Why I coach

After the serious knee injruy due to playing soccer, but at least in part aggravated by, coaching, I have to ask myself, was it worth it.  We are talking about a major surgery, pain, cost, everything.  Much of the thoughts here had been previously written in Chinese, with just a little update, since at that time, I wasn't yet injured.

Until fall of 2008, swimming had been the authorized version of exercise for our kids. It is a good sport that can be enjoyed lifelong, and relatively safe (few injuries, at least at this level), and easy for us as parents – we dropped them off at the pool, and picked them up an hour later.

When Anabel started playing soccer in Fall of 2008, we saw it only as a fun supplement to swimming, and not much more.. After all, she is small, and easily upset by anything that hurt. For her to play a sport where collision is more of the rule than exception, all I hoped for is that she wouldn’t cry.

To my delighted surprise, I saw how quickly she grew to love this game, and developed as a player. Not only her ball control skills, but also her game sense, especially as a defender, much exceeded my expectation. But even more so was her sense of responsibility as a defender, that she would drag her tired body to run back to protect the goal when it was called for. Only when she was in the car and after getting home she would sob and said how exhausted she was.

Most kids like to have a chance to score at this age. It is one of the most immediately rewarding part that they can feel. Therefore, even at the risk of losing the game, I had given each player the chance to play forward, and thus, the need to play defense. But prior to games when I asked Anabel to play forward, she would say, “my team needs me to play defense.” That again gave a great feeling in my heart. At least for this one thing, at this one moment, my daughter has learned (or just chosen) to prioritize responsibility above pleasure.

Some Chinese parents give low priority to team sports activity of their children, especially something like soccer, which they see as no part of as their children’s future building plan. That could be true. My friends told me it would be much more likely for oriental girls to get fellowship with tennis or golf, besides academic ones. This also may well be true. But team sports like soccer, is a good medium for the building of their physical strength, and development of their characters. One could have developed as much physical strength just going swimming, running or to the weight room, and some probably do. But for many, having the ball, and a team competition with a few rules that help define good performance by “scoring”, give them much more incentives to do all that. To them, practice (skill and endurance drills and such), or even learning to do team work, may be for the ultimate performance in the games. That is why the league need to schedule games. Otherwise we can just have practice.

But as a parent, we need to look beyond that. And as a coach, I not only can, but also has the opportunity and responsibility to bring that about.  The performance in the games is just the medium, or incentive; what we really want to develop is something deeper, something that will be with them for life, even if they will have no part with soccer in the future (of course it would be better if they do). I list them on order increasing importance: learning the skill, developing the love for the sport, building physical strength, cultivating concept of teamwork, and finally, a character with responsibility and spirit of tenacity. It would be my satisfaction as a parent to see my daughter benefit this way, and even more so as a coach, to whom it is also a job well done.  Therefore I am willing to pay (with whatever cost I need to) for it.