Post-Thoughts: A Few Lessons for the Long Miles

After thirty-eight years, I have hung up the coach's clipboard. Instead of fretting over workouts and race progressions, there will be time to consider how much institutional memory I have amassed about coaching scholastic track and cross-country athletes. Not enough, of course. The Nobel Prize economist, Daniel Kahneman, wrote about the concept of our two selves, the Experiencing Self and the Remembering Self. He firmly believed that much of how we think and make decisions is due to the Remembering Self, the one that retains, for easier retrieval, the 'highlights' of living. The Experiencing Self, according to Kahneman, is essential for getting through the days, but it typically doesn't contribute much when we recollect. "Memories are all we get to keep from our experience of living," maintains Kahneman. But I'm not convinced.

I believe coaching intuition, which we use day in and day out with athletes, is the lingering voice of the Experiencing Self, the one that did not simply allow experiences to slide by but instead paid attention and became able to identify similarities and patterns in athletes encountering a sport. That's why we like to listen to the veteran coaches. They know stuff because of all those days and seasons spent carefully attending. Over time, as one becomes a 'veteran,' you learn to identify what's real to the lives of athletes and what's baloney--the untested new concepts-of-the week, the social fads, and those 'vital' beliefs about what contemporary athletes need that will probably vanish within a few seasons. The veteran coaches, thanks to institutional memory, can quickly separate the evanescent style elements of the sport from the enduring substance of their craft. Intuition validates the Experiencing Self. Here are a few things I've learned on the way to retirement that involves both selves.

Here's what we know -- that the future is not knowable. The problem is our use of language. You can only know what can be proven -- and that is certainly not the future. The most we can know in the present are the sound principles of coaching that we have internalized, that we practice daily, whether that's easy or hard, and the ones we intend to stand by. We cannot, though, predict the consequences of doing so. You need the courage of your principled convictions -- assuming you start with good principles. Even with that, a lot of what happens in coaching involves luck or circumstance. Those principles that best serve the most athletes, however, will also likely come with the most luck and eventually make you your best version of a coach.

With athlete investment, in my opinion, come obligations. How to expect athletes to develop their individual potentials in track and cross-country remains the trickiest of all coaching matters. In this age of fierce autonomy-of-effort, a circumstance too often afforded the athletes by parents and administrations, coaching toward an athlete's potential is the decision that causes more trouble for coaches than any other aspect of the profession. Not every coach wants to go that route. Go-along-to-get-along coaches are known for their soft allegiance to proper principles and standards of athlete behavior. What they often accept in exchange for a non-controversial longevity of employment, however, is mediocre coaching. That is another way of saying that their athletes often get cheated of their potential talents by a coach with 'safe' expectations.

Coaches assume much abouts their athletes, sometimes too much. Their passion is assumed every invested athlete's passion. Their persistence is assumed everyone's grit. The end-value they assign to the relentless miles of training and the competitive gambles required for personal mastery is what they assume motivates all who make the choice to become runners. Often overlooked is one obtuse concern. Philosopher Simone Weil wrote: "Nothing in the world makes up for the loss of joy in work." It is hard, neigh, sometimes impossible, to awaken in a wary runner the love of hard work for its own sake. What's the point if nothing concrete is waiting for me at the other end is the question unconsciously poised by those with practice absences, vague injuries, and passive efforts. What the coach wants to convey (and instill, if lucky) is that there is value in the efforts when training or competing, even if the efforts sometimes come up short. For the vast majority of athletes who don't "go states," who aren't the top team members, the effort is actually the point. The effort is where athletes discover the joy of what they do. It's why they keep coming back from failure, self-doubts and disappointments. Coaching should aim first and foremost at promoting the intrinsic value of effort. Ultimately, everything good about sports flows from effort.