Why Let Your Athletes Protest?

Being a collegiate athlete at any level affords student athletes some privilege and notoriety. I wish more college coaches would encourage students to participate in campus protests to bring attention to community and national issues if students feel strongly about the issue. If your team culture is healthy, then it would be a natural progression in terms of what your teams do as a part of their culture. It puts critical thinking and informed presence up front.

If we're committed building teams and community, it makes sense to encourage the kind of leadership that student athletes can provide. For example, white cis men should be using their privilege to be out in between police and protestors shielding their classmates not antagonizing or baiting police. How does this help your program? Community engagement without the having to worry about your team's performance in sport. Conversely if you have white cis men acting out, throwing rocks or agitating the police it's usually someone other than a white guy getting dragged off in cuffs. The visibility for your program is a net positive and the optics that a cross section of the student body is engaged can possibly give cause to the administration to think twice about adverse actions against the student body. Especially those that represent the school in sport.

From the other side of this, the sell you can make to your director and supervisors is that support for the greater student body and not just your student athletes is paramount to the success of athletics as a whole. This is another chance to reconnect with the student body in an authentic way. You grow your following, you raise the profile of your teams, and you gain support within a larger community because you understand that this generation has not known education without violence. This group of college aged students learned Run, Hide, Fight as primary schoolers. If you've done the work to create a healthy team culture this can serve to strengthen bonds, and forge a toughness not often tested in sport. You're mentoring leaders and nurturing global citizens so why not give them the chance to recognize their privilege and stand with the oppressed. 

It should go without saying, but make sure that your student athletes educate themselves not on just the issues, but how to protect themselves and each other as well. From a former street medic, it's important to know how to stay safe physically and electronically. How to Protest Safely

Edited 4/29/2024: 1st Paragraph-- Students should have the choice to participate in campus protests if they feel that it aligns with their views. It should not be coaches imposing their opinions or views onto students and using them to protest in their place. Coaches should also participate if they are in alignment.

2 Posts in One Month

I currently work with Middle School students. I do expect a fair number of drops, bumps, and spills. It's photography business for the 7th grade today. A kit was was dropped and the bayonet on the lens was busted all the way around. Upon inspection of the body itself, it seems to work just fine. I can't quite inspect the entire function of the lens, but from the aperture I can see no visible damage to the glass or mechanisms. I can buy a used lens Canon EFS 18-55mm for less than $55 or fix the bayonet for $20 and risk something else being wrong with it as a result of the drop.

But Bou, it's six screws and an uncomplicated alignment, you could totally fix it. I imagine these kit lenses don't offer metal bayonets because they are built for mass consumption and/or to keep the prices down. I dig that. I do wish Canon made these parts more readily available to tinkers and hobbyists like myself so we can repair our own gear. 

None of the reputable dealers in my area will sell me a bayonet. If it was my own money, I would buy a bayonet and gamble that nothing else was wrong with the lens and that the bayonet was a quality part. But, I don't have to play this game. I'm going to replace the lens with a used one and hang on to this one until the next accident. We'll find out then if the lens is still good. Unless a kid shatters the bayonet again (sad trombone).

I Don't Work Here

Life is so strange I swear sometimes I just want to exist anonymously. I have a very good friend that assures me that I'm actually good company. While I still feel this isn't true; I do make an effort to leave the house for stuff other than work. After having a discussion with my therapist it's more nuanced than that. I want to do my hobby/travel/work, and blend into the freaking background. The appreciation is great for a job well done, but you know what's better? When people just let me exist without pointing out how different I am or how unique my methods or reactions are. Some compliments feel like an effort to point this out. That's a me problem I'm working on.

At the same time, I'm noticing how much minutiae I'm have to actively to block or filter out to exist in peace. I want to disappear into the background, but at the same time I don't want you to walk around with spinach in your teeth or a bat hanging in the cave (nasal boogers). I'm not sure where this talent for detail stems from. I suspect my observation skills have probably been honed over the years by the military and coaching, but the foundation of these skills might stem from my autism if I believe my therapist.

Another friend suggested that it is because of my observation skills that I accidentally/subconsciously invite strangers to ask me for assistance in places where it's obvious I don't officially belong or work at. I'm not known to hide my expressions or judgement well. Without fail leaving my apartment opens me up to a variety of requests for assistance. Although, sometimes I freely give it when someone looks utterly defeated or is in apparent peril. I really like minding my own business, but if it's raining and you have no idea how to fix a flat, I will stop and help. If you drive a vehicle regularly, please learn how to change a flat. My goofy ass may not be nearby to help you.

