Still learning after all these years.

I have a stated goal to learn something new every day.  In pursuit of this I often try to look at things from different perspectives. That's never been more true than this off-season.  Immediately after the conclusion of the season I wrote a self-evaluation / status of the program review.  I have often debated if taking on this endeavor so close to the conclusion of the season is wise or whether waiting on the passage of time to reflect more objectively might be a better course of action. Of course, I wind up doing both.

I firmly believe in preparation being the key to succeeding on and off the pitch. I spent from November 2016 through early June 2017 preparing for the Lima Senior soccer season. Due to real world job considerations I ended up changing coaching jobs and found myself being introduced as Fairlawn's new soccer coach in mid June 2017. I balanced my need to work with my desire to coach. In retrospect, I am unsure how wise a decision this was.

We laid a great foundation for a successful 2017 season at Lima Senior,  I followed the Spartans from afar this fall and was surprised they struggled.  And at Fairlawn our struggles were just as mighty.  Both programs struggled with having adequate time under new direction to prepare for their respective 2017 seasons. 

I suffered an on-the-job knee injury in May of 2017 that greatly limited my mobility throughout the summer. I bring this to light because it impacted my ability to properly prepare for the season. Hindsight tells me I should not have coached this fall. I just wasn't physically prepared to do so. 

There were an inordinate amount of obstacles to overcome in pursuit of a successful soccer season.  

The knee injury suffered in May.

Being hired in mid-June.

The person I contracted with for summer camps backing out at the last minute.

The person the previous coach had contracted with for summer camp backing out.

Low attendance at the summer activities we held.

My wife's hospitalization which drew my attention and energies away from soccer.

It was a recipe for the disaster the 2017 Fairlawn soccer season came to be.  My self-confidence convinced me I could overcome these obstacles. I was wrong.  I was wrong in part because many of these obstacles were beyond my control. 

Even as I have reviewed the recently concluded season I have begun preparations for the 2018 soccer season. Very much on my mind have been distinguishing between the things I can and cannot control.  The most concerning to me has been attendance at necessary off-season workouts, weight training, conditioning and small group work. And attendance during the 10 days of contact I will have with the team during June and July of 2018. Player attendance at these activities is in the purview of the players. I can exert some modicum of outside influence on their decision making process, but ultimately it is their decision whether to attend, to prepare, or not. 

This is where my personal decision making process is as it concerns returning to Fairlawn as head soccer coach.  Player attendance. Player willingness to prepare for the 2018 season.  Their decisions on attendance will directly impact my decision on coaching.

To be perfectly honest, we got out of the 2017 season exactly what we put into it. Due to time constraints and my knee injury I was able to put into the 2017 off-season but a small portion of the time and energy I typically devote to preparing for an up-coming season.  A majority of players put in less effort and time than I was able to. We got what we earned.  Meritocracy in action. 

I am determined to prepare for the 2018 season with the best effort I have. I am already champing at the bit to get started. I have an unquenchable thirst to be better at what I do. I need to be better for the players who will be the 2018 soccer team at Fairlawn. I must be better before I can expect them to become better. This is what motivates me. Drives me. I am determined to build a proper foundation through preparation and execution of the season-long plan I am working on. 

The perspective of time, both backwards and forwards in contemplation, has sharpened my focus. I have used reflection of the past to glean useful insight to the present and future. I will control those things I can in preparation for the 2018 season. I will exert what influence I can over the players to prolifically prepare for their 2018 season. A meritocracy simple means we will get out of the 2018 season exactly what we are willing to invest into the 2018 season. I am hopeful our investment will be significant.  

Always something new to learn.

I'm well into my 50's at this stage of my life. My goal each and every day remains to learn something new each and every day. Athletics and soccer in particular these last 25 years have been the impetus of this process. I have learned much. Lately I have been reminded there is still much to learn.

