You Can't Save Them All---Hah! (A Commentary on Coaches...)

So...I belong to a couple of groups for volleyball coaches and pay attention to another called Volleytalk.  The coaches group is limited to coaches and trainers by invitation only while Volleytalk is for anyone/everyone interested in volleyball--VT is the 'wild west' of volleyball discussion.

So, this blog started percolating about a week ago.  In one of those forums, someone started posting about 'Why do I coach? Why do I keep doing this?'  ...because there are days, a ton of them actually, where it feels like you're scraping (not even banging) your head against a brick wall.  There were good responses, and it helped me some, too.  Every year you get to the point that it's a grind for a while--practice, travel, recruiting...dealing with drama, fund-raising, tons of things and you wonder that question....just being honest.  If you're reading this, you're nodding anyways.

Well, it reminded me of a conversation I had a dozen years ago with a club director, and in hindsight, I think that's the point I realized I wasn't going to be coaching for that club much longer...

There'd been a few kids that switched clubs--to a club with poor coaching (my opinion) and charging twice as much.  Now, I run my own business, so that if I lose a customer, I always do a ton of hand-wringing...what could I have done to keep that business?  I feel the same way about coaching club.  If you lose a bunch of people--you have to ask why?  Are they valid reasons (because sometimes they are)?  The response I got from the club director was, "Jim, you can't save them all," and so the club continued in the same direction.

Now the problem is bigger--because the club had some kids who weren't improving as quick as I wanted (and as technical director...I thought that was my duty--they were paying $500/kid...by God, they were paying a ton, so they needed to get better).  Some of the kids were laid-back, some had never been taught how to work hard, and some just didn't improve fast--not everyone does...but when I raised the question of their improvement and whether the technical director (me) was doing his job and whether our coaches were teaching the skills--you should know the response I received: "Jim, you can't save them all."

Boy, that steamed me, because I hear that from teachers regularly, too.  "Feh, oh well...I don't care about the kid reading a novel in Math...can't reach them all."  WHY OH WHY would you get into coaching youth or teaching if you weren't committed to reaching everyone in some fashion?

I don't think there's a kid alive who sits there and says "I don't want to get better.  You can't make me."--whether it is school, sports, other activities. Every human enjoys improving--if only I could somehow get good at StarCraft or my vertical jump...  Kids WANT to get better, and they want coaches/teachers who care.

This isn't my first year in volleyball.  Goodness sakes, it's 24 seasons now.  I'm older, maybe wiser, and I know I'm not going to reach everybody--not in a moment, maybe not even over the course of a club or collegiate season.  Heck, as a former classroom teacher, there've been times that a student's reached out to me more than five years later to tell me "Hey--holy crap, you were right."  Those are the moments you live for as a coach/teacher.

And that's what bothered me in that club director's comment that you can't reach everyone.  I know that's true in the short term, but ultimately, as a coach--that's my responsibility, the commitment I made when I chose coaching as an avocation. 

Why do you coach?  Are you coaching to make a difference?  Are you working on leadership and teamwork skills?  Or is it, for you, just about the points on the scoreboard--and if that's the case, why not just play?

Anyways, the thing is--that's what really gets a good coach tired, sometimes tired enough to consider not coaching.  It takes constant effort to do the little things, the invisible things, necessary to help kids, things they'll never see or know about--heck, they'll fight some of them (so will their parents). 

But you can't give up.  Children deserve, they need, that effort.  That's the payoff--that someday, they'll look back and it will click.

So yeah, that club coach was right--if you aren't going to put in the necessary work, you aren't going to save them all.  The thing is...if you put that work in, you can get through to them--every last one of them.

Hey--read any of these? (and some random thoughts on writing...)

Okay...so it's self-promoting...I get that.  But have you read any of these?
Have you passed these on to friends or others who like reading, I mean--it doesn't hurt you, right?

Until the Goodnight Smile --Ever wonder what life is like as a teacher?  This is pretty much a 'day in the life' of one.  I was prompted to start writing by a former student, Dallas Schumacher, and one of the lessons I remembered from grad school was--write what you know about.  So I did.  The funny thing is that once I started, I realized the influence for how I structured the book: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a story of the Russian gulag (prison) system.  Funny, because there were days school feels like a prison (to students AND teachers).  Is it intentional that the secondary education system in the US grinds kids down and wears them out?  If not, why do we persist?

