The Pursuit of Contentment: April 2011

Thursday, April 28, 2011

All I Needed To Know In Life I Learned Coaching Pee Wee Football..Part 1

By Sam McDonald

Sometimes some parents do what other parents (that don't really have the time, skills, or even desire for) have called 'noble' things... as in the context of one giving up their time, efforts, and knowledge to coach little league baseball, boys and girls club basketball, soccer, etc... trying to teach young folks a sport.

Noble... maybe... but my motivations were almost selfish in the satisfaction that I gained from each experience. I coached because I liked it, and because I thought that somewhere along the way I could make a difference in a young life. The really good coaches, at least the ones that I have been privileged to be associated with, hope that somewhere along the way the kids they coach find out that they can apply a little of what they learn in organized sports - to life.

Sometimes... in retrospect... the teacher (or coach) may find that he or she just might have gotten far more enlightenment from their involvement and observations, than the students did.

I coached Pee Wee football from 1999 through 2001 for the Pottsville Apaches. In other areas of the country it's also known as 'Pop Warner', 'The Youth Football League', 'The Junior Football Conference', and various other names. In and around Pottsville, Arkansas, it's called Pee Wee Football - and we take it serious. Fun... but serious.

At the time that I coached the Apaches we belonged to what we proudly called, "The Big Eight Conference". I don't know who made up the conference name... I do know that my last year we actually had nine different teams; of course one of the teams was newly organized and had not been formally voted into the conference at that time. It may be "The Big Nine" conference now. Whatever it is, or was, we had some good teams, and some good times.

There's something just 'right' about a bunch of kids ages 9 to 13, dressed and padded up like they're in the NFL, running amok on a football field, banging into one another... doing their best to be like their favorite player and at the same time looking up into the bleachers to make sure that Mom and Dad or Grandma or Gramps or any number of kin folk (or girls... though at that age none will admit it) are watching every tackle or block or run. It's a social event - complete with proud folks gathered together to watch their favorite ball playing kid go out and crash into someone else's favorite ball playing kid for four quarters.

It was a great thing to be a part of.

I loved every minute of the experience of coaching some of the best kids in the world, instructing them on how to play a sport that I love. I thought that I was the teacher. It didn't take me long to find out that I was being taught a lot along the way.

Here we go!

By Sam McDonald

I've started a blog... (whodathunkit)... the guy that hated studying the grammatical part of English in High School. I loved the Literature, hated the Grammar. I once even asked one of my teachers (Miss Phillips), "Why do I need to know how to diagram a participle; most of mine dangle anyway?"... hmmmm... one's comments sometime take time to bite, but sooner or later they do... they're like long range space probes; you think you have them launched and safely away; most of the time you forget all about them, and just when one least expects it... they return; and they're always programmed for re-entry during the 'optimum embarrassment or humiliation' window. I'm convinced that's why hardly anyone (and no-one pregnant) says, "Man... that baby is UGLY"... because they don't want theirs to be at least that ugly, or uglier... and if they say that you can bet your last dollar that the baby will come out looking like a cross between a Shar-pei puppy and The Thing from The Fantastic Four movie.