Over the years I have developed something of a reputation for turning programs around in short order.  Be it a high school program like LCC or a club team with Grand Lake United I have enjoyed great success in short order. As I find myself in the second year at Lima Senior I am being humbled by the slow progress of turning this program into the powerhouse I believe it should be. The talent is present, but the culture is not present.  My previously successful "formula" for quick turnarounds is not working as well as it did in the past.

As I have been analyzing the current state of the program after our first year I have been giving considerable thought to what has worked in the past. I have also given serious consideration to what is different this time as I formulate the plan leading into next season. I feel things are beginning to fall into place and progress is being made.  Writing of the process always seem to help me draw things into focus. You are privileged (or cursed, as the case may be)  today to get a glimpse into this process.

Trusted Agents.

When taking over a program and changing the status quo it is always good to have Trusted Agents or players who support your efforts. These are usually found in those who are juniors during the first year of your directing the program. Or at least I have been blessed to have found them in the junior class at past stops.

At LCC, we had a senior Megan who was on-board from the start. She took the brunt of resistance to change that first year becoming a lightning rod for any type of conflict that arose. She was strong and focused.  Our junior was Shayna who bought in and shared the vision from the start. She not only understood what the process was but also helped define how the process would be achieved. Plus, she was strong enough to stand up to the negativity always associated with change and the negative leadership that sometimes emerges in the face of change.  God Bless Shayna. Shayna was, at times, as good a player leader as any I have had the pleasure of working with.

With Grand Lake United it was my son Lance and his teammates Tanner and Adam who set the tone. Their expectations were high and became the standards the team held itself to.  Adding Alex to that mix solidified our vision, our process and how we went about achieving in the process. We weeded out a lot of the resistance to change and negativity over a 2 year period. Alex handled any residual negativity with unbelievable diplomacy and firmness.

I take little credit as a coach for what these young people achieved.  My biggest contribution was identifying the right people to lead the turnaround.  Megan, Shayna, Lance, Tanner, Adam and Alex were easy choices as determined through both their words and their actions.

I have admittedly struggled to find the same type of player leadership in my current position. This past season's seniors never did buy into the vision. They were never able to define the process and so we meandered through the season. Now, it is true TEAM 29 at Lima Senior put together the best season in recent program history. I received lots of congratulatory remarks about having won 10 games in my first season at Lima Senior. It is also true, TEAM 29 never overcame the past culture of the program. I firmly believe TEAM 29 should have had 14 or even 15 wins by the time our season ended in the tournament. Culture eats talent and strategy for breakfast. I was reminded of this on more than one occasion this past season.

Whereas in past coaching stops I had always been able to identify junior leadership to drive the team forward, that was not the case at Lima Senior.  For the first time in my coaching career I will endure two straight classes with below average leadership. And it might well be more than two years.  Our current sophomore class some has possibilities for positive, process driven leaders,  None are a sure thing.  Cole, I force fed into a leadership role too early. He has many of the qualities I am looking for, but the circumstances were not right. Can he rebound? Can I help put him back on track? Micah is not (yet?) strong enough to stand up to negativity as Shayna did for her team. Sam is home schooled and therefore not with his teammates every day. He does possess nearly everything else I am looking for in a player leader.  I have yet to identify the quality of leadership I seek in the freshman class either.  Now, the current 8th graders?  They have several quality leaders among them.  They are probably 3 years away from having the type of significant impact on our culture that is required to move the program forward to where it realistically should be.

Trusted Agents II

Be it in club soccer or in high school soccer, parents play a significant role in your program. As a coach I interact with the student / athletes approximately 2-3 hours a day in season. Parents, naturally interact with their children a whole lot more. Hopefully.  At every coaching stop some of the strongest resistance to change I encounter is from parents.  It certainly was at LCC where the parents of the "star" were adverse to her having to share the glory (scoring goals) in the balanced system of play I brought to the program. I was also not allowed to cut two players (and their parents) from the program who made it their announced aim to subvert everything I did.

