Beth Green's Blog - Posts Tagged "football"

Football Time: a wife's perspective

I have been married to a wonderful man for over 25 years. He coached football for many of those years and still helps with the younger teams. Being a coach's wife is a precarious situation. You are never able to really speak your mind and you walk on eggshells with friendships, knowing that your husband may have to confront the people around you at some time, whether it's another coach's wife or a parent. I have learned how to give birth to twins on a Friday morning and let my husband coach that same night. I have learned how to endure the harsh critics in the stands who don't understand how much my husband has poured into the team. I have learned to leave my pain in the stands and walk out to him on the field after a tough loss and support him when he feels like a failure. I have learned how to get up on Saturday mornings after those games and help him leave it behind him in order to face new team and a new challenge the upcoming week.

Here's 10 things I want you to learn:

1.) Playing time is based on performance, period. If your child is not playing as much as you think that he or she should, don't blame anyone. Believe me, that coach wants to win more than anyone else on the field and he or she will play the players that will bring that win. This is mostly speaking to the competitive levels of play. I understand the lower levels with equal time etc. By the way, Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

2.) After a Loss: shake the coach's hand no matter how you feel. He or she is not able to handle any criticism or comments after a game. Send him a card encouraging him and don't talk about him in front of your kids. If you don't agree with how he handled something, set up a meeting.

3.) After a Win: shake the coach's hand and thank them for all that they did to help prepare this last week. Do you know that a coach makes pennies on the hour at the lower levels and they are doing it because they LOVE kids? At least they should be...there might be a few stinkers out there.

4.) During the game: Shut your mouth unless its positive. The last thing anyone wants to hear is how bad a call was. I promise you that the coach knows things went awry. Besides, the play might have been an excellent call and was executed poorly. Oh! By the way, do you want him to show up at your work and yell at you over your shoulder while you work?

5.) Love your kids and enjoy the game. Please understand that less than 1% of high school players go to the next level and very few to the pros. The average pro career is 4 years. Wow! Do you really want to push that on your child? A 4 year career? Relax and enjoy what you kid is doing. He will love you for that and believe me--he is embarrassed when you act like the child instead of him.

6.) Get involved in a positive way: Offer to bring the team a meal or hold chains for the chain gang. How about donating money for the underprivileged kids on the team? Find a way to connect and you will enjoy it a whole lot more. There are always needs.

7.) Give you kid a hug even if his jersey is clean and he never set foot on the field. Those kids are just as valuable as the starting quarterback. Everyone is needed and the experience is good for them all. Winning, losing, playing, or being benched are all valuable experiences in life. Let him become a man.

8.) Trust in your coach: unless he is doing something you know is crazy or dangerous. Most coaches are excited and invigorated to be back on the field and don't sleep at all during the season. They pour hours and hours into films and meetings and practices. Give them a break and let them coach.

9.) Don't talk about the coach in a harmful way to ANYONE! If you are not happy with it--leave. It's better that you go than to be the one rotten apple. Coaches are humans...they aren't perfect...but neither are you. Again...do you want him showing up at your job and critiquing you? If you do, I will let him know.

10.) Lastly...please just enjoy the game

I have been a football coaches wife for years. It's a unique and awesome experience and my new book (still working on) is about one year in particular but also the incredible and sometimes heartbreaking times that we all have to endure for that one moment when it all comes together.

This season and last I decided to experience it all in a new way. For years, I have sat in wind, rain, snow, and heat. I have stood along the fence to allow my kids time to stretch their legs. Many years I spent in the stands cheering and crying alongside the other parents. Several times, I sat in a dark van along the parking lot with a sick child to try to catch glimpses of the struggle on the field. There are moments when I wanted to scream for joy and others when I felt anger well to the point of a near explosion. Whether it was a poor referee call or a comment from someone in the stands or maybe a rowdy group across the field, I was always a Tiger...or a Cyclone...and the last 15 years a tried and true Bearcat.

The last two years I elected to give the parents a break and time to enjoy their own young men and took my camera to the sidelines. I have enjoyed the fresh perspective and everyone was amazingly respectful. Most who know me well know that I took a rather hard hit last year and had a bruise that covered the inside of my thigh for weeks (I still have some pain from it). Last night, I watched our team fight and struggle...and eventually lose to end their season. We had an amazing year like we knew we would. The guys gave all that they had...

