Camillus NY - After the success of Jim Vermeulen's XC Journal
in the many falls of Cross Country, we've asked again for him to
provide some news and notes once a month this winter. Think of these as
the thoughts that cross the mind of your average coach. Up from Section
3, we present you with "Thoughts From Three."
Square Pegs
"He must think that if he stares at it long enough, his name is going to appear."
Coach Delsole was watching Brandon lean against the folded gym bleachers and peer intently at the meet line-up I'd taped there. Brandon wasn't on the roster. He wasn't competing in our next meet, and I had previously told him why--how a lack of effort in practices, how repeatedly pushing the limits of team rules and expectations, how always being last or late to drills, how all those annoyances that were on full display to the others simply meant he was not ready for--or deserving of--a competition. And when I had told him that, it was difficult to decide if he understood and simply didn't like the rule or whether the concept of earning what you get was actually foreign to him, a unique idea misplaced in a previously ordered universe where he occupied the center.
Coach Delsole, of course, experienced no such difficulty. He was certain that Brandon was just yanking our chains and had been doing so for much of the season. Coach didn't like that one bit. But, as with other headstrong prima donna athletes in the past, following multiple efforts to effect change, he'd learned to live with Brandon by redirecting his time and energy to other athletes who did, in fact, care about skill improvement and were busting their butts to prove it. It was my job, after all, to repeatedly explain the rules to Brandon while enforcing those same rules. Which was why, at that moment, Brandon was burning holes in the meet sheet, still unable to make his name magically materialize. He may actually have thought I'd changed my mind overnight and placed him on the roster. I hadn't.
These moments are also part of the job--and sometimes more consequential in the larger scheme of life. But if scholastic coaches every need a refresher on such under-valued fundamentals of their craft, a human review session will usually walk right into the first team practice for exactly that purpose. This will be the potential team member who doesn't go MIA after a week but who, in fact, hangs around to push those limits, the one who carries on private conversations in back of the group during attendance, who 'runs' the warm-up at granny speeds or who stoutly insists that 60% is 95%. It is the one--usually under-prepared--who believes that he/she has the trainer on personal retainer. Some seasons, teams are blessed with more than one such behavioral outlier. Then the coach gets to play whack-a-mole.
It can be frustrating. Just when you think you've successfully programed a season, layered on the team philosophy and infused the troops with an understanding and acceptance of team standards, the outlier rocks the boat. First impressions usually don't go so well and limit-testing begins. Some of those contrarians figure things out quickly, tack and set a more reasonable course through the season. A few, though, insist on sailing into the wind. Coach Jensen once offered advice to an outlier who'd practiced a pattern of repeated non-compliance and disinterest, draining Coach's reserve of patience. He finally pulled the athlete aside one afternoon. "Why don't you just take two weeks off," Coach Jensen suggested, pausing, "then quit." I don't know if the wayward athlete took Coach up on his novel suggestion, but if he did it was his loss and a simply confirmation that he'd been misplaced from Day 1.
We've all been there--sorely tempted, if rules permit, to unload such unstable cargo. Over time, however, I'm not tempted so much anymore. I've come to grudgingly appreciate those square pegs in our round holes. You have to admit, most are fairly inventive and good for at least one addition to the all-time excuse list. My I've seen it all posturing about athlete behavior has morphed to well now, that's an interesting new wrinkle. Coach Eells, one of our outdoor track coaches, put it differently. He'd stopped by for a quick chat during one of my indoor track hallway warm-ups. After watching Brandon execute his slow-mo pace, the one that was supposed to be driving me nuts but wasn't, Coach said with a sly smile, "They don't realize that we know how to enjoy this." True. Maybe it's just years and experience that prompts a bemused patience, but it's there. And I've learned to enjoy the challenge of paring down some of those peg edges until the semblance of a fit is possible. Such a goal, of course, requires that the values and positive practices you're ultimately trying to instill are worth their salt.
With no such intent, then, those perplexing team members probably do us a favor. The outliers force us to revisit and refine that proverbial balance, the one between loyalty to the athletes who are young and sometimes coddled, and loyalty to a sport which may demand what an athlete is not at that point willing--or able--to give. But even outliers can change, and if coaching is teaching, as John Wooden claimed, then those square pegs prove there are multiple ways to deserve a season's salary.
Brandon moseyed by on a different day's warm-up. The first pass I'd missed it, but when he returned on the back-and-forth loop, I spied the ear plugs and then watched him shuffle by, totally engrossed in his private little world. The team rule, of course, had been explained ad nauseam, so when he returned I signaled him over. Forced to endure me, he listened with a half-scowl while I deliberately dragged out a re-explanation of that particular rule. Runners swirled around the day's object lesson, suppressing grins. Then, when the music was muted in his pocket, Brandon rambled off with even less velocity.
Slowly he disappeared around a hallway corner, unaware that time was actually on his side. And I had trouble not smiling myself.