he was a sideline dad at best that never got involved in me or my younger brother's sports interests, and girl sports were still taboo at that time. I have expressed to my listeners in earlier episodes that I decided in high school that I wanted to be a high school music teacher and track coach, since these were the two areas that I excelled at during my high school years. However, you have also heard how when I went to my local junior college, shout out to DeAnza Junior College in Cupertino, that my hopes of being a music major were dashed in my first year because I had problems with a lack of coordination with my non-dominant left hand in piano and guitar classes. I was a singer in high school and wanted to teach voice or choir, not band, but these classes were required and I wasn't cutting it. So I switched to PE, which made me stay at the community college for a third year. Now, pay special attention to this. Back in the early 70s, community college in California was free. That's right, free, except for the books and I could still live at home close to the campus. Those early years of coaching from 1967 through 1972 helped to formulate a confusing philosophy for me as to how a coach was to handle themselves and communicate with their athletes and parents. Remember, during this time, I was still a competitive athlete in track and field in high school and college and had many conflicting mentors to refer to. I had my dad, who, even though he was a nice guy, didn't have much of a resume when it came to coaching. My high school coaches, both in football and track, were quite a bit different in the way that they influenced me. My football coaches were loud and overbearing while my track coaches were meek and timid and not very helpful. Why? Because they were both distance coaches and basically knew nothing about sprinting. I wasn't even allowed to try any events other than the 100, 220, and 440 yard relays. It wasn't until I got to De Anza that I actually had a coach that positively influenced my desire to be a coach. Jim Linthicum, may he rest in peace, was the wonderful combination of discipline, enthusiasm, and positive motivation. And my time on that team had a great influence on how I would carry myself as a coach in the future. Now, as a baby boomer, one of the things that we all had in common was the desire to make things better for our own children and to provide the support that our parents never gave to us when we were exploring what it was we wanted to do with our lives. Once I found out in college that I wasn't cut out to get a degree in music education, I thought that coaching at the high school level was still what I wanted to do. Why? Because I had had experience at the little league level and had a year as an intern at my junior high school coaching track and field. It was fun. In that very first year of coaching when that little seven-year-old said to me, gotcha coach, I realized that I could influence people in a positive way and that they would listen to me. And, well, that was a real ego boost. In the fall of 1973, I dropped out of San Francisco State and moved to South Lake Tahoe. And in January of 1974, my entire life changed for the better as I took a position as an assistant coach with the AAU Girls Cross Country and Track and Field Team, the South Tahoe Steppers. Now, the main reason that I took on this position was because my younger sister had shown interest in the sport that I loved, and the head coach needed help. Little did I know that six months later, I would become the new head coach of 40 to 50 girls between the ages of 6 and 14, and this moment would form my next 50 years. What the F? Here I was, a 21-year-old male in charge of an all-girls athletic team. I'm suddenly responsible for organizing practice sessions, AAU eligibility requirement paperwork, meet entries, fundraising, travel and lodging arrangements, and so many other things, all before cell phones and the Internet. This time period between 1974 and 1979 proved to be a very huge learning experience in accomplishing the needed tasks that seem relatively so easy to accomplish today. So what made me to decide to get myself into this position and stay here? Well, to be very honest with you, at that age, I can't really comprehend why I accepted this path. I know that I had enjoyed my time coaching at the Little League level and coaching track at the junior high school that I had attended while satisfying a college requirement. But in retrospect, I really think I loved the idea of being in charge of others, and that idea would really wind up affecting some of my future endeavors in coaching. At this point, I would hope that you are looking deep inside of yourself and assessing the reasons why you are considering getting into this career or why you are staying in it, no matter what level you're in. Now if you have decided that you have what it takes to enter into coaching, even if it's just during the time when your own kids are playing, you need to think about what kind of coach you want to be. Do you want to be a success or just a mom or dad being involved in your kid's sport of choice? If you choose to be the successful version of a coach, you must now ask yourself, what makes a successful coach? I've spoken about one of my motivational heroes in coaching, the legendary John Wooden of UCLA basketball fame in previous episodes. But here's what he said about