For as long as I can remember I’ve been about sports. From the time I hit high school it was football over all else. I managed to walk on to a college team and stick around for one season. After that I bounced around flag leagues and coached a bit. Once I hit the post-grad, real life, stage of things I went right back to football. I played one more season as a semi-pro and left deeply unfulfilled. I didn’t stop because I had nothing left. I stopped because I had a kid.
Over the years those kids started playing sports and each gravitated towards football. I coached. I loved being a coach at the flag level. I transitioned to tackle as an assistant and was handed the reigns of my first club when my eldest was 12. It wasn’t what I wanted and I was not ready. I’ve wanted another go at it since then. I want a chance to develop an offensive system that works and highlights the strengths of the players at my disposal. I want to do this for me. That is what I worry about. This is not about the kids as much as it is about me chasing my dreams and trying to create something special that makes me feel good.
But at what cost?
The person who matters most to me in life appears to wish I didn’t want this. Yet I still make choices and put myself in position to create this when it would be so much easier on everyone else to just let go. So, that is what I am thinking about today. Can I let go? I am sure I can and I am sure, as it stands, that will come with disappointment and regret. In my perfect world there is one last season in which I execute this system and hand it off to another coach who improves upon it and everyone is successful and happy. This feels nothing like reality. I won’t even truthfully attempt to guess what happens next. I want this. However, I am the only person on the planet who wants it for me and that is a reality I am fighting to accept and act on.
Some Thoughts:
- Cannot believe I didn’t capitalize on 3.333. That will never happen again. Then again, none of these numbers shall ever repeat, so assigning arbitrary specialness to one is silly.
- Messed up my back in the gym today. My partner says I need to stretch. My immediate reaction was rather male: Stretching is for kids! Yes, I was properly laughed at.