Firstly, I’m not sure how I feel about this new Blogger format. Shit is fancy. But I also hate all of the new GMail buffoonery, so maybe I’m just like that.
Secondly, after an embarrassing but mostly hilarious incident whilst coaching at CUJO, I sustained a trick ass knee injury. I found this out after succumbing to societal pressure/my knee succumbing to any kind of pressure and making an appointment with a sports doctor. Come to find out… HOMEBOY IS THE TEAM DOC FOR THE U.S. OLYMPIC SWIM TEAM (and possibly also the Chicago Transit Authority, which is less cool but still kind of cool). I was super curious about who specifically he has worked with, but I feared that it might have been too thirsty/extra to ask, so I played it cool. Anyway, that was probably the highlight of my entire visit. *foghorn*
Finally, was I the only one who was equal parts hype and mildly horrified by the Tupac hologram? I read somewhere that they’re planning a TLC tour with a Left Eye hologram. Because no.
ANYWAY.
I do this thing when I write — and especially lately — where I hate everything that comes out in front of me. I fight myself to keep the words up on the screen long enough for me to read over them, sound them out in my head. Even that’s hard. But the more I write, the more I just end up erasing. I’ve been writing this post forever, about the things I’ve learned from coaching so far, but I feel like I’m not saying it the way I want to say it. I can’t figure out how I want to put it, or how I figured it out or whatever. The one thing that’s been toughest for me to swallow has been understanding that no matter what I do, there are just some things I cannot teach, and some things I have no power over. It’s like this — you can teach a kid all the skills necessary to win a championship, and you can prepare them in the best way possible, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to win that championship. I’m not even taking into account the other team and “luck of the draw” and all that. I just mean, I think there’s something in certain people that is the difference between “good” and “great”. That something is something I can’t teach, but I haven’t really figured out the way I want to say it (or deal with it, really).
On Sunday we played Latin (which: vomit, ever since high school, because FUCK the Gold Coast and also: Whitney Young fuckin’ Elite Four NBD Dolphin 4EVR), the top team in CUJO. I won’t go into details of the game or whatnot, but it was a close, tough, grind-it-out, character-building kind of game. As a player, I know how I am on the sidelines of those kinds of games. I’m yelling and I’m walking/running the sideline at times, and other times I’m too nervous to look or speak. It’s hectic. I haven’t quite figured out what I want to be, or who I am, as a coach yet, I think, so I’m unsure in those situations. Not knocking our coach at all, but I think the Latin coach gave me a pretty good idea of how I’d want to be when I’m a little less green. The Latin coach was probably as close to Tommy Thibs as I’ve ever seen an ultimate coach, and Thibs is one of my coaching heroes. He’s my type of dude. This dude was much the same way. I felt like he got the best out of his players without berating them, but he yelled when it was necessary. He was active and involved, without asserting his will over the game. He was a tough dude, but always sportsmanlike and cognizant that he’s a teacher first — not just to his kids, but in general. My absolute favorite thing that he did — he stuck to his principles, no matter what. I noticed that he had a general rule that he wasn’t playing players more than two points in a row. He had about four or five guys on his team who could really, really play, and the same rules applied to them as to the kids who weren’t as skilled with the disc as they were. Soft cap went on and his team went up 11-10, game to 12. At that point, I would have kept my studs on and closed the door on the game. But without hesitation, he went for a wholesale change and subbed out his entire line because they had just played two points. He put on what was a considerably weaker line, and our team tied the game up and went on to win. He had to have known his second line couldn’t win the game, but he stuck with it anyway, because that’s his rule. Not one kid on that team got special treatment. I really liked that. Win the right way, with every player on your team.
There was one particular play where a player on their team D-ed a disc that was about ten feet out of bounds. They would have gotten the disc much, much closer to the endzone had the player not done that, but the coach was encouraging and told him it was a good D. Their coach on the other side of the field was actually pretty angry at the kid about it. I couldn’t really hear what she was saying, but she had on a real angry face and I heard something like “Why would you D that?!”, along with other frustrated/angry noises. She also got a little animated and a little extra about some of the calls the kids were making. I agree, if I were an actual player in the game, I would have some things to say about it on the sidelines, but as a coach of kids, I don’t think that’s appropriate. Anyway, the head coach shouts across the field that coaches can give input or inform them about something, but “it’s not up to us”.