But at a store or a shop, there's a uniform for people that work at those places. They are paid and more qualified to answer your questions than I am. I obviously don't work here since I have no nametag, no vest or apron so why do strangers ask me for help?

Sharing the Passion

Tinker content ahead, it's a been a minute

For the new school year, I was asked to run the technology for our middle school students. Our first project is to build a car capable of protecting an egg on an incline and half-pipe at the skate park nearby. They could only use recyclables or reuse/repurpose unrecyclable materials. As you can imagine, there's lots of cardboard, foam packaging, bubble wrap, bottles, cans, and egg cartons.

A lot of decisions for the students to make here:
What's the best way to protect the egg?
How do I get more distance off the roll?
What shall I name my creation?

Things they're learning along the way:
Measure twice, cut once.
Hot glue is hot, and so is the glue gun.
I need to rough up my wheels so they roll instead of slide.
Eggs are really strong and fragile at the same time, weird.
The foam is satisfyingly squishy.

This group is doing a great job, refining their creations through test runs, helping each other build, and learning it's okay to make mistakes and get messy. We have rocketry and bird house building next.
 

My Coaching Evolution

Invoking Plato is not something I do in my spare time. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of undergraduate classes taught by a rather droll professor. I could never top her delivery or wit. The Allegory of the Cave is, however, an apt metaphor for the evolution of my coaching philosophy. I like to think I leave a different cave each time, but in reality I probably am just in a different part of the cave.

St. John Fisher College
My first coaching job was at my alma mater. It's difficult to remember what philosophies I picked up as a coach there. I was relegated to serving/hitting buckets of balls, watching high school matches, dissecting team film, and coaching the B-Side. I think maybe because some of these athletes were my former teammates, it was hard for me to see the power differential, and be objective at times. I did learn lots of drills, and gain technical proficiency in terms of statistics, and how to instruct. I do believe my familiarity with the athletes allowed me to motivate and advise them appropriately.

SUNY Geneseo
When I started my first head coaching job, I coached the way I was coached, and that was a complete disaster. I hadn't built emotional capital with the new team, so they all thought I was being different for the sake of being different. The previous staff had made a habit of overusing sarcasm, and funishment. They didn't understand that time in the gym could be better spent building technical proficiency as a bonding moment. I had not taken the time to explain it or speak to them about the benefits of moving away from negative reinforcement. I did a poor job of connecting with them and expected to work through the team captains when I should have had a more hands on approach to guiding them to a better way. 

Surfacing from the cave for the first time. I understood later the issues the previous staff caused and why my style did not go over so well. A personal connection is required before your proficiency matters to them. I wasn't quite sure how to show them I cared. I thought the time and effort I put into planning, learning, and recruiting was enough, but it wasn't. They wanted to know about my life, and they wanted to share theirs. From this I learned to compartmentalize and create boundaries with the student athletes to connect with them on a personal level but still maintain a level of professionalism our jobs require.

RIT
Growth mindset hasn't become a buzzword yet. I don't think I had to shift my mindset after my first coaching failure. I mean coaches for the most part are teachers, and learning is part of what we do. At least that's how I feel about our profession. So I think I adopted a growth mindset pretty early in the coaching space before it had a name. One of the few ideas that was carried over from the military, if you aren't learning or improving yourself, what exactly are you doing?

I spent the next few months being humbled by my actual corporate job as a technical writer and consequently rising while learning from one of the best coaches in our area. Roger taught me so much about recruiting, mentoring, problem solving and the other parts of the game that make a program successful. All good things come to an end though. He moved, and I chose to improve my craft as a coach elsewhere. I didn't have the same issues with this team as I did the previous team. There was no familiarity with the exception that they had played against my teams. They were curious about me and I made the effort to get to know them on a human level. I was there for 1.5 seasons. The ties I have to these athletes run a bit deeper than my first stop as head coach. 

Emerging from the second cave, I saw teaching the sport to college athletes is actually not the top priority at most programs. Academics, teamwork, and error management are all competing with improving skills on the court. I think getting to know the athletes on and off the court helped me to see the whole picture of what it's like to provide an excellent athletic/academic experience. Honestly social media started to creep into our lives by then and it became clear media literacy and harm reduction was another subject coaches had to address.

