Recently I had a conversation with a High-School athlete & their family about their athletic journey, & the possibilities of continuing their playing career at the next level. It was an enlightening conversation for me, & I walked away more informed on the mentality that seems prevalent among today’s next generation of NCAA & professional athletes.
There were conversation pieces about sport, coaching, training, recruiting, & commitment; prerequisites that most, if not all, aspiring student-athletes need to consider when evaluating their athletic careers. Definitely important pieces of any student-athlete’s journey to the next level. This particular student-athlete seemed to truly enjoy their sport. They seemed to crave good coaching. There are countless options out there these days that can help navigate the college athletic recruiting process for families, & this seemed to help this particular family & player. Today’s athletic training has certainly evolved with more & more out there specializing in sport-specific year-round training. The commitment level of today’s motivated athletes seems to be strong in most cases.
What resonated with me so profoundly after our conversation though was the stark differences in the mindset of today’s student-athletes from many athletes in the past. It seems to me that we have advanced so far in our training levels & knowledge, in our prowess navigating the do’s & don’t of NCAA recruiting, & in our commitment to our chosen sport. What I do see, however, is almost a backwards step in navigating some of the most important parts in the journey to success: self-sacrifice & humility.
Easy Come, Easy Go
For me, one of the best ways to find out about someone’s motivation, or their “drive” to succeed is to find out what they have sacrificed, as well as what they are willing to sacrifice, to reach their goal. In this case I was speaking with a successful, accomplished High-School Varsity athlete who had aspirations to play at the collegiate level.
So tell me about how you’ve gotten to this point I asked. What exactly have you done, have you sacrificed, to get to this point?
Awkward silence……ummm……..I’m not really sure what you mean they replied.
You know, like have you given up some social activities or anything like that to get ahead in your sport training?
Ummm……..not really they replied.
OK, well as you move forward in your sport, knowing that there are hundreds of other aspiring athletes out there, what sacrifices are you willing to make over the next few years to get ahead? To set yourself apart from your competition? Because, you know, sacrifice is going to be a big part of your journey to the next level……
Again, an awkward silence followed by an uneasy response questioning what sacrifice really meant.
& this is where it hit me – one of the biggest differences in today’s modern-day athletes from yesterday’s is the uncomfortability in sacrifice.
Humble Pie
I try not to make sweeping generalizations about people. Not all golfers are wealthy, privileged country club kids. Not all hockey players are wild party animals. Etc, etc.
But there is no way around it that MOST of the younger generations, thinking Gen Z & Gen Alpha here, are more immediate-gratification driven than the more-experienced (older) generations like the Gen X’ers or Millennials. It just is what it is – nobody’s fault here, & nothing wrong with either. But with the technology available to these younger generations & the differences in their upbringings today’s Gen Z & Gen Alpha athlete wants more immediate gratification than the Millennial or Gen X’er. Times change. Things evolve, & that’s OK.
But……
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A key component is missing from many (certainly not all) younger athletes today is their lack of humility. Humility is crucial for an athlete. You aren’t a starter? Good. Use that as motivation to become a starter. Or better yet, use it as a growth & learning tool to improve yourself into becoming a starter. Unfortunately, too many of today’s young athletes (& almost ALL of the athletes we see on TV are young) want, & demand instant gratification. If they don’t get what they want, when they want, how they want, guess what?
I think we can all answer that one; ever heard of the transfer portal?
Minimum Standards
I’ve always tried very hard to relate to my players & clients – to put myself in their shoes. I get it, times change. You have to evolve with the times to be effective in any given field or profession, especially Coaching. If you can’t (or don’t) relate to today’s players or clients, then you won’t be effective as a Coach. Just because something worked last year does not mean it will work again this year. Players, clients, & teams are constantly changing. If you don’t embrace this as a Coach then you won’t have anyone to coach. Simple.
However, there is something to say for adapting & evolving while maintaining minimum standards. Minimum standards are important in every profession, in every relationship, in every situation. Adapt. Evolve. Stick to minimum standards. Mix these minimum standards in with today’s modern (better) approach to training, coaching, & development & look out!
Back In My Day
Life is not a fairy tale. Very few, if any, can achieve all of their goals & dreams if they aren’t willing to make sacrifices along the way. Add in a little humility, & you will create a great combination to propel anyone, any athlete, towards success.