Parental resistance was also a major push back at Grand Lake United until I did cut players / parents from the "A" team and regulated them to the "B" team or cut them from the program entirely. Much easier to do so when the coach is in charge and the club administration doesn't want to deal with drama.

And once again, at Lima Senior there is strong resistance from a small group of parents seemingly intent on feeding the "me" in their child instead of the "we" in our program, our team.

I included this Trusted Agents II section only because as I look to identify leadership, define the process and formulate how we will navigate the process it has occurred to me I could move the process forward by cutting resistance from the program and advancing the soon-to-be freshman class into key roles earlier than I would normally like to. Sacrifice the team for the program.

The Past

To be perfectly honest, it is usually the past that motivates the change of culture and buy-in necessary to accomplish it.  At LCC, the program had never had a winning season. They were hungry for a change. The biggest obstacle proved to be changing a few from "Me" people to "We" people.  With Grand Lake United we had players passionate about soccer and tired of getting their butts kicked by the "big clubs" so they too were hungry, eager and receptive to change,  At Lima Senior the upperclassmen are invested in and tied to their past by a recreational league state championship they won when they were in middle school.  I sometimes feel as though they view that youth league championship as the apex of their soccer careers instead of a building block.  There is seemingly little desire to strive for, let alone replicate, that championship success at the high school level.

In my coaching career, I  have rarely been so filled with emotion as the day I overheard some of our varsity players say,

"What does it matter? 

We're going to get our asses kicked anyway."    

This off-season a parent sent me an email regarding scheduling schools of our own size / classification that stated, in part, and I quote,

"I don't feel you have the talent to compete with some of the teams you are going to be playing nor will lima (sic) senior ever have that talent and I am not concerned about seasons to come I am only concerned about this season."

Yes, the son will be a senior next fall.  Yes, he is apparently worried about his son's senior season.  Did he bother to look at our schedule for next season? Apparently not. Yes, we have shed a lot of the small schools / easy wins from our schedule. Yes, we have replaced then with big schools who are comparable with Lima Senior in terms of their soccer programs. Yes, we have scheduled a tougher team or two. Should we still compete for double digit wins? Definitely.  

Change.

Some people embrace change  

Some people resist change

Sooner or later everyone accepts change or gets left behind

There is a certain comfortableness in the current program. For some, it's as if they "know who they are" and that's good enough for them.  They beat up on small schools in the area, Are capable of competing with mid-sized schools and similarly talented large schools. And expect to get their asses kicked by traditional big school powers.  It is the classic "big frog in a little pond" syndrome.  At the very mention of moving to the big pond to prove their mettle they revert to living in the little pond where they feel safe. This is the challenge I face.  Overcoming their fear of stepping outside their comfort zones to discover that is where life and their game begins, not ends.  

Sometimes as a coach we have to admit and come to terms with the fact we cannot positively impact players as much as we would like to.  Cases in point; 1) This past season I dismissed a player from the program after having invested a lot of effort and time in him. He possesses some real potential as a player. He's his own worst enemy. He simply cannot overcome poor decision making on or off the pitch and seeks to lay the responsibility for his poor decisions at someone else's feet. It's a shame. He's slipping through the cracks and will in all likelihood become societies problem in his future. No emotion other than defiance about being dismissed.   2) I had to dismiss a second player from our team. He made a poor decision, admitted it, but due to the nature of the violation of team rules I still had no choice,  He was visibly broken up over the consequences of his decision. 

Notice: I dismissed the first player from the program and the second player from the team.  The player in the second example is back training with the team this off-season. Lesson learned. He and we are moving on.  This is how we want all situations to turn out.

Conclusions?

We, the program, will continue advancing toward the vision I have for the program.  Team 30 may or may not take a step forward from Team 29. That will be up to them as a team and perhaps specifically to the leadership that emerges.  The players of Team 30 will have a mixed lot of individual success and satisfaction derived from their participation on Team 30.

And in the end, that is what we as coaches must always remember - One gets out of something what one puts into it.

