Another Chapter Ends

All good things must come to an end. If you’re lucky, you can choose your own ending. I chose my exit time when I left my classroom behind and now I’m choosing my time to exit the field. And that time is now.

Part of life is leaving it behind, and endings are always bittersweet. I will undoubtedly miss working with my friends and players. I have yet to address the nagging worry that with nothing to do that is exactly what I will get done. I’ll save the “inside softball” thinking about the decision and its timing for the end if you’re interested, but, if you know me at all, you know I espouse multiple causation and reject simplistic answers in favor of simply complicated. So it will not be a short section.

What I want to share today is simply a reflection on another aspect of my life where I have been blessed beyond what I deserve. I’ve detailed elsewhere the accidental/serendipitous path I took to becoming a coach, a path I’ve traveled for 35 years now, a path that has afforded me true, lifelong friendships, joy and purpose. 

And hope for the future of my community and nation. I’ve been touched by so many remarkable young women, been privileged to share a segment of their lives that reinforces my faith in humanity and the future. No matter what was happening in the world around me, I always had “my girls.” As politically incorrect as it may be, they will always be “my girls” no matter how successful and accomplished they have, or will, become.

Thank you ladies (and your parents), for allowing me to share with you this small part of your life journey. I love you all.

Why now? 

• Although not identical, the reasoning behind my departure from a regular classroom is parallel to my decision to give up my own classroom. (Click here to read that analogous piece.) 

• 2020 – For better and (maybe) worse, my style, such as it is, was up close and personal. I like to think my most effective coaching (softball and otherwise) came on the bus rides and conversations from the games. My girls tolerated sharing a seat as we talked about their game that day, and anything else that surfaced. Obviously, 2020 precluded that; we didn’t TAKE even a single bus. Close-in conversations were rare to non-existent. (I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a special note of thanks to my last squad for their compliance with masking; I took their care and concern personally and appreciated it accordingly.) While the thought of retiring had been percolating for some time, 2020 was certainly a disincentive to continuing.

• I was blessed to have been befriended by Tim Cerutti and to spend five years working together. Being in the same (age) cohort and sharing a philosophy of life and temperament made the relationship special. His death this spring created an unfillable void. Tim was actually the third coach/friend/mentor to die during my career, but I’m following his (and our shared) mantra of “Choose Happy” – my Rule #1: “You don’t get a discount on the Happy Meal just because you’re not.” But it just wasn’t as much fun without him. That was no surprise.

• Thanks to the leadership of our head coach, Bryan Gibson, and the commitment of many community leaders, Webster has built a softball program that expanded to 3 full teams even as other communities were and are struggling to field even a JV team. 2020 also shelved the WGBSL rec league this spring and the “Feeder” team that funneled girls into the program. I feel safe in predicting we won’t have sufficient numbers for three teams next year (I’d love to be wrong about that). We’ve recently added some new, young, female coaches who may represent the future of the program. It’s time for me to get out of the way and not block their development and connection with the program.

• My wife and I have things we want to do and places we want to go that are best done either during the Fall softball season or the Summer pre-season. Not that we didn’t know it before, but 2020 has reinforced doing what you can while you are still physically able. 

• We’ve been making a conscious effort to de-junk, even before the inspiration of the COVID-quarantine. I’ll be passing along most of my coaching wardrobe, thus freeing up significant closet/storage space, because Bryan Gibson and WG always reinforced the belief that looking good was part of good performance). 

• But mostly I’m tired, struggling to summon the energy the prepare for games and practices. To be clear, it was never the kids, never the parents, never the administration, never the varsity or JV coaching staff that wore me out; on the contrary, it was those groups that energized me to continue as long as I did. In many ways this was the longest short season, but even last year Tim and I both were forced to admit that our energies were not always sufficient to meet the demands to do the job in a way that would live up to our standards. As those who know me can attest, modesty is not a dominant quality for me. I know what I can bring to the party on any given day. While I might fool some people with my 80%, it’s not good enough, not good enough for me to be satisfied and continue. Even if I still have (or ever had) an “A Game,” I can’t always bring it. Time to move aside.

