Love of the Sport
Success
Reading
Add Comment
Coaches and athletes everywhere: Track & Field is a college and high school sponsored hobby. We don't have large fan groups who grew up watching us. They won't pay thousands of dollars to see our national meets. We won't pack stadiums of 100,000 people for a rivalry meet. This is something we all do because we enjoy it. It is likely you will never be famous. They won't write books on how good you were, and for the most part you'll be forgotten.
Enjoy your time while you have it. Athletes that are annoyed at practice because they aren't achieving a PR every throw annoys the shit out of me. I understand the drive to always be better, but do it in a competitive spirit. Try to better yourself every throw, but don’t feel a sense of failure if you can’t. I always preach not settling for your current best. Always reach for more but when the meet ends or practice is over, walk away happy that you achieved what you did.
Enjoy your time while you have it. Athletes that are annoyed at practice because they aren't achieving a PR every throw annoys the shit out of me. I understand the drive to always be better, but do it in a competitive spirit. Try to better yourself every throw, but don’t feel a sense of failure if you can’t. I always preach not settling for your current best. Always reach for more but when the meet ends or practice is over, walk away happy that you achieved what you did.
Last year when I was coaching Rob I was never easy on him. I pushed him hard every practice and always expected him to do his best at meets; and he knew this. I always questioned him at meets that he did not achieve a PR, and he would be disappointed in himself for not doing better. When he did do well I was the first one there cheering for him. Once it was over however, I was already directing our focus toward the next meet. Today is done and tomorrow is a new battle. When states came around he had a sub-par day. He came away from the meet disappointed, but I was all smiles. I told him, “who cares that you didn’t throw a PR.” He still went from a 4th place finish at sectionals last year to a 6th place finish at states this year, which is a massive improvement.
0 comments:
Post a Comment