Gannon University
I moved to a new city to work with people that only know me on paper. Taking what I learned previously, I had to simultaneously show the new staff that I was competent, and trustworthy while making sure the athletes were comfortable with my presence in the gym. My reception from the student athletes was luke-warm. Who is this short, goofy, and fussy coach? Why is the shortest coach in the gym working with the middles (usually the tallest)? I bonded with the assistant coaching staff easily enough since we were both new and learned the new system together. Matt ran offense differently than I had run myself or taught others and it was really cool to see it in action and the improvement in the student athletes. Of my 18 years coaching, I spent the most time here, six seasons. In that time, I busted out of the cave twice.

After the first two seasons there, I learned how to manage personalities and expectations. And in 2012, we won our first PSAC championship. The athletes on that team were not always the best teammates, but when it mattered they made it happen. Team chemistry is important, but sometimes winning is the best motivator. I remember letting them know not all teams are families and that's okay, we're trying our best to accomplish the same goal.

In 2015, I was selected as D2 Assistant Coach of the Year. Matt Darling, my head coach nominated me. Probably the only part time coach to receive such an honor. I left the cave again. Solutions don't have to be elegant. They just have to work. I remember Matt asking me during a planning session, " How are we going to win Regionals and make it to the next round?" I usually take my time answering questions like this because I am an overthinker, but this time, I blurted out, "Beat Wheeling Jesuit." And it was reflected in our strategies moving forward in recruiting, training, and culture. Happy kids play better. How do we make our gym joyful and express gratitude for what we do? We created practice plans and team activities to give us opportunities to do those things for each other. I left summer 2016 for a full time job at a different school. Matt and Gannon are still doing it, and I'm so proud to be a part of their growth and success years later.

College of Wooster
Sarah likes to collect people. She admitted this much to me when she hired me as an assistant. I didn't know what she meant, but she knows everybody. I swear everywhere she went, she had made a connection with several people there. At this point, I hadn't realized the extent of how important those connections were. Sarah put a lot of trust in me early. I was hired the summer before the season began, and while trying to learn names, faces, personalities gave me some flexibility in how we would train the team. Personal cave moment, I started talking to a therapist. It made me a better coach. I was thinking of the athletes from a trauma informed perspective vs. a position of assumption. I learned how to ask better questions to learn about the driver of behavior and motivation. I think Sarah collected me when I needed it most. Sarah and the team gave me a place to feel a sense of belonging as I learned how to unmask an exist in the coaching space as someone becoming comfortable with their autism.

Salem College
I tried my hand at head coaching once more. I put all of the things I learned previously together. I like to think my first year there, I did an okay job. I helped to heal the collective trauma of my new team from their previous situation, merged some large personalities, and made systematic changes and improvements to the program. Then Covid-19 slammed the brakes on all of that progress and I just couldn't see past it. I did receive validation from several people important to me that, even while unmasked, my compassion for people and ability to solve problems is quite apparent even to strangers. This validation gave me the confidence to apply for D1 jobs.

Seattle University
I was here for one season. In that season, I witnessed some of the most abhorrent coaching behavior in person that I had ever encountered, fear was the prime motivator in this gym. It was really hard to work with. I've only worked in one place where fear as the motivator was appropriate, the Army. The fear of death is the best motivator in that case. The athletes feared losing scholarships. The other staff feared losing their jobs. The job was so stressful that they confided in me that sometimes talking to a therapist was unhelpful.

As someone that follows procedure and likes to be direct, I took it up with the head coach first. I tried to offer solutions, and was turned down each time. She didn't see a problem with it. Another major incident occurred, I went to administration and they offered to mediate a conversation that lasted hours and went nowhere. It was hopeless. I could not get her out of the cave to see that it was possible to build a decent offense with the personnel we had available to get one or two more wins, and that fear didn't have to rule the gym. It was causing me a great deal of stress to not be able to get the administration or this coach to see the harm that was being done to the student athletes. They weren't soft. If anything, they were just as tough as any team I had coached in the past, and some even tougher judging by their lab and class schedules.

In the end, I couldn't live with myself if I never brought it up with her and the administration. I ran through all the possibilities and scenarios, and each time it ended up with me feeling tremendous guilt for staying quiet or getting fired for backing the student athletes. I'm positive I made the right choice. I have no regrets for trying to protect the mental and physical well-being of student athletes. I may never work in college athletics again (not for lack of applying) but I know I'm a good coach, and my work has had a positive impact on the people I work with.

