Coaching in Uganda

The Ugandan Media can be hard on a new coach

I recently returned from a 16 month stay in Uganda where I was volunteering as a teacher, and also part time as a coach in secondary school outside the city of Jinja. It was a tremendous experience, and was a great period of growth personally for me. Coaching was an interesting experience and very characteristic of my entire experience living in a very different culture than the American one in which I grew up.

My tenure as a coach at Lake View Secondary School began shortly after I arrived in Uganda when I mentioned to the headmaster that I was interested in sports, and that I would love to do some coaching. He said to me “can you be ready for playing soccer today?” I thought I might be given a day or two to prepare a workout plan, or craft some ideas for what practice might look like. I thought I could take a look at the field, maybe clean up some of the numerous “cow pies” that covered the field. The field was in rough shape. Sitting at a 10º incline from side to side, it was rocky, with mounds of soil throughout, and served as a grazing field for cattle. But I said I would love to coach, and I’d be back later that day for some practice.

I came back with a whistle, cleats, shin guards, and even some orange cones. I knew that, living in a foreign county, I should be ready for whatever comes, and I should be adaptable, but I figured I would try to run the sort of practice that I had been accustomed to in youth and high school levels. So I waited until the students came out of school. I had retrieved the school’s lone soccer ball and was waiting out on the field ready for the first day. I thought about what I would say; probably a cross between Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver and Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans, I presumed. Even though I wanted to enter humbly into this new chapter of my life, I secretly had images of developing an army of 16 year Ugandan old boys winning championships, raising money to fix the field becoming a legend at Lake View!

“Practice” started with a few barefoot boys coming out, seeing the ball, and playing around with it. They were in charge. Whistle in hand, I was the one trying to figure out what the afternoon looked like; I was merely along for the ride. No drills, no sprints, no cones. I spent that day, and many months after that, seeing how young people in a different culture experienced sport. It was beautiful. There was no care for the cow dung or the rocks, or the large, unpredictable divots. They were playing for fun, pure and simple. And it wasn’t because they were trying to get back to some bygone age, and relive their past in a nostalgic, pure way. All they have ever known is to play for fun.

So my goals shifted. I wasn’t going to try to build an unbeatable team. As the months passed, I realized areas where I could make an impact. Because sport is not as much of an institution, Ugandan youth don’t see the value in proper preparation for competition. So I made it my goal to instill some lessons of the value of showing up every day, or at least as often as possible (sometimes a 14 hour school day made showing up an impossibility). I wanted to build general fitness among my team, and show them that you can become a better player in other ways than just going out on the field. And to a certain extent, I succeeded. My athletes learned the value of proper preparation, the value of showing up, and the spirit built by a team doing this together. And I learned the value of realizing that no matter how much preparation you can do as a coach, you’ll get far more out than you could ever put in.