The Life of a Coach
“I realized as a coach that you have to also play a support role. You have to care for your players. If not, then you guys will never get along.”
Have you ever been to a local game or watched a game on TV and seen that one person that could be old, or young, or maybe even bald. And they’re just yelling at a team saying “CMON YOU GUYS ARE SLEEPING” or “WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING, C’MON” or even “YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME! WAKE UP NOW OR ELSE SPRINTS NEXT PRACTICE!”
That person is called the “Coach” of the team, and that coach helps out and creates strategies and gameplans. And they make sure the team trains their ass off to see success. But that person, the coach? They are really never talked about.
In any sport, whether it’s soccer, basketball, baseball, and even MMA, when a team or a player is very successful, you automatically think “wow the players are so good” or “This team is playing very well,” but people never really question “How is this team playing so well?”
The answer is that the coaches play big parts. The coaches tell the team how to play and create strategies for the team’s success in every sport.
When I was young I was always fascinated on how coaches work because they were the real leaders on the teams, and if the coach is bad, then the whole team’s bad, and if the coach half asses then the team is going to half ass.
As I got older I always wanted to become a coach. Soccer coaches like “Piojo Hererra” Or “Pep Guardiola” and my all time favorite “Jose Mourinho” changed the game for me, and seeing them have passion, from screaming on the sidelines and giving their teams directions on what to do, always seemed so fascinating to me. Now at 16, I became a head coach for a local soccer team from where I live and I got to experience life as a coach. And I’m going to tell you my experience.
I became a coach around August and because I used to play goalie they made me the goalie coach. At first I thought I would work with the big kids from ages around 14 - 16, but I actually had to work with ages from 4 -16. So I always had a handful of kids to teach, and I always started off with the basics like stretching and little warm ups like butt kicks and high knees. Then there were the agility drills, and I would usually do one on one with the kids and the rest of the kids would go run.
During my first week I was super strict and wanted to do my job. Overall the kids never wanted to do the drills, they were upset and unmotivated to exercise. The kids hated my guts the first week and always I would go home and I would think to myself, What am I doing wrong?Should I still coach?
I was overthinking and stressing all the time because at the end of the day I wanted the kids to get better but it just wasn’t working. Until one day after practice I went home and thought to myself that I was in their shoes before, I used to be taught by coaches who never cared about you and just wanted you to play good. That’s all they cared about; they were always hard core drills, and never did anything fun. This is what made me lose love for the sport of soccer, and I said to myself “WHAT AM I DOING?” “I'M DESTROYING THEIR PASSION”.
The very next week I changed everything, I changed the way I acted, I changed the way practice went and I changed the drills. I started the practice with stretches and quick running but the change was, I did the drills with them, every single one I did with them so they are not left out.
Drills like wall sits, push ups, and sprints. And my favorite one to do with them is =this specific drill where we have to grab someone’s feet and they have to crawl all the way to the end of gym and then crawl back.
The kids would always be screaming and yelling from pain, and I would always find that funny, you would just hear them struggling like “AHHH I CAN'T NO MORE”, and then me just going “HAHAHA” while doing the drill. After having my fun, The kids would want to give up and I always motivated for them to go harder: “C'MON YOU GOT THIS YOUR RIGHT THERE”, “YOU ALMOST HAVE IT DON’T QUIT”.
I realized as a coach that you have to also play a support role. You have to care for your players. If not, then you guys will never get along. I always told them ”I am here for you,” because everyone goes through things and if you are not right in the head then I’ll try my best to help you. I grew care for these kids and it never left. I realized that the kids need to have fun and be motivated in order to be better at the sport.
The drills I still try to make hardcore, and so we do agility drills like zig zags and sprint, as well as reflex drills where they have to catch tennis balls getting thrown at them. I make sure we all interact as a team so we are not bored so sometimes they do the drills with each other so they can have fun. We also do exercises like pushups, situps, wall sits, planks, and more. Like I said I do the exercises with them so they don’t feel left out and they know that there not gonna be struggling because at the end of the day we are all one big family.
The kids started to get better and better each day. My one nine year old started to compete with the 14-16 year olds and my 6 year old was competing with the 9 year olds. My one 14 year old was able to get the opportunity to make an academy. Man when the results were kicking in, I knew I was doing everything right. And after that I made sure to keep my whole new attitude.
After my whole mentality changed things went all the way up. The kids started to love practices because they started to get better but also have fun. They started to realize that I’m always there for them and I’m always their supporter. When my kids play I always cheer them on and always hyping them up before a game “LET'S GOO GOOD SAVE” and “THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT”.
Once I started to show respect it came back to me. My kids would start asking the head coach when I’m not there “Where’s coach Franky” “Where’s coach”, “Is he coming?”
And once I enter the center when practice is about to start, all the kids I train all huddle up to me and hug me. When this first happened I almost shedded a tear. Knowing that I’m doing my job correctly and how they are progressing as not just players but as people too. That’s the best feeling in the world. It’s nice to have interactions and know I’m doing good on the having fun part, but one part was always stuck on my mind.
It was about the games. I was always overthinking and was creating scenarios in my head. ”If we lose,Do I get fired?” “Will I lose my job?” “If we keep losing, am I a bad coach?” So since I coach multiple categories the first game I had to coach was the 7-9 year olds. They lost 1-0
But man was I so proud of my Keeper. He saved about 5-6 shots that game so I was not disappointed on the results. When we lost he was sad and disappointed, I went straight to him and told him “Do not feel down at all” “You did you very best and that’s all that matters” “Next time your gonna let nothing in cause we are going to get better.”
The next game he played we won 4-0 and let no goals in. My 14 year old was always trying hard in practice and was showing progress so I was excited to see what was going to happen in games. The first we won 12-2 and he allowed 2 goals in and saved about 8 shots.The 2nd game he let no goals in and we won 12-0, I went to him and was just proud of him because of the effort he was showing in practice was actually working. Lastly there was my 6 year old who played and man I am so proud of him. He showed the most progress out of everybody. His 2 games that he has played he let 0 goals in and showed massive progress from what he was when he first started to now.He didn’t want to play goalie at first and did not know nothing at all so then I trained and made sure he had passion, and for him to make sure he allows 0 goals in, and in both of his games I couldn’t be more than happy.
So an overall record of 5-1 as a coach is really good especially for just starting. After all these games I started to get good feedback from the parents of these kids. They said things like: “Coach, Thank you for pushing my kid to do better and he is having so much fun.” “He can’t stop talking about practice he always waiting to go practice with you.” And then the owner of the team came to me and said: “Thank you so much for your help. The goalie position is what we struggled in the most and now all of them are getting so good.”
Because of these amazing results, I actually started to get paid for coaching. That’s right I was not getting paid for this. So you might ask yourself, Why In the hell was he even doing this if he was not getting paid? Well, I coach because I love it. I love seeing results and I want to make sure that these kids don’t fall in the same hole I did. I want them to do what they want to do in soccer, and that’s why I kept coaching.
Some final words is actually for the keepers who are either starting or are benched and still working to be a better keeper and they are all seeing amazing results by the way. So if you guys magically ever see this then, Patrick, Ethan, Karla, Braylen, Steven, Mateo and the youngest one Miguel. I cannot be more than proud of all of you guys. All of you guys were all new to me, and now y'all are like my little family, like my little siblings. You guys grew as players and as people in general so I thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to be your coach. And I hope to be y’all’s coaches for as long as I can. Thank you guys. You all mean a lot to me!