One Job. Two Teams.

Today's blog post was written by Matthew Cunningham.  Matthew is a senior Management major in the Mendoza College of Business and a volunteer assistant basketball coach for St. Joseph High School.  Matthew is a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching class taught by Play Like a Champion directors Prof. Clark Power and Kristin Sheehan in Education, Schooling and Society at the University of Notre Dame.

Working in sports is challenging. There are meetings to attend, film to watch, practices to run, players to mentor, and games to play. The typical 40 hours per week does not apply to the sports industry. Coaches have stories about sleeping in their offices, working around the clock in pursuit of winning. If you take time to sleep, your competitors are passing you by.

That being said, the passion, the energy and the enthusiasm that sport provides us makes the demands of coaching worthwhile. The ability to mentor players and to watch kids grow as players and as individuals is one of the most rewarding parts of coaching.

Image Courtesy of www.nba.si.com

As a volunteer assistant coach for the varsity boys basketball team at St. Joseph High School in South Bend, IN, I have had the chance to not only learn about the dedication needed to run a successful high school basketball program, but the joy that comes from players and coaches working together to achieve a common goal.

It is in this balance of hard work and reward that makes coaching such a worthwhile profession. There is, however, another balance that must be realized.

Image Courtesy of www.suitsbysuits.com

With so much focus on your sports team, what about your other team? Your team at home: your family.

Being a coach doesn’t stop once you leave the field or the arena, your role simply shifts to another team, a team that regardless of your job or your record will be there for you. This means you need to be there for them.

I have grown up in a family whose lifestyle has been formed by college athletics. Because my dad has worked for the University of Notre Dame, Ball State University, the University of Tulsa, and UNC-Chapel Hill, our family has had to pick up and move to wherever the next job was. Changing schools, making new friends, and acclimating to a new city is never easy, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. Athletics has allowed me to see some incredible places and meet even better people. In all of our moving, however, family has always been a constant. Players leave, coaches move on, new jobs are taken, but as I have said (sarcastically), “I can never seem to get rid of my family.”

Each time we have moved, it has truly been a family decision. There were times when a new job was available for my dad to take, but we (not my dad, but “we”, as a family) turned them down. If the situation didn’t feel right for the whole family, taking new job was out of the question.

But forget about moving to a new city, how about the job you are currently in? How much time are you committing to your team, your players? Is it enough to be successful? Now think about your other team: your family. How much time are you committing to them? Is it enough to be successful?

 

Image Courtesy of http://www.york.edu/news/2012/0403_madole.asp 

It is too common that coaches focus all of their attention on their job, and not enough on their families. I have been fortunate enough to have a family that understands this balance. Even on trips to bowl games, we carve out time away from team activities for family time. Every summer we take a trip – just the six of us in the family. It is times like these that help build the bonds within the team that matters most.

 Think about your career as a coach. You set aside practice time for your team so they can grow.  But, do you do the same for your family?

As a coach you may have one “job”, but never forget that you have two teams – both of which need your time and attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration: On and Off the Field

Today's blog was written by Caitlin McCreary, a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame. Caitlin is a Program of Liberal Studies major and a member of the Notre Dame Ultimate Frisbee team.  Caitlin hails from Pasadena, California and is generally a San Diego Chargers fan, but thought this story was important to tell despite her feelings about the Seahawks.

In a recent Duracell commercial Derrick Coleman, fullback for the Seattle Seahawks, addressed the disability that has defined his entire life; he has been deaf since he was three years old.  He narrates this commercial with stories of how he was bullied, excluded, misjudged, and left behind because of his inability to hear.  Imagine being told from a young age that you are a “lost cause,” that because of a disability you cannot control, your dreams are impossible.  Imagine hearing that over and over again.  Then imagine ignoring every coach, every kid, and every word to pursue your dreams.  In Derrick Coleman’s words “I’ve been deaf since I was three, so I didn’t listen.”  In a commercial that was meant to remind us of the strength of a battery, we are left instead with an impression of the strength of one man.

Coleman’s perseverance is inspiring and it left me wondering how I would respond under the same circumstances and how other children facing similar prejudices deal with the constant degradation.  One aspect of his torment that Coleman mentioned that really stood out to me was how he was always picked last for teams as a kid.  Even for someone who loves football as much as he clearly does, it must have tainted his opinion of the sport.  Looking back on middle and high school, I remember the expressions of the kids who were constantly chosen last for everything.  They were heartbroken and yet they seemed to expect nothing else.  They hated anything that required teams because it was a chance for other kids to be cruel, intentionally or unintentionally, all because they were smaller, skinnier, dorkier or different in any way.  Unlike Derrick Coleman many of these kids abandoned sports and team activities because they associated them with this cruelty.  