success, quote, success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming. He also stated, quote, nothing will work unless you do. And quote, young people need models, not critics. These are three principles that can go a long way in determining what kind of coach you can become and the impact that you will have on your athletes. It has been said that, quote, a coach is someone who always makes you do what you don't want to do so you can be who you always wanted to be. There is no glory in practice, but with practice, there is no glory. You see, success can be measured in many ways. Coach Wooden took a simplistic explanation of success. I personally like to look at success in even more simple terms. As a coach, I have always liked to look at the season, no matter what sport I was coaching, in segments and always try to improve upon each segment. Here's an example. The first competition was an extension of all of our practices up to that point. If we won, great. We now know that what we've been working on is good stuff and we can continue on to the next step or steps. If we lose, we still win. Why? Because now we know what we need to change and what we've been doing and we can change our direction. But you may view success in completely different terms. Success to you may be as simple as getting through an AYSO soccer season while working a full-time job and balancing a family life that included multiple kids playing on different teams at different times. You may also look at a successful season as finishing the first year at the helm and not alienating the team or parents, and that's fine too. Coach Wooden created his famous quote-unquote pyramid of success that many, many coaches use as their measuring stick during their careers. This pyramid of success can be seen hanging in Coach Ted Lasso's office in the Apple TV Plus series called Ted Lasso. I won't get into all the levels of Wooden's pyramid, and I really suggest that you look it up and study it. It really does give you a foundation for what any coach should have in their coaching quiver. Even though I won't go into every level of the pyramid, I do want to focus on four of the items that Coach Wooden put on his bottom tier of the pyramid or what makes up his foundation. These are cooperation, industriousness, enthusiasm, and loyalty. Wooden explains that cooperation means, quote, being interested in finding the best way, not in having your own way, unquote. Industriousness means, quote, worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning, end quote. Enthusiasm is, quote, brushes off upon those you come in contact with. You must truly enjoy what you are doing, end quote. Loyalty is described as, quote, loyal to yourself and all those depending on you. Keep your self-respect, end quote. I truly believe that if you follow these, what I call standards of practice, you will be on your way to being a successful coach. But what happens if and when you falter and fall short of these and the other standards expressed in the pyramid of success? We as coaches are no different from any other humans on this planet, and we do fall short of being perfect. I have always told my teams, especially those that can understand the concept, that they should strive to do the best that they can and give 100% every time they step foot on the court, the pitch, the field, or the track. But so many times, it's we coaches that beat ourselves up and take the heat when our teams don't perform in the way that the fans or parents think that they should. So what happens then? Now I have purposely stayed away from the term fail in this episode, but I feel the need to give you the dictionary definition of the word. The Oxford Dictionary lists the definition of the word fail as, be unsuccessful in achieving one's goal. To me, that's an extremely harsh definition, especially when dealing with youth sports. I mean, really, these athletes don't need to hear that they failed in their athletic endeavors. They already have the pressure of their academic endeavors, and should they get an F in a class, their athletic pursuit is, in some cases, kaput. So why should we attach that same word to our athletes as they attempt to achieve their best in their sport? But as a coach, I don't have the same feelings for me as I do for my athletes. I hold myself to a higher level of expectations, and when my team falls short, it means that I have been unsuccessful in achieving our goal, and that eats on me inside. And unfortunately, I have been known to bring that home with me, or expressing my disappointment to my team in a moment of frustration. Both of these are counterproductive to the goal, being a successful coach, not to mention being a good person. So did I fail as a coach when my South Tahoe Steppers Girls 10-11 cross-country team lost to Orenda at the PAAAU Championship by two points in 1975? Did I fail as a coach? When I sacrificed our team's success in order for my youngest sister to achieve individual success during her senior year of high school by running her in the 400 and coming right back to run the 100? Did I fail as a coach because I chose to play my Little League All-Star team players in every game for at least two innings, even if it wasn't required, just because this may have been the highlight of their lives? Did I fail as a coach because I chose to play my AYSO soccer players in three quarters of a game instead of the two that the