It clicked then that that was the phrase I was looking for all along — “it’s not up to us/me”. I guess that’s why some coaches feel so shitty when their teams lose — you can’t protect your players from what it feels like to lose. You can talk about it all the live long cot dang day about how much it sucked you lost that one time in that one tournament and how it destroyed you, but that’s not the same as feeling it for yourself and going through that yourself. Same applies to winning and all the good things associated with that. It was a great feeling to see the guys so amped that they won on DGP against the top team in the league. They found something within themselves — a drive, a focus, a determination, mental toughness, something — that pushed them to buckle down those last few points and gut out a win. That was something all their own.
As a side note: why do high school kids/coaches get so offended when the other team scores and celebrates? I’m actually super sensitive (which: surprise surprise, amirite? /sarcasm) to a lot of things that, including spiking, excessive celebration, and general sideline behavior and will say something about it if I feel like we’re being extra. I don’t like spiking, I don’t like excessive celebration, and I don’t like ratchet behavior in general. We played a high school team at Chicago Invite about a month ago that celebrated a score by shouting “Suck our dicks!” and simulating gang rape/blowjobs. I don’t see anything remotely okay about that, and that was probably one of the worst things I’ve ever seen/experienced on an ultimate field, not even taking into account that this was a high school tournament. And there were parents on the sideline who didn’t say or do a thing about it. But our kids do a cheer when they score (call: Pritzker Pritzker! response: Jaguars!, or something to that effect, much like our I-L-L I-N-I call and response) and they cheer and high five each other and it’s generally pretty tasteful. We got in trouble for spiking a lot in our first game, but there has been no more spiking, and we’ve had them do push-ups for spiking at practice. What they do after a score isn’t unlike what I see most/all college and club teams doing after a score. They get hype, they pump each other up, and it gets them amped to play the next point. It’s nothing like when the Heat beat the Bulls last year in the Eastern Conference Finals and they were crying and hooting and hollering like they won the damn championship, and people forget, but LeBron Tebow-ed the shit out of that moment, before Tebow even made it cool. We don’t do that, but other teams act like we do. I don’t get it, and I wish I understood what they expect people to do when they score. Be silent? Golf clap? Ignore each other? Puzzling.
And feel free to disregard this upcoming foolery, but I need to get this off my chest…
People Who Are Ratchet
1. People who are content to drive like they are some kind of parade float in the lane to your left, and then when you decide to pass them and politely turn on your turn signal, THEY SPEED THE HELL UP TO GET EVEN WITH YOU SO NO PASSING CAN OCCUR. FOHWTS.
2. People (read: Asians who frequent the Halsted/Archer stop light by my crib) who decide to drive straight through red lights just because the left turn signal is green. Where, I ask, do they do that at?
3. “Professors” (I am actually beginning to doubt his/her credibility, and also possibly his/her existence) who schedule activities and online review meetings at RIDICULOUS, OUTRAGEOUS, INCONVENIENT times and send you obnoxious e-mails about how you need to get there 15 minutes early but then DON’T SHOW EVEN UP, EVER. And then, when you send them a super polite e-mail about how you are having trouble figuring out how to sign up for your final exam, he/she responds in ALL CAPS LOCK LIKE YOU ARE SOME KIND OF A DOLT AND LIKE IT’S INSULTING/ANNOYING THAT YOU DARE E-MAIL YOUR PROFESSOR A QUESTION ABOUT THE COURSE HE/SHE TEACHES. SORRY I ASKED YOU TO DO YOUR JOB, WHICH YOU CHOSE AND ARE GETTING PAID TO DO.
4. People who creep at the gym and try to tell girls what to do on gym equipment as an excuse to touch them. Mind you, these are always the people who end up not working out at all, just creeping and following the aforementioned girls around, “coaching them”, when they really, really should just concentrate on getting their own bodies right.
5. People who make a completely extra comment on something you’ve posted via social media re: sports teams. So for example, if I’m at the Bulls game and I post a photo of me at the Bulls game but I’m not saying something ratchet about the Sixers, just something like “At the Bulls game” or “Go Bulls!”, but you want to comment and take it there and try to treat me about being a Bulls fan, then I have no words for you.