NOTEBOOK Eye on coaching
You can’t force-feed passion
By Mike Sealy
to fi ght back tears. It was in junior high at lunch time, I was asked by friends to jump into a pickup game. All I remember is trying to “bump” a ball, but instead having it attack my neck. Everybody laughed, including the cute girls….it was devastating. I was so embarrassed and I hated it and I cursed this stupid game. I was adamant about never playing it again. A week later something strange
T
happened. I played again (not sure why). Then we started playing it in PE every day for six weeks. I was hooked. I fi nished homework early so I could ride my bike to John Adams Junior High School for Monday and Wednesday open gym and Lincoln Junior High for Tuesday and Thursday open gym. (For those of you who don’t know what “open gym” is considering they are all but extinct, it is a gym that is open to recreational play. You walk in, you sign your name to a list, when it is your turn you play, if you win you stay on, if you lose you sign up again.) This game became my life. It was my
identity, my passion, my everything. It gave me confi dence, direction, purpose and helped those crazy teenage years make sense. This was the fi rst time in my life that I found something on my own. I didn’t play it because my friends played it. Volleyball was my game… it was never a “have to” but was always a “want to.” I listen to what we tell kids now about sports…you HAVE to want it…you HAVE to practice…you HAVE to lift weights….you HAVE to get extra training…you HAVE to…. I have a few problems with this. We have set the bar of what is needed to be “successful” at Olympic level proportions. As a society we are still in the wake of the Tiger Woods phenomenon where his childhood regimen fol- lowed by his amazing success has molded our reality and our norm.
Passion is not something you train and not something that repetitions will instill. We have now told young athletes how to feel and what to think. Their intuition and instinct takes a back seat to our “wisdom.” They know how
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he fi rst time I played volleyball I had to do everything I could
ANOTHER WESTWOOD WIZARD: Mike Sealy guided UCLA to the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball National Championship in only his second season as the Bruins’ head coach. Sealy, who played at UCLA for four seasons (1990-1993) and was a three-time AVCA All-American, was also the associate head coach at the University of Hawaii. (Photo: Don Liebig).
told you to be great that “you must fi nish your homework early and go to open gym.”
As coaches we can be passion- ate and hope that our passion ignites something within our players. If our passion ignites their passion and their passion happens to be some- thing outside of volleyball then that is great also. We need to stop caring if their passion levels don’t match up to ours and fi nd a way to interact and coach them in a way that will maximize what they do have. My dad was a high school foot- ball and baseball coach.
This quote
was on his desk when I was a kid and it always stuck with me…
What am I? I am a Teacher. What can I do?
much time and energy we put into their athletics and how much of a disappointment they will be if they don’t want it as much as we do. We seem to guilt them into knowing this whenever we can. You can enjoy volleyball without having Olympic level passion. Young athletes now must feel a tremendous amount of unconscious shame when they don’t want something as much as we tell them they should. God forbid they be passionate about photography or journalism instead and only “really like” vol- leyball. We are telling them that “really liking“ volleyball isn’t enough. We have also taken the euphoria away from the players that do have Olympic size passion for volleyball. They no longer get to revel in their quest and discovery of something so great because we have told them they must have it. It is just another example of the adults telling the kids what they must do. It is their journey, it is their life. Yes we can guide in certain direc- tions, but we have taken away their path of dis- covery by not only telling them where to look but also in describing the treasure before they get to dig it up themselves. There is no special feeling in fi nishing your homework early so you can go play open gym when someone has
I can expose you to ideas, but I cannot tell you what to think. I can guide you, but you must discover the limits of your own potential. I can encourage you, but your greatest
fulfi llment must come from within. I can listen to you, but I will not tell you what to say.
I can look with you, but I cannot tell you what you will see.
I can move with you, but I cannot tell you what to feel.
I can speak with you, but I cannot tell you what to hear.
I can do some things with you, but you can do more with yourself. I can guide you on the path of
discovery, but I cannot tell you the answer.
I think that we tend to default to forcing passion on young athletes and there will always be an active or an underlying passive resistance to force. Show them how great this sport is and then leave it up to them to decide what it means to them. Whatever their answer is…it is perfect.
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