The Five Days of Osan --This is an e-book (so self-published...which means if you check it out...I'll actually make money).  I wrote it because I realized how little fiction has been written about 'The Forgotten War'.  So, I started doing some research--of the wars of the past 200 years, it was one I knew the least about--and found that the US was criminally incompetent in its initial actions, sending Task Force Smith in without any preparation to face the Communists.  TF Smith gets smeared, and I thought that would make the basis for a good story.  So 'The Five Days of Osan' is a modern retelling of the classic tale of the Spartans at Thermopylae.

The Last Post --  This is a nice review: "If you like THE KEEP by F. Paul Wilson, weird war stories, or really, horror novels in general, you will thoroughly enjoy THE LAST POST by Jim Dietz. It's clear Dietz has done his research -- every detail rings true -- and that makes this darkly brilliant historical novel of the macabre even more entertaining."  It starts off making you think, 'Yeah, yeah, Saving Private Ryan'...and then 'Yeah, yeah, Dirty Dozen, I get it'...and then it goes off the tracks.  I wrote most of it while Julie was watching Agatha Christie, including 'Ten Little Indians' and that may have affected how this goes.  The funny thing is, Dallas Schumacher--who caused the first book--actually wanted me to be writing this one.  His comment (way back in '01) was "Hey, I bet you would write an awesome Lovecraft-type story.  Do it, Dietz."  Here it is.

The Human Side of Coaching --  I'm still frustrated as a coach/writer/teacher.  If you go looking for coaching books--regardless of sport, you're going to find books that guarantee success through 'magic drills' and formations and stuff.  Often they are written by coaches out of touch with their sport at other levels.  THSoC was written because a college volleyball coach talked about how wonderful his system was with short players--6', 6'1....completely missing that the coaches in his audience considered 6' giant and that short kids in hs are 5'2, 5'3.  So I wrote this--it doesn't have drills; it's about the relationships formed between people while coaching, it's about how you can take education strategies and apply them to coaching and sports.  It's about how to help kids balance multiple sports.  Everyone who has read it has loved it--I just wish more coaches would read it.

Road to Kandahar (no link yet...coming soon!) --The whole legacy of the US in Afghanistan is going to be confusion.  Afghanistan has been the Graveyard of Empires for more than 3,000 years, so why would the US fare any differently.  Kandahar is the story of an intelligence officer called back to duty to investigate the seeming assassination attempt on the President by an American army officer gone rogue and what happens when that officer is found.  Is the officer crazy?  Is he brilliant?  Is he both?  And does he have a plan for bringing peace to Afghanistan and the tribal territories of Pakistan that can work?  If it sounds like it was inspired by Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", you'd be correct.

So help a brother out--check these out...pass them on to someone who would be interested!

Teachers, Motivation, Inspiration

So...this past weekend, one of the people I used to teach with out at Allen County, Tom, picked up a Master's degree (again).  Tom used to teach Psychology and coach the track programs before going over to the Dark Side (college administration).

When he got his degree, he put a picture up on Facebook and mentioned one of the motivations he had--a teacher from high school.  Now, before you start thinking, "Awwww...", this "teacher" had told Tom before he graduated high school that Tom couldn't cut it, wouldn't ever amount to anything.

So let me ask a rhetorical question here: WHAT THE HELL SORT OF TEACHER IS THAT???

For the record, Tom (who wasn't going to amount to much) now has a couple advanced degrees, an award for teaching, an award for administrating (I'll avoid my usual admin-type comment here), had a track scholarship, emphasized the STUDENT part of student-athlete, and then somehow found a nice woman to marry him and have some kids with him (seriously, that last part is not made up--Tom's pictures are not photoshopped).

It's been several years, but now reading that Facebook post, I realize why he was the way he was as a teacher--why he was positive when dealing with students, even the ones who didn't get it and really struggled.

It made me wonder--do all good teachers have that negative role-model in their past? 

I know I had a couple.  I still keep the journal comments written to me by an English teacher (there's a pause here while I go get them so I may quote...): "Jim, I don't know what happened, but you are a completely negative, disappointing person.  I had high hopes for you, but I am disappointed to see how wrong I was, that you will not amount to anything in life."

Now, you could make the argument that "Hey, she's just trying to motivate you"--fair enough.  Let's assume that's true (for her or Tom's former teacher).  That doesn't change the horrid method.  Why would you take a teenager and break them down or insult them?  In that situation--you're the teacher.  Your job is to work to get through to a kid, maybe empathize with them because whether it's 1985 or 2014, it is not easy being 16 years old.

