The Joy of Private Coaching
About six years ago, when I was coaching for my school team during the school year and with a youth club team in the summer, I traveled to Atlanta to serve as a hurdles coach at a track camp. In talking to another coach, who coached sprinters and quarter-milers, he was saying that he too used to coach for a big club, and that he used to have his own club for several years, but that he was now coaching independently. “I don’t coach with big teams anymore man,” he said. “Private coaching only. And I’ve never been happier.”
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He went on to explain why he made the transition, and his explanation hit on some of the issues that are common to coaches who derive more pleasure from coaching individual athletes as opposed to trying to lead a team to a championship. No drama, no politics, and the ability to choose to work only with motivated athletes.
At the time, making such a move seemed unrealistic for me. Even though I did do some private coaching, and though I did prefer it, I couldn’t envision myself abandoning the kids I coached at school or on the youth team.
But his words did strike a nerve. I hate a crowded track. I hate coaching kids who don’t really want to be there. And the organizational aspects of team management have never thrilled me whatsoever.
Fast forward to this past year, and to the here and now. I have moved from the area in which I had lived for twenty years. I am now teaching at a school that has a very small track team, no track, and enough coaches that I am not needed to coach. Last year I helped with the hurdlers on a volunteer basis, and will probably take on a similar role this spring. A handful of hurdlers from other nearby schools have found me – either through my website or through word of mouth – and I have about six hurdlers that I train privately as their hurdles coach. While I provide suggestions for training schedules as asked, I have no direct, regular input in their overall training program. I just coach them during the sessions that we meet.
For the first time in my coaching career, I am strictly a private coach. And oddly enough, I can concur with the coach I met at the camp by saying that I have never been happier.
What I’ve come to appreciate most of all is the purity of the private training session – the one-on-one scenario when it’s just the athlete and the coach. In private coaching, I feel like I can get more accomplished in one hour-long session than I can in a two-hour session with a larger team. There’s no fighting for lane space, there’s no worrying about distractions from other team members or coaches. Both I and the athlete can concentrate fully on getting accomplished what we came to get accomplished on that day.
The girl named Scout that I talked about in a couple other articles in this issues lives a good two hours away from me, so when we meet, we meet for two hours in order to get in as much work as we can. In those sessions, we have time and space to do a variety of drills, and then gradually build toward faster reps. I can teach her how to hurdle. I’m not feeling rushed. Neither is she. She can assimilate the lessons I teach, she can ask questions.
Before I started teaching full-time, I was a writing tutor way back in the day – in my last year as an undergrad and in my two years in graduate school, earning my master’s. I worked in the college’s tutorial center and assisted students one-on-one who needed help with essay assignments that were due later that week or the following week. While this work inspired my desire to enter the teaching profession, I miss the purity of tutoring for the same reasons that I enjoy the purity of private coaching. The only students who came to me for tutoring assistance were students who really wanted help – students who were self-motivated. In the classroom, there might be three students out of twenty who really want to be there, who are really hungry to learn. I often wonder how joyous teaching could be if I could pull out those three and only teach them. When I do still tutor – during planning periods or after school – that same thrill returns. It is so much fun to teach someone who really wants to learn. Similarly, it is so much fun to coach someone who really wants to develop.
As I move forward with my coaching career, I’m not sure what I want to do. While private coaching is way less stressful and way more enjoyable, I do miss knowing that I am a particular athlete’s coach, that I am the one who will guide his or her training throughout the year. I miss having that type of control. I miss being behind the steering wheel like that. And when you have a group of kids that really clicks, that really works hard, has good leadership, and pushes each other to excel, the team bond that forms can be immensely rewarding and gratifying.
We all have different personalities. Much of knowing what you want to do with your life involves knowing who you are. I’ve always been a person who prefers the quiet, who prefers to avoid the noise. I like being able to gaze up at the birds flying overhead between an athlete’s reps. I like being able to converse quietly with an athlete between sets. I like life when it moves at a slow pace, when it is not in a rush. I very much enjoy the simple art of teaching as it applies to the one-on-one setting. When I was an athlete, my favorite days to train were days when we didn’t have practice, when I could go out to the track by myself and just focus on me, and feel a close connection to nature. I guess I haven’t changed much.
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