I will put my all into this program.  The program will continue to steadily advance to where I believe it can and should be.

Team 30 will get out of it's season exactly what they put into it. Judging by off-season participation rates, that will be something similar to Team 29 before them.  Meh, by my standards.

Individual players will get out of this season exactly what they invest into it. Soccer is a team sport comprised of individual players. Some of our players are putting in the effort and time to better themselves. Others, not so much. 

The more one is invested in a process, 

the more difficult it is for them 
to give up or quit. 

When the 2017 season concludes we will look back on the progress of the program, the accomplishments of the team and the progress of the individuals.  Will we be satisfied?

Help!

One of my pet peeve's is the person who needs help, but will not ask for nor accept help. I think this stems from a time in my life when having lost my father I needed help in the form of a male role model, but so many turned away from helping me.  No big brother. No other family or family friend. No one from the congregation. It was a lonely time in my life and I admittedly struggled to find my way.  I knew I was struggling.  When I married I held hope the new father-in-law might fill some of the void, but part of me knew before I ever said "I do" that was not going to happen either.  Quite literally I Thank God and his Holy Word for helping through that time in my life.

At some point in time I made a conscious decision to offer help anytime I saw someone in need. This was noble but misguided as well.  Some people just don't want the help. They might be confident in their own ability or they might view "help" as a threat to themselves or their position - for whatever reason they simply are not ready or willing to ask for or accept help. 

The very act of asking if someone needs your help can be intimidating to the person your offering     help to.  This is especially true when the person being offered help does not realize (or agree) that help might be needed.

Let's be honest, those of us who are parents have had to deal with children who think they are prepared to go it alone. It is often a case of not wanting help even when they recognize they need help. The struggle to be independent and accountable.  It's what we want for our children, but we want to "help" them get there as seamlessly as possible.  Again, a noble, but misguided idea.

What does this have to do with soccer and coaching?

I am sure we have all had encounters with players who we deemed "damn near uncoachable," as I phrase it.  Strong willed, strong minded individuals who were convinced their way was the right way even in the face of mountains of evidence their way was detrimental to the team effort to achieve a common goal.  We cut the player just to be rid of their disruptive influence or if the player is especially gifted we keep them on believing we can be the person to finally channel their attitude and ability in a positive and productive direction.  Sometimes the player comes around and sometimes you end up wondering what the hell you were thinking in keeping them and praying for the last day you will have to deal with them.

It's not all about players though.

There is a young coach I have been mentoring for a few years now.  I made the initial offer of help to John in the form of sharing resources I have with him.  After several months passing, John accepted the offer. We have developed a great relationship over time. I was initially in a role of mentor to John, but as time has progressed we find ourselves friends and peers.  This is a success story that goes far beyond the coaching relationship John and I enjoy for it's impact has been and continues to be felt by the players passing through John's program which itself has grown throughout the years.

Another example shows mixed results thus far.  Several years ago I took on a former player as an assistant coach. There was a general consensus of opinion that Ryan had the makings of a very good coach. This had been discussed since Ryan was a captain for his high school team and in some corners it was hoped that he would eventually come back to lead the program.  Maybe it was the expectations being heaped upon Ryan that gave him pause about coaching. To say he was reticent to the idea of coaching is somewhat an understatement.  As time passed Ryan did become involved as an assistant with the high school program and was eventually named to succeed the long time head coach.  All seems to be going according to long ago hopeful plans.

When I started coaching soccer I knew nothing about the game. Soccer wasn't even a school sport during my childhood.  I had to become a student of the game. I bought books and videos to study, but the single best thing I did was to ask questions of established coaches.  The local high school coach, Dick Hagen, was a starting point, but to be perfectly honest he did not know much about the game either having never played himself. He was simply more advanced on the same path I was beginning to travel. A good resource for sure, but not the be all / end all of a coaching mentor.

