Coaching Sports

Coaching Sports:

My daughter has been very athletic since she was a little girl.  She was the first girl to have the first base position on the co-ed baseball team in our town.  She played volleyball and ran in track and field.  I was not surprised when she came home after her first year of college and stated that she wanted to make a career out of coaching sports.  I knew that with her natural athletic talents this would be a good career for her, but I was also concerned that her lack of experience working with children may hinder her ability as a coach. 

I suggested to my daughter that she look for a summer job through the parks and recreation department, coaching sports.  This way she would get an idea of how she liked coaching with a variety of ages.  Our parks and recreation programs are opened to children 10 years of age to 16 years old.  My daughter filled out the application for coaching sports and was granted an interview.  The key positions were filled for the summer, but they hired her as a helper for the coaches.  She needed to help with all the sports that were offered so if she was needed to fill in for one of the head coaches, she would be familiar with the sport as well as the group of kids.

During her second week she needed to fill in coaching sports for two different coaches that were out sick.  She came home on the second day and said that she no longer wanted to have a career coaching.  She was having a difficult time getting the kids to listen to her and to follow the rules of the game.  My daughter has never been a quitter, but she was talking about not wanting to go back to the summer job the next day.  I told her that she had made a commitment and she needed to stick with it. We researched a couple of articles about coaching sports with young teens. My daughter found some of the techniques listed in the articles interesting, so she thought she would use them the next day.

The next day I was waiting to hear how the day went for her.  She came home nearly in tears.  The behaviors had been even worse when she tried to implement the new techniques she had read about.  She stated that she was glad that she had taken the summer job so she did not waste time, money and effort getting an education in coaching sports.  I reminded her that there are other age groups that she could concentrate on that might make coaching easier for her.  At this time she is going to concentrate on playing on the teams and leave the coaching to others.