What I Think I Learned While Coaching- Volume 6

Another season at Brookline Warriors RFC goes into the books. This season made 9 with the club and number 7 as the person at the top. It was a season of unexpecteds, then again, a bit of the writing was on the wall before it started if we really looked at it, so to speak. In the end, I was satisfied with how things ended up and the direction the club is going. There were many things I could put in this edition, here are the things I picked out I think I learned or maybe relearned, this season.

Coaches are people too- Coaches of sport teams are thought of as these unshakable, impenetrable figures that never screw up or let outside stuff impact them. Facts are, they are people too and sometimes it effects things on the field, positively or negatively, whether we like it or not. And, like it or not, that can cause us to miss some really big problems going on within the team, no matter how unbreakable we think things are. We try our damnedest to be that sturdy beam of support for all, but it can be hard if stuff on the personal side is not going well, it happens.
 
Learning to be successful can be painful- This one is in particular reference to our boys’ team. The boys lost 2 very close games this year, on the last play by having the opponent score. You could see the hurt on their faces after both, one of them in particular because it was probably our best performance of the season. You have two choices after those types of games, let it eat at your and rot you from the inside, or take it on the chin and learn from it. Happily, we did not let those games bug us and went with the latter. We did eventually find ourselves in one more tight game after those two. This time, we got it over the line by taking lessons from those two losses and hanging on to win, in a playoff game no less. Color me happy for that.
 
You can’t cheat the work- Sadly, especially with young people, some just think things will happen for them if they just exist. That is not how sports work for the most part. If you have not done the right work or the proper amount of work before hand, things will blow right up in your face. This was apparent at some points in the season early on and then later in a few games where our week of prep leading up to them was, quite frankly, dog shit. Thus, the performance we put out on the field was exactly that. Things in the sports world don’t just happen because you are there, at least not for very long if they do by chance. When the work ahead of time is done and done well, good things happen, both individually and for the team.

There you have it, like I said, there were many other things I could say here, but these are the points that spoke to me the most. Thanks for reading everyone and since I have slightly more time to myself (I do still have to attend my tiny human after all) you can expect some more consistency out of me. Have a good weekend fam!