Graham Ramsay, a former professional player, coach and administrator who conducted camp for that high school team became a mentor to me. As did Ken White (University of Louisville / BGSU / NSCAA national staff).   There were certainly others along the way - some I learned the "do's" of coaching from and some I learned the "don'ts" of coaching from.  All have helped in one regard or another... because I was receptive to being helped.  I knew I needed help and went looking for it from the most qualified individuals who could offer it to me including a couple of email lists of coaching peers who have been wonderful resources ... and critics when necessary. 

Ryan's first year as a head coach was pretty much a disaster.  It was the worst season in terms of won/lost/tied record in decades at the school.  Coaching mistakes cost the team several victories. Because I had endorsed Ryan for the head coach position and even campaigned to the athletic director on his behalf it was difficult to see him struggle so.  To make matters worse, Ryan chose assistants who themselves had zero coaching experience at the high school level.  The learning curve was huge and to my knowledge they went it pretty much alone.  I had offered to help in any way I could, but was never taken up on that offer. 

One of my pet peeves is the person who needs help, but will not ask for nor accept help.  Ryan needed help and you might think my offer was about mentoring Ryan but it goes far beyond that narrow scope or view of things.  You see, another lesson I learned long ago was that when one person struggles there is a ripple effect. One person's struggles affect many other people.  The young players on the high school team did not deserve the season they ended up having. They were too talented to be a sub .500 team.  In fact, the pre-season consensus amongst experienced coaches in the area was the team had a chance at the league and district titles.

Help was offered to Ryan, but he was unwilling or unable to accept it.  The program, this past falls team and individual players suffered for it.  Help was offered to John and he eventually accepted it. John's program, this past falls team and the individual players that comprised the team are an improving lot. They continue to become stronger.  While a tale of two programs, both can have bright futures. I know John's will because he constantly seeks help... and not just from me. He's open to help from wherever and whomever he can find it.  Hopefully Ryan will grow into that mindset as well. There are plenty of people who are willing and more than capable of helping him - the question is, will Ryan be receptive to their offers?

James is a third coaching associate. I have known him for over a decade.  His program is bottom tier in the league they play in. Has been the entire time I have known him. He could use some help. It's been offered repeatedly, but James continues to do what he has always done and unsurprisingly continues to have the same type of results he has always had.  He continues as the head coach because ... well, I'm not real sure. Soccer is evidently not a real high priority at his school.  Losing seasons are the accepted norm.  It's a terrible rut to find one's self in. 

Which bring me back to Graham Ramsay and the building of the Shawnee soccer program.  There was a time when long-time coach Dick Hagen knew he needed help. He hooked up with Graham Ramsay who was key in helping to build and develop the program over the course of more than a decade. This culminated in a state semi-final appearance during Ryan's senior season.  Shortly after that season Coach Hagen began to become disenchanted with Graham conducting summer camp for Shawnee. This eventually led to Shawnee looking elsewhere for help.  Not coincidently this coincided with the Shawnee program beginning to decline. A decline that picked up speed in succeeding years and eventually culminated with Ryan's first year as head coach being the worst in recent program history.  In a manner of speaking, Ryan now finds himself in a position similar to where Dick Hagen found himself in the late 1980's - the coach of an underachieving program in need of ... help.

What I encourage you as coaches (and players) to do is to actively seek help. Be open minded and receptive to the help offered. Take from each helpful person the bits and pieces of information that resonate with you. Continue to educate yourself and explore both the game and the coaching profession to its fullest.  The minute you stop growing your trade, is the moment you should get out of coaching.  There is always more to learn and more coaches and players to learn from.  Be aggressive in seeking help and in accepting help when offered.  Approach each day with enthusiasm to learn previously unknown to man-kind.

And for those of you offering help, remember to be patient.  While watching someone needlessly struggle as they muddle through gaining experience is difficult it remains the responsibility of the person struggling to seek help, ask for help and accept help.  No one can do it for them.  It is much like alcoholism or drug addiction in that the addict must seek, ask for and be receptive to help before help can do them any good.   That time may never come. Sad, but true.