Okay, maybe I am beating a dead horse...so what?
Via last night's USA Swimming Coaching Connection:
“STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE!” yells Tasha, a point guard on the 6th grade YMCA basketball team I was coaching.
Immediately, I smile and start to explain to her that I forgot my watch and I needed to make sure we were on schedule. Tasha rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed with my response.
“No big deal,” I had thought to myself on the way to practice when I realized I forgot my watch, “I’ll use my phone.” Fifteen minutes into practice, I had pulled out my phone to make sure we were on schedule. Big mistake.
“Can you believe the nerve of that girl?” I thought. “Here I am, the volunteer head coach, staying up late watching videos on drills and strategy, planning practices on my lunch break, staying late for players who parents are delayed picking up their child…and now some kid is telling me to put my phone away when all I am doing is making sure practice is on schedule?”
Reflecting back on that practice later that night, though, I asked myself what did Tasha really want? What was she really asking for?
I realized that she was looking for the one thing kids crave more than anything else. She wanted me to be there, in that moment, in that drill, watching her and her teammates. She wanted my attention.
She didn’t simply want me to care for her, or love her, or teach her how to play the game. She wanted more.
She wanted me to see her!
The rest of this James Leath post is here
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