My Best Years in Coaching

“When one teaches, two learn.” Robert Heinlein

I have often thought about my most formative years of coaching young people, and it is a difficult task to isolate any one experience.

My initiation to coaching was at Roncalli High School (Aurora IL), where the boys laid the groundwork for me. They were generally tolerant with a rookie teacher and coach. After four years I moved on to teach and coach at Providence High School for one year which further taught me more about the critical aspects of mentoring. These five years of working in secondary, Catholic schools initially prepared me for a lifetime.

But it was coaching a “foreign” sport that forced me to begin anew in soccer.  My own knowledge of soccer was almost nonexistent, but in Catholic schools you were expected to do whatever was required of you, without questioning it.  Luckily, a few local soccer players volunteered to help out by running drills and coaching me.  Baseball and basketball were sports that I had played, but it was in soccer where I learned how to be mentored and survive.  I also had to listen to the kids on the field who really helped me coach.

Coaching in college presented this green apprentice the chance to work with the master of all coaches, Gordie Gillespie.  Being the assistant to Gordie for five years in baseball revealed how little I knew about being a coach.  He gave me the chance to concentrate on the finer aspects of the game, but more importantly the player-coach psychology and dynamics. 

His approach to student/player relationships helped me assume leadership roles in starting the Lewis soccer team and to become the co-director of the intramural program. These were great responsibilities which resulted in fantastic rewards personally and professionally, all under his sponsorship and guidance.

I can’t discard the wonderful year of coaching basketball at Joliet Junior College or my one year of succeeding Gordie as the women’s basketball coach at the University of St. Francis. The athletes at both institutions were superb and taught me so much. 

Were these my best years in coaching?  

Next week, I will discuss the next phase of my coaching experience…the grade school aged kids in Wilmington.

‘Teachers (and coaches) have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.” –Scott Hayden