When my NCAA playing career ended after 4 years & I was lucky enough to become a College grad it was time to move into the real-world. Scary stuff. Luckily I found a job, a profession, that ignited a spark inside me. Not only did I fall in love with the Coaching profession I became extremely driven to be the best Coach I could possibly be. I tried, every single day, to be the best Coach possible. To do that I would have to make some sacrifices, significant at times, along the way.
They say money doesn’t grow on trees. This is definitely true in the Coaching profession. To break into the NCAA Coaching profession, I would need to be dedicated to the craft, but I would also need to find a way to pay rent, pay bills, & eat every now & again. So I got to work.
Breaking into the Coaching profession at the NCAA level requires a lot of time, dedication, & sacrifice. I loved Coaching. I fell in love with the craft, with the process, & I became determined through hard work & association to become an NCAA Coach.
This required a ton of hours. It required a great work ethic. It called for constant learning & improving. In short I needed to have a dogged determination to get ahead, & that would require lots of sacrifice.
Learning to be an NCAA Coach would be daunting enough, let alone the fact that to become a Coach I would need to find some ulterior ways to earn enough money to support myself. My 1st job at the collegiate level was as a “Volunteer” Assistant Coach – a fancy term for someone who was willing to work for free in exchange for the experience gained & resume boost provided. This was a great opportunity for me, but without a paycheck I needed to find ways to pay the bills.
Problem was I couldn’t just take any job that came along to get a paycheck. I needed to find something that would allow me to work hours that would work with a typical college coaching schedule – I’d need to be free in the afternoons for practices & in the evenings to make recruiting calls. Add in the game schedules, recruiting trips, etc. The hours of an NCAA Coach certainly weren’t easy. Or consistent. & to most they didn’t make a lot of sense (you mean you work nights, evenings, weekends, & Holidays???)
A friend ran a garage door company locally, & I asked if he needed any warehouse help – loading & unloading their trucks, sweeping floors, you name it I’ll do it if I can come in early, & leave early so I could get to my coaching obligations. My schedule would be pretty hectic, but I could pull it off. So I did.
Weekdays started with a 7am shift in the warehouse where I put in a hard shift of loading & unloading trucks, prepping the warehouse for dropoffs or deliveries, cleaned bathrooms, & did the general grunt work for the garage door installers. A memory that has stayed with me is of one of the installers yelling at me because he didn’t think I had cleaned the restroom well enough. Talk about a reality check!
After my shift I’d hustle over to campus in time for that day’s practice session; I remember being so filthy dirty from my shift that I was embarrassed if any of my players saw me. I figured out how to duck in the side door of the gym so that I could hop in the staff locker room without anyone noticing. A quick shower, & off to work again. Practice session, post-practice meetings, recruiting calls (usually until 10pm), & I’d call it a day. All to do it over again the next day.
There wasn’t much time for anything else. Wake up, get to the warehouse for my shift, hustle over to campus for practice, stay late to make endless recruiting calls, head home, crash, do it all over again. My social life as a young 22 year-old was nonexistent. There wasn’t enough money to pay my rent & bills, let alone for many groceries. Once or twice a week I’d knock off from the warehouse a little early so I could make it to the campus Dining Hall. For me an all-you-can-eat campus Dining Hall was a chance to get fed for the next couple of days. On & on it went; all in the name of getting my foot in the door as an aspiring NCAA Coach.
After my 1st year in this Volunteer Assistant Coaching position I was offered a position as a “Part-Time” Coach. Now I’d be making $7000 a year – to coach 2 sports & supervise the work-study staff at nights in the campus gymnasium. To me this was an opportunity to work my way up the ladder. While the $7K was great, it wasn’t nearly enough to pay the rent & bills. So, another job with a local landscaping company provided me with a way to make some money, but still be available to coach, recruit, & work my way up the coaching ladder. More early mornings with the landscape crew so I could get to practice on time. Staff meetings, recruiting calls, night gym supervision following practice. Another day of hustling in the name of becoming an NCAA Coach! Still no social life. No money being saved, let alone to spend on anything fun that everyone else my age was seemingly doing. Nope, I was making sacrifices to chase the profession.
Get In Touch With JP
Prior to his time with Kashbox, JP spent 28 years as an NCAA Lacrosse Coach (22 years as a Head Coach). During that span, JP had the opportunity to coach with & against some of the top lacrosse coaches in the country.
