THE NIGHT BEFORE!

August 31, 2016

BY COACH AMBER WARNERS

As I sit quietly tonight – the night before our first match, I find myself thinking similar thoughts like I do every year.  I wonder if other coaches are thinking some of these same thoughts or if it is just me.  I ask myself if we have prepared our players to the very best we could.  Do I have any regrets on things we didn’t cover or minutes wasted in practice?  I ask myself if we had the right balance of conditioning to skill work to character skills.  I ask myself if I have prepared them mentally well enough.   They have worked so incredibly hard all summer and for the past 2 weeks.  Did I over train them?  Will their bodies feel fresh enough?   What team will this one be compared to teams of the past?  Will they be gritty when things don’t go smoothly, will they stick together in all the situations they will find themselves in this weekend.  As Mike Krzyzewski says in one of his books…. every season is like having a new child.  The team starts out as an infant and by the time the season closes the child dies of old age.  And every child’s personality is different.  Well, this team is in its toddler stage.  They have laughed and cried these past few weeks just like infants do.  We have freshmen who want their mothers (while this is true, I don’t mean to say that in any negative way; I say it tongue in cheek).  They pretty much eat and sleep when they aren’t playing like babies do.  Their personality is starting to show and they are still dependent on their leaders.  They are witty, stubborn, and they struggle between thinking about themselves while they strive to be unselfish with each other.  They will grow after this first weekend and start to become adolescents where they will start to think more on their own.  And I could go on and on. I love the analogy because the stages a team goes through seem to fit exactly like a person’s life stages.

I am excited for tomorrow.  I am nervous for tomorrow.  I can recognize how I got uptight on the little things that went on today knowing it was more my stress of upcoming matches than what was really happening.  My three boys know this cycle well.  They always seem to help out a little more around the house when mom has an upcoming match.  I try hard not to bring it home but sometimes it seems impossible.  There is so much emotional investment. 

And while I go through all of these feelings, I can’t wait for things to get started.  I can’t wait to get on that bus tomorrow and have the team all together with no distractions.  I can’t wait to watch them farkle to see who is going to have to sing their food order to the waitress.  I can’t wait to see where we are at after all the work we have put in when we finally get on the court tomorrow. 

I know of no other vocation more than coaching where one experiences so many different emotions within a day’s time.  I had so many people ask me today if I was “ready” for tomorrow. I don’t know how to answer that question because it really doesn’t matter if I am ready for a match.  I will be spending most of my time this weekend watching because my preparation has happened every day for the past 2 weeks.  My work is virtually done besides managing strategy and game plans.  It is mostly in the hands of the players once they are competing on the court.  For a person who likes to be in control (as all head coaches do), that can be a difficult tension to live in. 

And once again, I ask myself….do other coaches feel these same feelings?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Good night!   IT IS GAME DAY TOMORROW!  FINALLY!