I remember a few years ago one team that was similar and very dedicated. When their season ended, several seniors placed their cleats on the Bearcat in center field and left them there to symbolize that they gave all that they had and left it all on the field. This stuck with me last night as I watched these young men fight. As I walked over to hear the speech after the game, I lifted my camera and shot pictures of the young men kneeling before their coach. I do this every time but this night was different. I clicked as many as I thought I needed and turned to walk toward my camera bag to pack up and leave. That's when it happened...

There isn't much that a 51-year-old woman can give a team to help them on their journey through the season. I gave up my husband to the hours of film and coaching, but I found that I had given something else that I had no idea would happen. I pulled my camera up one last time to try to capture the field but it wouldn't turn on. The battery had failed...but the camera was dead too. This camera has clicked thousands of pictures through the years and I'm honored that it plowed through this season so well. Smiling, I packed it away and felt another layer of sadness and I thought about those cleats mid-field so many years ago. Part of me wanted to leave my camera there last night...I gave what I could...my husband...my time...and now my camera.

The 2017 Bearcat Football season has ended...but now we will see what these young men will accomplish in life. To them I say...give LIFE all that you have.

Perfect: The Building of a Championship Culture

A true story...

Three years before, they lost every single game. They were small and unnoticed and not one player seemed to garner any attention in the preseason rumblings. The predictions about this season were grim at best and most believed that this would be a "rebuilding year," but there was something unusual brewing in the hearts of these young men as they stepped onto the field for the 1998 season for the Darlington Tigers. No one gave them a chance to do much of anything, and so other teams and players in the area were highlighted and heralded. The Tigers began their first game largely ignored and forgotten, having "no respect," as one of their coaches repeatedly told them. Even as the wins began to stack up, these young men were called “lucky," and still few people saw what was growing inside them all.

It would be a year of surprises with explosions of speed and an uncompromised will that would produce a new definition for the word "TEAM," creating a powerful "beast mode" that would not yield to anyone or any circumstance. The 1998 season would end after the 15th game in a town several hours away in front of a crowd of over 6,000 people. When it was over, not one of their opponents would be able to understand how they had been defeated, but they would always remember the night that they faced the young men from the 1998 Darlington Tiger football team. Imprinted in everyone's minds would be the effect of their overwhelming desire to win at all costs and with their egos checked at the door. Amazingly, not one single senior would be a Division I prospect and the success on the gridiron was due to an uncrushable spirit more than talent alone.

While my husband helps coach, I take pictures of the football team. It’s just something that I do with my nervous energy—something I can give back to the families so that they can sit and enjoy the games.

This week, our team lost a tough game. It was difficult to watch, but the guys played hard. As has been every game this season, rain poured down almost the entire game, and so I was decked out in my rain boots and rain gear, carrying an umbrella as I snapped away along the sidelines.

We live next to the school now, so I walk to and from the games. Even in bad weather, it’s a beautiful walk and I enjoy it every time. As I began my walk home after the game this week, the rain was pouring down on my umbrella and I was thankful for my gear that kept me warm and dry the whole night. On the sidelines, my rain boots had become caked with mud and grass, so as I walked home, I tried to stomp off some of the debris.

As I walked along the road home, I encountered many puddles, which I avoided to stay as dry as possible. Before long, though, I started seeking the puddles and rinsing my boots to remove all the gunk. I began enjoying splashing in the puddles so much that I found myself splashing more than necessary, and by the time I was almost home, I was actually seeking out every puddle that I could find.

I’m sure anyone watching would have instantly thought that I was insane and maybe you do, too, as you read this. I highly recommend that you try it sometime soon. Slip on some waterproof boots and grab an umbrella and don’t worry about what the neighbors think. Even in the midst of a rainy cold night after a devastating loss, those puddles were refreshing and almost invigorating. I submit that you will enjoy this little pleasure, even if you have to do it in the dark when no one is looking.

I’m certain that the small things in life are more important than we think and the big things that take our time probably won’t matter to us much in our last days. I want to lay on my death bed and smile thinking about that rainy night when I didn’t care at all what others saw. I splashed in every puddle that I could find.