No, I have not accepted a position helping anyone out next year. I am really enjoying the lack of stress right now in my life when it comes just to summer basketball. But this morning, I had a text conversation with a new head coach who semi-jokingly offered an assistant position with his school. He wants me to sit down and show some drills and talk to his team and I am honored to be asked to do that type of thing. It is nice to know that I can still give back to a sport that has given me so much.
I am not going to mention all of the schools' coaches who have reached out, but there have been between 8-10 schools who have "asked", hinting around about me helping them out. At first, it was nice, but now it is quite humbling. Who knew that there is some sort of respect for me "out there". I will probably help someone in the future, maybe not, but knowing that I will have some possibilities is appreciated by me. It will be good to walk in, work, not live and die with teeenagers making shots, then go home and relax after a game.
I have enjoyed watching my children playing baseball and softball this spring without much getting in the way and I cannot wait to see if they play other sports in the future. I do not want to miss my children growing up and doing their thing. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching them play hard, compete, and trying to please my wife and I.
I still do not want to coach my own children, but it used to be 100% sure I would not. Now, it is 95% sure and every once in awhile it enters my mind and I get a small urge (usually because they think I know nothing about sports, I am dad after all). Then I come back to reality. Who knows, maybe someday I will decide to be the assistant for my kiddos teams that way I am not in charge and maybe I can keep from wearing my children out over their play. I am highly competitive and my wife and I both have high expectations for our children.
Most of our high expectations center on two things, behave (listen to your coaches) and play hard. After that, we want them to have fun while doing those two things and everything else about playing a sport. That's not asking too much is it? I think being an older parent has helped me calm down while my children are playing, but they are still young and you will probably see me in the near future acting like a crazy dad in the stands. I pray that I don't.
