Focus on Now

by Ryan Krzykowski

Heading into a new school year’s football season I am frequently asked how I think the team will do.  It’s always tempting to come with the “we won’t know how good this team is for another 20 years”, which certainly has a lot of truth to it, but also isn’t the answer the person trying to make polite conversation is looking for.  So I pick my spots with that one.  But what I also notice is how often the people I’m talking to want to know about players’ plans for college ball.  They want to know about D-1 kids, what schools are talking to which players, and more questions that have little to do with the upcoming season.  As I mentioned a second ago, these questions are innocent enough on the surface, mostly a person trying to make conversation.  However, after enough of these questions part of me wonders why the fixation on what comes next.  Why are we talking about so much more about the future rather than the present? 

Our friend John O’Sullivan has written and spoken extensively about what he terms “the race to nowhere“, parents and families focused on more, more, more with the idea that their athletes will get ahead or be more prepared for whatever comes next.  The problem is that such focus on “next” often comes at the expense of “now”.  There’s nothing wrong with having dreams, goals and plans for the future.  Of course those can be great motivators.  At the same time, there’s something to be said for allowing kids to be where they are, allowing them to most fully enjoy the experience of playing at their current level without making it seem like the point of high school sports is to produce college athletes.

We are going to coach these kids as well as we can, and we’re going to help them get recruited and connected with college programs to the best of our ability.  I hope we can also remember the primary reason for all these high school programs is not to develop college athletes, but to assist in the development of high-quality people.

Let’s Coach With Purpose…