A few things I have learned....
Apr 8, 2024 15:31:05 GMT -8
qjacques, jegerklog, and 3 more like this
Post by 411500 on Apr 8, 2024 15:31:05 GMT -8
A few things I have learned about university athletes after coaching them for 25 years.
1. For many players playing is more important than the team they play for. In its most elementary expression: I’d rather have 30 - 33 minutes of floor time on a 4th place team than 10 minutes on a 1st place team. This is not rare.
2. Many players love their teammates, forge close bonds with them. But, at the same time, it’s fully understood each will leave for what they believe is a better opportunity.
3. After athletes graduate, most of them do not hold a lasting allegiance, or even fondness, for their university. Every athletic department fund raiser knows all too well you must return to former athletes, hat in hand, with a dozen reasons why they should give back something to their university. The majority reject the overture.
4. Most university athletes do not live by 5-year plans. The idea of playing ball for 2 years at Oregon State and then two years at, say, UCLA is not preposterous to them. It holds a dash of intrigue. Why not experience two great schools rather than only one?
In my experience, this is not rare.
5. Most college-age athletes live in the same egocentric envelope as other youth. Their main life concerns are forging their own future, creating their own viability, finding their own partner, searching out their own livelihood. They have not yet matured to the station in life where their concerns and investments are in others more than in themselves. Idealists claim there is no "I" in team. Coaches know better. Teams are "I" x 10.
In a nutshell, and as we soon shall learn, leaving Dodge for Laramie is not nearly as difficult for them as those of us grounded in continuity and predictability might imagine.
GO BEAVS!!
1. For many players playing is more important than the team they play for. In its most elementary expression: I’d rather have 30 - 33 minutes of floor time on a 4th place team than 10 minutes on a 1st place team. This is not rare.
2. Many players love their teammates, forge close bonds with them. But, at the same time, it’s fully understood each will leave for what they believe is a better opportunity.
3. After athletes graduate, most of them do not hold a lasting allegiance, or even fondness, for their university. Every athletic department fund raiser knows all too well you must return to former athletes, hat in hand, with a dozen reasons why they should give back something to their university. The majority reject the overture.
4. Most university athletes do not live by 5-year plans. The idea of playing ball for 2 years at Oregon State and then two years at, say, UCLA is not preposterous to them. It holds a dash of intrigue. Why not experience two great schools rather than only one?
In my experience, this is not rare.
5. Most college-age athletes live in the same egocentric envelope as other youth. Their main life concerns are forging their own future, creating their own viability, finding their own partner, searching out their own livelihood. They have not yet matured to the station in life where their concerns and investments are in others more than in themselves. Idealists claim there is no "I" in team. Coaches know better. Teams are "I" x 10.
In a nutshell, and as we soon shall learn, leaving Dodge for Laramie is not nearly as difficult for them as those of us grounded in continuity and predictability might imagine.
GO BEAVS!!
