Lessons Learned from Failure are ours to Decide as Coaches

To Decide As Coaches

Originally published in Fastpitch Delivery, membership newspaper of NFCA
by Gil Arzola - Former Head Coach, Portage High School (IN)

The worst part, of course, was the look on her face. Shock that I could do this to her, pain that I, who supposedly loved her, could be so insensitive. Tears welled up, and then like a dam unable to bear the weight of water, poured over her 15-year-old cheeks.

No, I was not physically abusing her. I was not her father, her boyfriend or some crazed stranger. I had not yelled at her or belittled her publicly. I was her coach and it was tryout day.

I was cutting her.

My coaching life, which has spanned nearly three decades, has brought me some of the greatest moments of my life. I have made friends that will last a lifetime and enemies that I'm sure will last as long. I have had triumphs and seen shy young girls become confident strong women.

But the same game that has molded so many as they transitioned into adults, the same game that I cannot fathom being without, has caused me some of the greatest pain.

Coaching for me has been about finding a balance between people that were sure I was a genius and those that were certain I didn't know a bunt from my elbow.

If you coach long enough, you eventually come to the conclusion that you will never come out of this popular, so you might as well do it your way. For even the most beloved coaches among us, there will always be those that didn't play enough, always those that believe you didn't win enough. And the line is long of those that could have done it better.

Over the nearly three decades I've been involved in this game, it has increasingly become less about the kids that play and more about coaches' and parents' egos, scholarships and money. Where travel ball was once where the elite played, now every corner has a team and there is a "World Series" for everyone with the money to enter.

Where being the state champion once meant beating the best, we've created classes so that there are more champions and fewer losers. And in the process of creating fewer losers we've diluted what winning meant.

And so what is sport about? What purpose does it truly serve in the educational and emotional growth of kids?

If we believe, as we so often say, that sports teach invaluable lessons, then shouldn't those lessons be available to all children? And if the lessons are only about winning, then how can we teach those lessons if we deny them by cutting kids?

If our purpose is to prepare all children to be adults, then we must find some benefit for both the chosen and the cut, for both the winner and the loser. If our intent is to mirror life, then we must recognize that losing in sports is far more common than winning and that there must therefore be something gained from failing as well as succeeding.

Sports in times past were about the skills one needed to survive. Contests mimicked everyday life – who threw their spear the furthest, shooting bows and arrows that were the tools of hunting. Gladiators brought the skills of war to coliseums and the reward was not a trophy or a picture in the paper but life. The Mayans played a team ball game in which the victors were given a feast and treated like heroes and the losing team captain was killed.

We are not so extreme today. No one dies.

We are more civilized. We play for medals, accolades and scholarships.

But we still play. And sometimes we still treat the game as if it were life and death.

Bob Scheiffer said that "games have helped us understand our core values. The value of sport is that it teaches us to recognize the difference between winning and striving for excellence."

Try to win, we tell our players, because that is the point of the game. But winning cannot and should not be why we play.

We will never take competition out of games. Those that would yearn for that may as well ask people to stop breathing. Competing is human and be a great teaching tool. The problem is not wanting to win, but the obsession with winning. The problem is not seeking victory, but using victory as the only barometer for success.

Failure is a reality in sports and life. In sports you can practice as hard as you like and still fail. You can outwork everyone else and still lose to a team more physically gifted. While studying for a math test can all but guarantee success, a year of practicing how to field a ground ball can be undone by a rock and a bad hop.

And so the reward must be in the effort, and the goal must be the pursuit of excellence.

The player who is cut has not failed if she has done all that she could to make the team. The losing team has not failed if they can say that they did all that they could to prepare and played hard.

As coaches, parents and fans, we must begin to reward and value the fight as much as the victory. We must reinforce it at every opportunity. We must teach our children not only how to win but how to fail and then give them the freedom to do both. Because life is not always a smooth road nor is the playing field always equal; we shouldn't try to pave every path and level every field.

We must be coaches of people as much as we are coaches of a game. Until then, we do both the game and those that play a disservice.

We will never take the sting out of failure. But we can gain some lessons from it. The lessons are ours to decide.

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