rules require? Did I fail as a coach for demanding that my high school track team members gave their best in every practice and chose to run them in certain events at early season meets so that they could use these as quote-unquote glorified practices and their results weren't intended to mean that much? These are all things that could happen to you, and you need to be ready to answer them. So if you paid attention to the title of this episode, you'll remember that I said that successes and mistakes made. However, I haven't used the word mistake until now. Why? Simple. I hate the word mistake. The dictionary says that the definition of mistake is quote, an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong, end quote. The key word here to me is misguided. The definition of misguided is quote, having or showing faulty judgment or reasoning, end quote. Now, these are all pretty heady words. I mean, think about it. If you were given a math problem, say five minus three equals what? And you said the answer is one, and when you were told that you were wrong, you said, oops, I meant to say two. Is that a misguided judgment? Is that showing faulty judgment? So why do I hate the word mistake? Well, here's one example that sticks in my craw. 2017, three UCLA basketball players were arrested in China for shoplifting. And in their news conference, one of the players said, I take full responsibility for the mistake I made. Shoplifting. I'm sorry, but how does this come anywhere as close to making the mistake in a math question? Come on, really? Shoplifting is in a foreign country, and a wrong answer on a math question cannot be considered the same. Was it his mistake that he chose to shoplift or that he got caught? Now, have I made mistakes? You bet your sweet, oh, wait a minute, well, you know the phrase. And in some of those, I am not proud of the turnout as a result. But one thing for sure, that you need to learn from the mistakes that you make in life and in coaching in order for you to grow and protect against not making the same mistake over again. Mistakes can be harmful to you, your athlete, the sport, and possibly the people who are watching you make that mistake. Coach Wooden said this about mistakes, quote, if you're not making mistakes, then you are not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes, end quote. He also said, quote, a mistake is valuable if you do four things with it, recognize it, admit it, learn from it, and forget it, end quote. I mean, if you think about it, any of us who decide to get into coaching can be considered a doer. We study our sport or sports that we coach, we attend coaching clinics in order to keep up on what others in our sports are doing. We read and research different methods of training, and then we go about the massive job of applying all that to our team or teams in order to make them the best that they can be. And amidst all of this, there are bound to be mistakes made because, well, as I said before, we're not perfect. The key here, as Coach Wooden said, don't dwell on it and have a pity party. Now, I know he didn't use those exact words, but if you think about what he did say, it's what he's telling us. Here's a pretty simple example. As a high school track coach, I always wrote out my season workouts day by day, week by week, and correlated the workouts to the part of the meet schedule that we were going to be competing in. But there would always be times when I had made a mistake in judging how the team would be responding to each of the workouts. And then I would adjust the workload, either daily or weekly, and make notes on my written copies so that I could refer back to it the next season. Let me get into the weeds a little bit further on this. Let's say we were scheduled to do a workout that consisted of two sets of three times 300-meter runs in a specific time with a 100-meter walk back to the start. Now it's only early to mid-April, and it's unseasonably warm that afternoon. And a warm wind is blowing 5 to 10 miles per hour and hitting the runners as they enter the turn and continues headlong down the 100-meter stretch. The first group of runners come across the line and about five seconds slower than the posted time. And yet you could tell that they were giving their all. My mistake was not acknowledging the quote-unquote conditions that existed and the effect that would have on their expectations or my expectations. So I acknowledged it, admitted it, and learned from it. But contrary to Coach Wooden, I didn't forget it. Instead, I wrote it down so I wouldn't make the same mistake the next time. By doing so, I immediately changed the expected times for each 300-meter run and still got the entire workout in for each of the athletes. Achieving success as a coach is the fun side of coaching, and making mistakes is the opposite. But doing both makes you stronger and better if you handle each with humbleness and sincerity. I hope you're enjoying the podcast and may even be learning from it. And if you are, please tell your friends to listen to it on Spotify, Google, iHeart Radio, Amazon, Buzzsprout, and more. Remember, if you have feedback, questions, or just want to say, Hi, Coach Rick, you can reach me at coachrickb53 at gmail.com. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. Until the next time, take care, be safe, laugh a lot, and tell someone that you love them. I'll talk to you soon.