Hello All,
I was asked to write about why am I here coaching. I would like to start by saying I always knew I wanted to be around sports. Sports have always consumed my life in some way. As an athlete, it is who I am. I could not imagine my life without sports, whether coaching, participating actively or by watching. To me, sports have made me who I am and taught me so many lessons and values.
To tell a little about my story, I was in private school most of my life. My sophomore year in high school, I went to a public school. I had some really good coaches and some really not so good coaches. I guess we all have encountered that at times. I always played, not because of the coach, but because I had the passion for the game, whichever sport it may be that I was playing. For most of my childhood, I concentrated on basketball more than others but softball was second. My dream was to go play college basketball, preferably a big name school. Anybody in sports can relate to being in the backyard and dreaming you were playing for such and such team, hearing your name mentioned from the announcer and making that last second shot. I remember working so hard to try and make my dreams come true and thought I was on that path. However, two days before my senior season was supposed to start, they told me I was ineligible to play. Not only did they take basketball away, but they took every single sport away from me my senior year. So now, my dreams are shattered. Everything I worked so hard for, gone in a flash. I knew that not a single coach would look at me now since I wasn't playing and it would be hard to justify looking back on my junior year. So, my senior year was spent being an assistant coach on the sidelines of each sport. Each head coach gave me the opportunity to run some practices and be a huge part during games. My softball coach actually toward the middle of the season put me on third base to coach. What a great opportunity I was blessed with. I learned so much from the coach's perspective as well as the players. As with any athlete, you get up, brush yourself off, and keep moving forward. When one door closes, another opens.
Enter Mary Baldwin College. Not my first choice of college ultimately but guess what, I was planted there so I new I could bloom there. Isn't that what we are taught as athletes to give everything you have inside of you? I felt blessed to be able to play college ball and I had to run with this opportunity and make the best of it, which I believe I did. Now along this journey has been many great role models that influenced my life. There was one that truly made a difference in my life. I remember this coach telling me, "Athletes have an expectation and a standard to live up to, more so than the average person. However this implies to both. The hardest thing to do is what is right and what we expect and the easiest thing to do is what you want to do. " I have always tried to live by that- do what is right.
I coach because I have been blessed to have this opportunity and to give back to the college that helped me so much. I coach because I want to make a difference in someone's life. I coach because I love the game. I coach because I want to push the players to be the best that they can possibly be off and on the field. I coach because I care!!
No comments:
Post a Comment