Who Sleeps in The Library

Well, I do apparently. My junior year of college I fell asleep in the library, and having been neglected by campus security at closing time, set off the alarms at the library on my way out. Nice run on sentence, though. It was an accident, and I actually performed well on that particular exam. This time around, I paid to stay at a library as a guest. Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, Wales. Below is the library in the evening just before sunset.

Some of the highlights of this trip, meeting locals at Talacre Beach and learning about the firing range for the Royal Air Force, erosion and dunes. Just across the River Dee is Liverpool, England. I would be remiss to mention the dozens of dogs and owners that I met during my jaunt to Talacre Beach. Especially the cheeky few that brought me sticks and balls to throw at the protest of their humans. Anyway, here's the lighthouse at Talacre and a few cheeky pups.

There's something about the way books smell that's quite invigorating. The history, and theology rooms all smell that way. I can't quite explain it. I'm not sure if it's a combination of ink, paper, and binding glue that compose vellichor, but step into any used bookstore and you'll get the idea. The staff at Gladstone's Library was kind enough to send along interior shots to me because as it is a library, and people are there learning and studying, I didn't want to be the distraction with a camera. I composed the shot below imagining some dedicated soul looking through archives and hoped I could catch a silhouette of the person in the room, but no luck there, maybe someone forgot to turn the light off or went to catch a snack.

I spent 5 days, and 4 nights at Gladstone's Library. I was able to enjoy Christmas Roast (lunchtime meal) and their breakfast with a few add ons for an extra cost which is listed clearly on their page. I might have stayed an extra night to experience afternoon tea at one of local tea rooms or at the Library. For me, it was the perfect amount of time for my first visit to Wales. 

On my first day, I went to Talacre Beach, walked around to beat the timesuck, and had brussels sprouts, chestnuts, and chorizo at Gladstone's for my evening meal. On my second day, I explored the area around Hawarden and was tempted to play golf, but thought better of it, since I was there to explore, not get frustrated at an unfamiliar course. 

Then the clouds and rain came just in time to nudge me into exploring all the nooks and crannies of the history, and theology rooms for the next two days. I absolutely love political cartoons and got my fill. I think if I was a religious scholar, I might have been able to spend more time in that particular section, but that's not my cup of tea. I wouldn't mind revisiting and trying to catch a guest speaker in the future and exploring more castles. The few I went to were easy to get to and provided a fun walk amongst all the sheep. Below is the entryway to Hawarden Castle grounds. People bring their dogs to walk the grounds amongst the sheep. The sheep are unfazed.

What's left of Hawarden Castle, it's fenced off so this is as 

close as I was able to get without disturbing the sheep.

I believe this pine cone sculpture of native wood is dedicated

 to a local benefactor of the Hawarden Castle property.

Bucket list

Crossing items off a list brings my lizard brain a great deal of joy. Crossing off bucket list items is pure exhilaration. No, I'm not going to space although I still hope in my lifetime it's possible for average people like me to visit the stars. I keep doing so in my dreams, and for now I'm content with that. Perhaps it's worth its own post in the future.

As a kid I read, From The Mixed Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler so many bloody times, the librarian gave me a copy when they retired the book from circulation at my college graduation. I gifted it to a child when I was traveling. I'm hoping some kid is reading that copy under a blanket with a flashlight, but I digress. 

It's happening though, I'm visiting Wales and staying at Gladstone's Library. While at the library, I will seek out Arthurian legend, Chaucer contemporaries, and local Welsh lore. I also have visits to Talacre lighthouse (another bucket list item in the subset of lighthouses), and some castles in the area weather permitting of course. 

I haven't done this in a really long time, but I'm going to take my camera and scope out some wildlife. I'll find some deer paths and try to capture some of the local fauna and landscapes. If my knees cooperate, I might take in some elevation and put some miles on my boots. I'm looking forward to my visit and possibly making some new friends. Okay, maybe that's a bit ambitious, but I will say hello to people and introduce myself to them before asking about their dog. (Progress, right?!)

Any how, I've booked all the things and am patiently waiting for this well-earned trip. I'll be sure to share this journey with you in my next entry. If you can't already tell, I've taken a great deal of time to heal and process over the past few years. I fully expect to post here on a regular basis and appear sporadically on social media.