If you want to make a difference, you best be coaching PEOPLE primarily through emotion.
“Humans are emotional beings.
If you want to carry any weights in kids’ lives as a coach, you must lead & coach primarily through emotion.
This takes immense time & patience, which most are unwilling to invest.
Which is consequently why most never make a difference.”
-Ray Zingler on X
You don’t make a difference simply because you’re “willing to coach”.
It’s not some badge of honor that gets awarded to you for simply showing up.
Yet, especially at the youth and high school levels, many feel like simply carrying the title of “coach” is sufficient.
It’s bullshit, when in reality many stay devolved and stuck in their own (old) ways because they have low levels of accountability on their way to chasing tenure.
“Have I hit the next income bracket yet!?”
They’ll always be quick to tell you how many years they’ve been doing it (as if that makes a difference at all – people have worked at the DMV for 25 years, too), but if you ask them how effective they’ve been or how big a difference they’ve made, you’d leave them fumbling for words.
I’ve always and will forever believe coaching is not an occupation. It’s a calling.
And a calling that if you answer, requires outrageous amounts of personal discipline and responsibility.
It’s not about strength & conditioning, football, or fastpitch softball.
Coaching is about human beings.
Kids, of all people.
Sure, it’s about teaching them the fundamentals of your craft so they can learn, grow, & excel within the given discipline, but it’s about much more than that.
It’s about using “your thing” as a coach as a catalyst for growth in their lives.
The hardest part about working with kids is the time is so short.
15 years into working with them daily, I can promise you, the adage is true: “The days are long, but the years are short.”
I started training her when she was in 6th grade one day and the next day I’m at her graduation party.
And if we know time is as elusive as it is, this forces great, and I mean GREAT intentionality during the time that we do have.
Every moment, every encounter, every day, if we want to be effective difference makers in the lives of kids, we must work to deeply connect with them on an emotional level.
It’s because this is the only way to help them get the most out of themselves.
Our job is to find what drives them and then work relentlessly to pull it out of them.
