Last night I got to go back to school….specifically I got to go back to my high school…..good ol’ PHS. Go Clippers!
It is mandated by the state of NH that after your first year of coaching you have to attend a state run coaching class…oh….you didn’t know that I moonlight as a JV Volleyball coach? Yup. True story. They trust me with the lives of 12 14-18 year old girls. Before you start thinking that the Athletic Directors at PHS must be out of their mind (which incidentally, they are) you should know that I also have Carley from www.findingravity.com as my co-coach, so she keeps me in line and makes sure nobody dies. We’re kind of a dynamic duo, and we have never made our players cry…..*awkward*
Oh hey! There we are with our high school coach…ya…we go way back
Oh look, Carley is actually working…whereas I am posing….
I’m pretty proud of the fact that Carley and I were able to make it though our first year of coaching relatively unscathed. We didn’t seriously injure or maim our players (one of them got a concussion but it totally wasn’t our fault), we had a winning record (we’ll forget about that one game we lost 21-1…), and generally speaking the girls loved us (except when we actually made them do things like exercise). I think the term “best coaches ever” got thrown around a lot. Just saying.
So ya. Carley and I are easily the world’s best/prettyiest/funnest(not a word I know)/all around most awesome coaches in the world true story. And yet we still had to attend a coaching class (which incidentally Carley couldn’t attend-don’t worry though because I super paid attention and took wonderful notes). Can you believe that!?
The coaching class was in one of the math classrooms in my old high school. We sat in the same desks I sat in in HS and looked at the same projecter. It was a very weird feeling. I’ve been back to PHS a million times since I’ve graduated, between coaching, and watching my siblings play sports, but I’ve never returned to the classrooms. To take a class. It was flashback city.
I called my mom after the class and she asked me what I learned. It was a total-cheese ball class complete with videos that contained heinous acting and “teachable moments’, so I sort of scoffed and said something along the lines of “pshhh nothing. I already know everything there is to know about everything.”
But I so, so don’t. Apparently there is a lot more to coaching than just being awesome and liking the sport. Word on the street is you should have an emergency plan for injuries, know your school’s liability policy, interact with your shareholders and a whole myriad of other things I had never even heard of. Its a good thing I didn’t take this course before signing on as a coach…otherwise I would have been scared away.
Regardless of the fact that Carley and I didn’t have an emergency plans or any of the others things discussed in the class I still maintain that we rocked our first season and that having enthusiasm for the sport and for coaching is much more important than learning how to budget (which as co-coaches for a JV team we don’t even have to do anyways).
Like I said, I took really good notes, so I can always go back and check them out. Here are some snapshots of my awesome note taking abilities:
The End
Thanks for reading! xo Whitney