So it's been a really long long time since I posted. It wasn't that I stopped coaching, or that I'd have moments where I wanted to post, but I made a decision to take care of some other situations in my life. A while back, I'd taken a break because my mindset wasn't in the right place.I'd started back up, thinking I had righted the ship. Seems all I'd done was put a band-aid on it. I had a terrible attitude about a lot of things, my outlook on practically everything was filled with way more cynicism than any one person should have. Don't get me wrong, that was a big part of the lull and Houdini act, but another piece of the puzzle is that I got really busy.
One of my fellow coaches from the Wayne PAL program was offered the head coaching position at Wayne Hills and he brought me on board as a volunteer assistant. A challenge with the work schedule for sure, but one worth taking considering where I want to be in a few years. During the season, I was able to attend practices, go on scouting trips, and kept game stats, but most importantly, I was able to see how to build a program. How to gain the loyalty of the fans, administrators, parents, and players. While they weren't the tallest or strongest team in our league, by building that respect and trust, we were able to take a team that went 10-17 to a team that won the league title, won a county game (hadn't been done in years), and managed to play well enough to get a decent seed in the state tournament. Being a part of this also helped me see another idea behind scouting that I'd never tried and I was able to use some of that to lead my fifth grade team to a tournament championship title in Clark. I'm hoping to see more of that come into play next winter.
I had an interesting Spring season as we struggled to find an identity and purpose, myself included. Towards the end of the season we were able to find those elements and things started to turn around. Over the summer, I've done some more work on my mental state to hopefully stay in the right frame of mind to be successful and a positive leader. Another thing I've decided is to remember why I started this blog. "The successes and struggles of a young coach trying to make it..." Everything isn't always going to be sunshine and rainbows, and coaches are people outside of basketball. They get affected by things outside the lines, and it may affect what goes on within the lines. One thing I get frustrated with is how sometimes it feels like parents forget that we coaches are people too, but then when you don't let them see the human side of you, what do you expect?
I am not going to promise to hold to some kind of schedule. I don't even know what my schedule is going to be like. But I hope to still get back to my purpose for starting this. Talking about this thing that I love, the joy it brings me even when we lose, the thrill of winning as an underdog. The journey of being a nobody who just showed up one day asking to coach to one day being a respected, sought out leader. I'm not sure what that will look like, but writing has been my outlet for years, and I can't not do it. As time permits there will be posts. Some will be funny, some will be sad, but that's what this is for.
