Why do you love our profession?

...Because you can make a difference doing what we do.

Great thread....great answers! THE KIDS.

I may never know. But its the only thing in life I could wake up at 6 in the morning or earlier for and not be upset about it.

Coaching Football has given me an identity. It gives me a purpose and vehicle to do right. Coaching gives us the ability to compete, teach and build relationships. Its fun because it stirs the emotions and brings out the best and worst in all of us.

It gives me a chance to give back to a sport that has brought me so much joy. I knew at about age 16 or 17 that this is what I wanted to do when I got older.

I was a good player, but at 5'9" 170 pounds and running a 4.8 forty (wind-aided) the big time was knocking on my door. So the next way to stay close to the game I had been playing since I was 8 years old was to coach it. I talk to friends who played big time ball and look at NFL players and sometimes I am glad that avenue was not my calling. Sure playing in front of 80,000 would have been nice, but I get just as jacked up coaching in front of 800 for the first scrimmage of the year. Those guys seem to be burnt out on the game and do not enjoy it.

Plus, football, at least at the high school level, is as real as you are going to get. Like cmow said, and I am sure we all have stories like that, the kids look up to you as a coach and person. You are helping to make 14 year old boy that is scared out his mind the first day he steps into the weight room, into a team and school leader by the time he is 17/18.

When I first got into coaching I had an old coach tell me that the wins and losses will come and go. He said you can go from hero to zero in no time. He said communities will flip on you in a hearbeat and parents or administrators that were your biggest fans are now trying to get you out the door. He said if you focus on all that you will never make it and be out of coaching in a couple years. He said what has got him through 30 plus years of coaching has been watching a young man get one more rep on squat rack, or seeing a kid break his old max record, and most importantly being an important part in making a boy into a man

A few years ago I had a player on my team that had never even met his father. He was a good player and I was happy to have him on the team but, I didn't consciously treat him any different than any other player. A few months after the season ended his English teacher stopped me to let me know about an assignment he had turned in for her class. The assignment was to write a story about your dad. This kid wrote his story about me.

When you can have that kind of impact on a young man, how can you not love this. Like a lot of others, I'm a volunteer coach. But, its coaching football, teaching this special game to young men, that is my passion in life. I'll work my "day job" until I've saved enough to retire but I'll be a football coach as long as I can find a team that will have me.

If I won $100 million I know two things:

1. I'd still coach, and

2. My college wouldn't be playing sprint football anymore.

Oddly though, I'm a way better coach than I ever was a player

The KIDS!!

I don't know if I could have handled teaching for so long if I didn't get to coach. This isn't an "I only teach because I have to" post. After teaching all day it was often refreshing to get to practice and work with kids who want to be there.

To carry it somewhat farther - my son gave this to me when he was 9 years old. Where he got it I don't know. It is framed in his printing and it has hung on the wall in "my" den for all these years:

A COACH'S REWARD

A coach knocked ate the pearly gates,
His face was scared and cold.
He stood before the man of fate
For admission to the fold.
What have you done Saint Peter asked
To gain admission here?
I've been a football coach Sir, he said,
For many and many a year.
The pearly gets swung open wide
As Saint Peter touched the bell.
Come in, he said,
And choose your harp,
You've had your share of Hell!!!.



It's been hanging there for over 31 years and I read it every day.


Hawke

at 3:00 pm each day during the season even if I've had a sh it day till then, everything just seems right when i step on the practice field with my staff and players.
at 3:00 pm in the off season i'm lost...unless i happen to be golfing.then i'm lost in the woods looking for balls.

Your last statement says a lot Coach. I have interviewed a number of prospective teachers in my career and I always saved one question for last. I would probably ask the same question if I were interviewing prospective coaches. I only had 1 person ever score a perfect 10 on the interview and today he is an excellent Social Studies teacher. My question: "At the end of the day, how do you know you did a good job?" Most everyone tried to answer it with all these long drawn out intellectual answers. I was only looking for one answer and this young man gave it to me immediately and to me it is the only acceptable answer: I HAD FUN!!!!! Think about it, it says a lot.

Hawke

I heard the head coach at Duke University speak at a banquet in February. He made a point that summed up why i love coaching the greatest game there is. He said that a lot of men love coaching football and all the things that go with that profession, but the ones who really love it the most are the ones that can not do without it. I am one of those guys. After 34 years of coaching and 10 of playing before becoming a coach I have found I cannot and will not do without it. It is a physical struggle sometimes still coaching but I really believe that when I die I hope it is on a football field on 4th down and goal to win a big game and as the official raises his hands "TOUCHDOWN" I look up at my wife and family and I go to the great football game in the sky and serve my lord hopefully as an offensive coordinator on GOD'S team.