But do those words look motivating or inspiring?  As a parent, teacher, and coach, I avoid the D-word (disappointed) as much as possible.  I think I've used it twice with my children in the past three years, and maybe four times with my athletes.  It's a powerful word--and it almost always hurts feelings.  Adults know that, so why, as a teacher, use it?

I'd rather focus on the positive--whether in the classroom or not.

*Long ago, I got banned from my high school's campus, not allowed to sit there while my friends and/or former classmates graduated.  The principal, Fat Man, said I would 'disrespect authority'...whatever that means.  After that, two teachers went to him and said that if he held to that, they'd be done teaching.  Think about that...two teachers standing up for a former student, not even a current one, and both willing to put their jobs on the line for it.  Those were Mrs. Strohm and Mr. Valus.  It's been 29 years and I've never forgotten that.

*Go back further, and I remember Mrs. Loula, my 6th grade teacher, working things out so that me and Steve Pedersen could take math separately with the 7th grade.  At the time I didn't think anything about that...I mean, you're 11-12 years old, right?  Ahh--but I've taught now.  Having a couple kids leave for a different class at a certain hour disrupts your whole schedule--because if we are leaving during Reading for Math--then you've got to do a Prep so that we can do Reading while everyone else is doing Math.  There aren't a ton of teachers out there willing to take that extra extra step just for two students.

*Todd Francis--teaches Chemistry, even during the summer, but then donates his time to coach ACCC's Scholar Bowl team, as well as work as an assistant for the volleyball team.  That's a lot of time and effort--especially since he doesn't HAVE to do any of that extra work.  Todd would say he does it for the money...but that's because he's a crusty old fart with a crappy golf game.  The reality is that inside--he cares a ton about his students.

*Richard Kottman--everybody other than me, Dave Pieart, and Chris Libby despised Kottman, and Kottman relished that.  I got the worst grade ever in a History class with him, and I learned more there than in any other class in college.  I learned that teachers SHOULD push students, should maintain the highest standards for what constitutes an "A", and that we shouldn't compromise those values under any circumstances.

In the end, I keep that journal for specific motivation--that when I teach, when I coach, I will never ever EVER be like that with a young person, not even when those young people try and cause trouble or are failing at life--because I need to be there to help them, to offer a hand.  Otherwise, I'd much rather focus on the good teaching I see.  Most teachers, most principals, are good people and are in education to help make this world a better place.  That's the truth.

Who are your role-models?  Who motivated you?  Why?  I'm actually interested to read what people say--please share!

High School Teaching (A Decade Gone now...)

This week is the ten-year anniversary of me being fired at Satan's School for Girls and Boys.  It's a bittersweet thought because I loved teaching high school.

Of course, if that doesn't happen, I never get to teach/coach at Allen County or coach at LLCC, and if not at LLCC, no trip to nationals, no AVCA membership and conventions, or presentation and book.  It's not like it's been ten years of misery by any means.

On the other hand, ten years at SSGB and I'd have 400+ wins and, I'd put $50,000 on this--there would've been at least four trips to State during that time.  A pity the total still stands at zero because there've been some good players through the SSGB program.  Feh--that's whining and we do not have the ability to go back and change things--and as I noted in a different blog, change something in the past and you're going to eliminate a bunch of good things that come down the road. 

It doesn't change my feelings though--it's despicable for a superintendent to remove a faculty member because someone's dad threatens to stop donating to the school because of a grade or playing time.  If you are a Catholic institution, you should always, always, place integrity and ethics above money.  That's a life lesson--there's always more money, always fundraising, but once you compromise your morals, there's no getting those back.

I hope my former students, former players, realize that.  It makes it funny when I get accused of lying or being unethical/inappropriate.  Because it's lying.  I've got a bazillion faults--those ain't them. 

I gave 100% teaching. 100% coaching.  I'm proud of where those students have gone, what they are doing--whether it is starting a family, working on a doctoral exam, working in the family business, or serving in the armed forces.  I tried to make you work hard because that's what brings success in life.  I tried to model ethics and integrity, so that when you got into your careers, you would also be known as someone worthy of trust.

The best?  You're all so different--music lovers, readers, family men/women.  I love Facebook so I can see what you are all up to--even if I don't ever do more than (lamely) click "like".  As a teacher, I am absolutely proud of all of you.  I just hope that with 10-15 years of perspective, you found the work I asked of you to have been worthwhile.