I may not have been all that mindful when I started the job, but the least I can do is make a mindful decision about when it’s time to go. So it’s time to say good-bye, and thank you, thank you for 35 years and close to 50 different teams in two school districts, Hancock Place and Webster Groves.

Apropos of nothing, as I typed this I realized that every school with which I have been regularly associated had at least two names.

#Blessed.

                                                          -30-

Random Thoughts from an Accidental Leader

I’ve written before how much a role serendipity has played in my life (Accidental Teacher, Accidental Coach, Accidental Counselor). My life has not been planned, at least not in the big picture. In fact, I’m still not sure what that picture will look like when it’s finished.

Oh, sure, once I (accidentally) became a teacher or a coach (softball, journalism, drama, etc.) or counselor, I tried to control as much as I could, perhaps often to the point of even over-planning (as I’ve also noted previously, I will never get a Staples or Nice ‘n Easy commercial because I tend to overcomplicate things). My father’s son, long-range planning, within those specific corridors, is in my blood.

I also became an accidental leader. Accidental in that I am not a particularly ambitious person, unwilling to pay the price exacted by ambition. My first brush with leadership came at the end of my first year of teaching when I was asked to get involved in Hancock’s nascent teacher union, locked in conflict with an intransigent school board and the incompetent superintendent who was their puppet. I declined. “I’m not interested in that stuff,” I said. Within two years I became the president-elect and (he says, immodestly) and (essentially) the “union boss” for about the next two decades, with power roles locally and regionally, along with two terms (n.b., term limits) on the state board of directors.

So, add leadership to the accidents that shaped me. I eventually recognized that I tended to be a power magnet, accumulating it effortlessly and certainly without any real desire for personal gain. I never really analyzed the why or the how of leadership, I just accepted that leadership was a key piece of my identity and it was easier to just go with the flow than deal with the frustration of resistance. Yes, I suppose that probably sounds, and may be, kind of arrogant and/or egotistical, but my ongoing road to authenticity requires that kind of self-examination.

Interestingly, if you’re still reading, the intersection (collision?) of all four of those accidents has led to what I hope will become a new regular feature on my Facebook feed (joining Wednesday Wisdom & Good News Friday), starting next week, the first Monday of the new year (Happy New Year, btw), the Monday Leadership Memo, because I’m still teaching, or at least trying to, for those who care to keep an open mind and listen (never close to 100%, even in my prime). The four accidental components of teaching, counseling, coaching and leading, mindfully combined. 

“Why?” you may ask (or not, but I’m going to tell you, just like any number of classroom lessons). At the end of this season, my assistant coach and I received a thank you gift from one of our players — the book Legacy, about the All Blacks, the NZ rugby team, and how that team’s leadership values have allowed it to achieve a status that far surpasses what a team from a small nation should be able to achieve, year after year, and how that leadership culture can be applied in so many ways to life as we know it. (Her father is a well-known coach, at least in area soccer circles.)

I started reading, part of the ritual as I prepared for the fitful sleep that defines my nights now (#joysofaging) and at a chapter per evening, finished it fairly quickly. I was immediately struck by the leadership lessons that seem so obvious but which I had never really analyzed (even if I, again immodestly, unconsciously incorporated many of them into my developing character). 

As our nation approaches what may be one of its most historically important elections, a potential turning point to which chapters and undoubtedly books will be devoted, each week (or so) in the months leading up to that pivotal day, I will attempt to get my friends and formers to think (and that was always my only goal) on the fundamental question, “What characterizes true leadership?” While this isn’t a multiple choice question, and, being a “Shades of Grey” kind of guy (Billy Joel, not E. L. James), I’m pretty sure that there are multiple answers, all colored by the lenses through which we variously view life.