Sports have this round about way of teaching life lessons - or maybe that's just my coaching brain speaking. Season over season I get to witness these kids change and grow individually. "Mind over matter" has always been one of my favorite sayings. I probably butcher the true meaning but my interpretation is mind what actually matters. Be selfish enough to hone in on individual growth and block out all the outside smoke. Fuel that fire! Lets take running as an example. Yesterdays track meet I witnessed Chandler beat himself up because he was "losing" his mile run; after getting 1st the day before. The competition was better yesterday and he was actually beating his time from the day before. Losing to these faster kids wasn't what mattered, him beating his personal best did matter. Tears of frustration filled his eyes because he was minding what didn't matter. In the moment I am sure it did but a few minutes after the race I explained to him he was at a pace that was 10-15 seconds faster than his personal best. Instead he missed it by a few seconds. The loss didn't matter but his growth as a young man does.
I don't coach for the wins and losses. I can careless what the final score says. I am coaching our youth, not professionals. I coach to see that personal best be broken by 5 seconds and push the kids to understand they are getting better! I coach to show them what happens when you don't quit! We all start our climb to "success" at different times in life and comparing ourselves to each of our peers is a detriment to that success. The flip side of that is teaching them what is happening when we are setting personal bests and not hitting them? Life happens and that will never change. Stress comes along like a snake in the grass. Diet, sleep, injuries, sicknesses, etc. When life happens we will slow down, we have to but take it is a slight setback. What do we do with a setback? We push through it.
The kids that I coach will one day be leaders in their own regard. If I can teach them just one thing about how to manage that pressure, then I have done my job. My way of teaching it is through sports and I love it.
-Coach Nicholson