During these years (I still had a few more years of “Part-time” Coaching gigs to go) there is no doubt I learned what sacrifice, hard work, & determination was. I worked very, very hard to become an NCAA Coach. I gave up all sorts of things that most people my age were doing – I don’t remember how many weddings I missed due to practices, games, & recruiting trips. After a few years I worked my way up to the bigtime (NCAA Division I) as a Restricted Earnings Coach. Yes, there were positions, eventually found to be illegal, titled as Restricted Earnings Coach. Suffice it to say I didn’t get into a career of coaching NCAA Lacrosse for the money!
More Humble Pie, Please
Just like the player who jumps into the transfer portal as soon as things don’t go their way, many of today’s young athletes aren’t willing to proceed on their journey with humility: accepting roles, being a great team mate, putting others on the team 1st.
Once I realized I wanted to be an NCAA Coach, not only was I willing to sacrifice certain things, but I was also eager to accept certain roles that most today wouldn’t.
Secondary duties were common then in the NCAA Coaching profession. Coaching other sports, working thankless jobs within the Athletic Department or somewhere else on campus were more common than not. I had no shortage of Secondary duties along my way to becoming an NCAA Coach:
- As a Men’s Lacrosse Coach (spring sport) I was also tasked with being a Women’s Soccer Coach (fall sport).
- I was required to get my CDL so that I could drive teams on a smaller (24 passenger) bus
- Night Gym Supervisor
- Assistant Ice Rink Supervisor / Zamboni Driver
- Laundry Facility Coordinator
- Transportation Coordinator
- Stadium Gate Supervisor
How many young, aspiring NCAA Coaches today would accept roles as Zamboni Drivers or Laundry Coordinators (for next to no pay)? I’m not sure many would.
Don’t get me wrong – all I wanted to do was coach lacrosse. But, I was willing to take on these secondary roles in order to do so. Because I wasn’t above any of it, & because I had some humility.
As it turned out, many of these secondary roles helped prepare me for my eventual role as a Head Coach. I learned way more about Coaching from being an Assistant Women’s Soccer Coach than our players ever learned from me (I had only played High-School soccer for a couple of years). From taking on the Night Gym Supervisor position I learned how to work hard, put in extra time & effort, & efficiency (recruiting calls from my makeshift office on the baseline). I learned delegation from my time on the Zamboni, etc, etc.
Rearview & Windshield
Looking back on it in the rearview I’m glad I did it – eventually my dream of becoming an NCAA Lacrosse Coach became a reality. But more importantly I know that time helped make me who I am today. I learned how to sacrifice. I learned how to work hard. I learned how to be humble (thanks to the aforementioned garage door installer who barked at me for not wiping the warehouse toilet clean enough for his liking, but also thanks to my acceptance of all of the various secondary duties that came along with the gig). There were so many things that I learned that no classroom ever could have taught me.
As I move forward & continue to look forward through the windshield at today & tomorrow I can only encourage others to be willing to make sacrifices in their lives to chase their dreams & to be humble in what they are willing to do or accept.
Combine these “old-school” standards with some of the newer, more modern, & better training methods, & I think we’d really be onto something. Evolving with the times is crucial to growth, but don’t be afraid to combine this growth with some minimum standards that are important along the way.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable. A life of comfort is great, but we all know that the ball won’t always bounce our way. When that happens we need to be prepared if we want to be successful.
So, in my follow-up conversation with that student-athlete I’ve stressed to them to start making sacrifices in their pursuit of playing at the next level (if indeed it’s worth it to them). I’ve suggested filling roles that may not be exactly where they hope they’ll end up, but roles nonetheless that could help them grow or teach them lessons that could positively impact the journey. Because, in the end, sacrificing for your goals with humility will not only benefit you down the road, it will also teach you life lessons that can’t be learned in a classroom or on a computer screen.
& that form of education is priceless.
Along with his responsibilities as an NCAA Coach, JP has also been a small-business owner for the past 22 years. He founded & built a successful lacrosse camp business that, in addition to camps, expanded into travel teams, clinics, lessons, & consultations.
In both of his careers as an NCAA Coach & small-business owner, JP has helped to teach, coach, mentor, & develop hundreds of players & coaches.
