I Found the Antidote

There was a time when I had a skewed idea of what a coach is.  My earliest memories of people who called themselves coaches are that of older men yelling at me in gym class.  I suspect you may have had a similar experience, so let me make it clear, they were not coaches.  In my case, they were just “grumpy old men” dealing with kids who had bad attitudes.  They were terrible roll models as well.  In one instance my junior high coaches mercilessly made fun of the class of mentally challenged kids calling them “F Troop.” Perhaps you remember “F Troop.”  It was a popular television show, of that day, about a western outpost manned by a quirky collection of misfit Army soldiers. Simply put, this was not a good introduction to coaching.

Good coaches are altogether different.  It was former Colorado football coach Bill McCartney who said, “Coaching is taking a player where he can't take himself.”  Alabama’s legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant knew that the solutions resided in his players when he said, “No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players know that counts.”

One of the best things that ever happened to me was finding a coach and mentor who I could bounce ideas off of and one who was committed to drawing the best of me out of me.  He is called a Life Purpose Coach.  He does not impose his will on me but instead, like coaches McCartney and Bryant, help me to know myself better. Like daredevil Baumgartner, standing at the edge of space, my coach motivates and encourages me to consider all the options and opportunities that are before me.