Nerves as a Coach

What age and sport(s) are we talking about?

You either have the better players or you don't. You're not Vince Lombardi.

Same in real life. It’s easy to show up for work and do your job. The stress and anxiety builds in as you start managing groups of people as you move further up the ladder.

Counting on someone to come through, babysitting lazy employees, and dealing with grown adults and their drama all while achieving goals and meeting corporate KPIs.

Coached High School Baseball for 11 years, with three as a head coach.

Nerves were way higher as the coach than the player. As a player you worry more about the things you can control. You ride the roller coaster on what you can't control.

The coach bears some responsibility in every facet. Yeah I couldn't stand in the box or on the mound for them, but I'm the one that put them there. And if they fail, it falls on me,

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You either have the better players or you don't. You're not Vince Lombardi.

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You say that but there is 1 clear best team in our division and then 6 teams that are relatively even and those games come down to adjustments a lot of the time.

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The current sport is 1st grade flag football.

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Holy shite...I was messing around with the Tee-ball but apparently I was close to the mark.

Dude, they're barely out of diapers. Just let them have fun

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Dude, they're barely out of diapers. Just let them have fun

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I do want them to have fun. You know whats not fun? A kid feeling like he let the team down cuz he didn't make a play that we never talked about. I couldn't care less if we win or lose. I care that the players have the know how to be as successful as their athletic ability lets them be.

I used to get very nervous when I coached my daughter’s soccer team. I’m usually pretty hard on myself performance wise and I didn’t know anything about soccer. Just cared too much and wanted the girls to have a good time.

I didn’t know how to play the game and a lot of the teams were completely stacked with multiple “assistant” coaches who had really good daughters. I had a bunch of new players and they’d get pretty discouraged early in the year. Learned a lot and we went from losing 10-0 to like 1 or 2-0 by the end of the year, even had a few draws and a win

Was very rewarding after it was all said and done because the kids stuck with it, improved and the improvement was pretty obvious.

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it really bothers me when we get beat because I didn't have them ready for a certain situation or a certain play.

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Years of reading Tiger Rant will do this to you. Every loss is on the coach for not having the right player in the game, or not calling the right play, or not preparing the team better. Its never just that the other player may be better or good fortune fell their way or a close call went against you. Nope, there must be a scapegoat or villain..

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The fastest kid on the field wins the game for his team

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This is somewhat true but like I said, there are 5 or 6 teams with similar abilities. All have like 2-3 top notch players, 2-3 mid level guys, and a few not as good players. The difference in games isn't usually who can get the most out of the best players but who can find roles for those mid level players to do the things they are good at and also find roles for the lower tier players where they can do what they can but not be put in a position to fail all game.

In our first 2 seasons, I agree that there was little we could do as coaches other than give it to the fast guy. Now teams are starting to throw with varying levels of success and defenses are learning to key on the better players. Sure a lot of times the better players make plays regardless but if you can make the defense look at you best player while you run or throw to your second best player then you win. On defense, if you can frustrate their best player and force them to go to their second and third best player, then you win.