Cave Dwellers

by Ryan Krzykowski

Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was stunned.  Our guys had just beaten an outstanding opponent on the final night of the regular season.  The 7-1 record these kids achieved earned them the top seed in the state playoffs.  They were conference champions for the first time in school history.  It was a great night all around, and the postgame celebration had everyone feeling good.  That’s when it happened — out of nowhere I’ve got a guy in my ear asking me about why his family member doesn’t get playing time.  He wanted to know if the kid had made someone on our coaching staff mad, or something like that.  It was weird.  Once I figured out who he was talking about, I told him it was actually the opposite, that the kid had been doing a really good job at practice and that he was next up if any of the guys ahead of him on the depth chart had a problem.  Then this guy started telling me about the mistakes our kids on the field had made during the game, and I stopped him there.  I told him I wasn’t going to talk about other kids with him, and I asked him if he’d talked with his player about his role on our team.  When he told me he had not, I suggested that he have that conversation, and then find me on Monday if he wanted to have any further discussion.

Still feeling good after the big win, but a little less good after that interaction, I remembered a post our good friend John O’Sullivan had written about C.A.V.E. people.  I don’t want to be too hard on this guy because even though he’s going about it the wrong way, he’s just trying to look out for his family.  But he went into the C.A.V.E. category for me, and this was a good reminder that it’s darn near impossible to make everyone happy all the time.  I think you’ll enjoy John’s post — find it here.

Let’s Coach With Purpose…