Getting picked last in itself is a form of bullying, but despite the fact that we recognize bullying as a major problem these days, I am not sure I have ever heard this mentioned as one of its many dangerous facets.  While not every child is meant to be a star athlete or go on to play in the NFL, no child should be deterred from playing before they can find out for themselves.  And even then no one should feel as if they cannot participate because they are different.  Sports are meant to be fun, especially when you are young.  One of the things that I like about working with Play Like a Champion Today is that they strive to put the "play" back in sports. Nothing should prevent a child from playing the sport that he or she loves.  Derrick Coleman didn't let the comments of his peers and coaches hold him back.  Instead he let them drive and strengthen him.  But not everyone can have his will and determination and at some point we need to start helping those who do not either by encouraging them to play or by stopping other kids from degrading them.

Athletics vs. Academics

Today's blog post is written by Play Like a Champion founder and co-director Professor Clark Power.  The article was originally featured in the Huffington Post.  

Mary Willingham's stunning charges that 60 percent of the University of North Carolina's (UNC) football and basketball players read below the 8th grade level, and eight percent to 10 percent read at or below a third grade level, have reignited questions and controversies, not only around North Carolina's beleaguered efforts to restore its academic reputation, but about college athletics more generally. Although some members of the UNC community have questioned Willingham's data, there is no denying the fraught relationship between big-time college athletics and colleges' academic mission.

From the very beginning of intercollegiate athletics, the pursuit of athletic success has forced compromises with academic integrity. In spite of the best of intentions, over a hundred years of attempts to check encroachments of intercollegiate athletic programs on colleges' academic standards have floundered. We are in the midst of the latest, and what many believe is the most promising, of these reforms, the NCAA's institution of the Academic Progress Rate (APR) legislation in 2004. The late Myles Brand, who introduced the APR in 2004 as President of the NCAA, called it "the most far-reaching effort of its kind." This legislation requires that institutions ensure that their athletes meet yearly benchmarks for progress toward graduation, or face team sanctions.

The evidence suggests that the APR legislation is achieving its intended goal of improving graduation rates, particularly among athletes playing the high revenue sports of basketball and football. On the other hand, research by the University of South Carolina's Collegiate Sports Research Institute (CSRI) indicates that the picture is not as rosy as it first may appear. The CSRI reports that Football Bowl Series (FBS) colleges graduate 18 percent fewer football players than non-athletes, and 24 percent fewer African American football players. The CSRI report also notes that conferences vary to the extent in which they graduate their football players, with the major conferences faring the worst.

Even if the APR legislation succeeds in eliminating the gap between the graduations rates of football and basketball players and those of the non-athlete population, concerns raised by Willingham about the quality of athletes' education linger. The documentary, Schooled: The Price of College Sports, raises disturbing questions about the tactics used to keep up APRs. In the documentary, Dominque Foxworth, a graduate of Maryland, and the President of the NFL Players' Association notes, "Your [college's] challenge is to get them eligible; it's not about educating them."

To be fair, thanks to the dedicated services of academic support personnel, many athletes do receive an education that was not available to them in high school or grade school. Yet, many athletes lack the background and motivation to be successful, even with extensive tutoring. While support staff and dedicated faculty can provide high quality remedial programs, they cannot do athletes classwork for them. Pressures to cheat and engage in academic fraud mount as unprepared student athletes are held to the same standards as other students.

We are not doing student athletes a favor by admitting them into academic programs that they are not qualified for. Many of those who struggle to maintain eligibility come from poor families. Growing inequality in the U.S. has led to a worsening achievement gap that makes it increasingly difficult for poor students to receive the education that they need to realize the American dream of working their way out of poverty.

If college administrators and boards of trustees insist upon admitting student-athletes who are not yet ready to do college work, then in all fairness, non-degree programs ought to be established for helping these student-athletes to get the education they missed. Furthermore, if college presidents are fully committed to upholding academic standards and providing their weakest students with real education, they need to involve their faculty and academic support specialists, like Willingham, to far a far greater extent than most do at present. The APR reform, which was undertaken without their input, is creating a whole new set of problems. Faculty ought to be given responsibility for setting and overseeing admissions criteria and maintaining quality remedial, as well as conventional educational programs.