Urban Meyer article re: anxiety, etc.

That used to be my go to saying, then I didn't die young, can't really move fast anymore, and am not as good looking as I used to be. So now I coach football.

Lol, I'm on my way there.

I try to get up at 5:00 at least four out of five weekday mornings and get a mountain bike ride or some other form of exercise in. By the time the kid is in bed and I've watched film, I'm ready to crash by 9:30.

This morning I didn't get a ride in and I already feel "blah" and wishing I had. It's important to get those feel good endorphins rolling.

as much as I can agree with just about everything your saying,,,the part that sticks out is the "its just high school football".
let me tell ya,
its not just high school football.  Where I am at, winning is not only a focus, if you dont win and produce on the field in 3 years, you wont make it to year 4.  At any school here.
Ive been let go at a couple places as the HC.
1 for having a coach follow a player to my school (7 months after the kid left).  the school they both left from, we beat the snot out of them and the AD wanted to be a prick and turned us in for.....not filling out the proper form that would allow a coach to follow a kid to a program(kid acutally was deemed homeless family as they got kicked out of their house, which made everyone look stupid for turning us in).
state violation, we had to forfiet our 3 wins, fine paid by me, county was upset because it was 3 violations by school(in other sports and football) in 3 years.  I was scapegoat.  oh, the wins thing.  started 0-2 that year then won 3 straight, because of this kid(rolls eyes)....

another school I was let go at, complete doormat---75 wins in 30 years!!!----2-8, 1-9, 0-10 3 years prior to me taking over, 2-8, 3-7, 1-9 and I was fired.
won more games in 3 years than the school had done in close to 5, but it wasnt enough!

its not just high school football for some admin, its college like thinking, if it aint working fire them and start over.
have displaced my family several times for jobs

its not just high school football, its life for some coaches.  

rant over.

wrong again my friend.
both of those jobs I lost as HC, lost my teaching job too. They are not tied together, but they are.
here, 1 may be supplemental coaching per-say, but when you get hired to the big dog chair, that teaching job goes with it.
besides that, NOBODY is getting rich off a coaches supplement. unless your in South carolina, some georgia and texas.
where its not just HS football.
not for 100k.
you better win or your out!

a very well known fla coach went to valdosta ga for 3 seasons. made 100k plus, lived in a house for free, drove a local dealerships truck for free, etc, etc,
went to finals in big boy class, lost. made semis and lost the next year, made semis next year and,,,,,was fired....
its not just high school football, maybe in some places.

And I thought about that type of situation while writing, and I respect that. And for a lot of people their livelihoods are tied into their coaching job. But then let that reiterate points. One of the the best HCs I ever coached for, HC now at the #1 school in his state bringing in 6 figures at a private school, yadda yadda; does what he does and doesnt stress about it weekly and realizes that doesnt help. Don't buy into the hype of the over stressed HC (unfortunately its now becoming the best poacher of talent, but thats another story).

But my point for #3 is not that it does not matter as it is our job; my point is, it is just our job. If I didn't coach another down my wife would still love me, my kids would still want to play with me, my friends would still want to have a beer with me, all those players I influenced already would still carry those lessons with them. Most people's livelihoods are tied into them being successful at what they do. But its not who they are, its what they do. We need to learn to separate the two. I'm not saying Ive got that figured out completely myself either.

ok
so maybe its just high school football everywhere, except for where it means more than anything else in the state.  lol
fla, tex, calif(i think) ga and sc.
fla doesnt pay squat, neither does cali
not sure why its such a big deal there, other than the best athletes in the US are in fla and cali is so dang big they have more people than anyone else.
texas has the best of everything with all the oil, they will get best facilities, pay the coaches more than anyone and its a big deal.  everything is bigger in texas.  

ga and sc is what I dont get??  football is king in the south, but how and why do they pay their guys so well and do not have near the prospects as those other states?
i know alot of coaches transition to living in those states, make some dough and live it up.  SC has awesome weather and a great beach life.  
some great, real, southern folk in those states too.

As most of you know coaching and teaching are tied together in the state that I coach. It is my job to make our athletes better players on the field and in the classroom. If you don't produce wins on the field you will be fired.
Yes, it is just HS football but here it's also about winning.

For 25 years my life has revolved around football. During the season, offseason and track, and Summers. I have to plan everything I do around football and athletics. Even summer vacations. In the Fall, you're guaranteed 10 games plus the 3 weeks of practice leading up to the season. In the Spring, I start track practice in January and start meets in February. We are guaranteed 8 meets and possibility of 10. Along with track I also have offseason football.

I don't get home until 8pm during football season, 7pm during track. The only break I get is the few weeks between FB and track, and the few weeks between track and Summer strength and conditioning.

I'm lucky to have an awesome wife that has supported me and would pick up and move when we had no choice. Luckily both of my sons were able to go to the same HS for all 4 years.

I would like to say that it's just a job but it isn't. I'm at the point in my career where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but as long as I still love what I do I will keep on going.

I'm not one who says, "It's just HS football" or suggest that we slack off on the job (Although I do think that the hours that some guys spend meeting as a staff on weekends are insane). What I think is that we need to do a better job of dealing with the free time that we do have. Maybe it means that you have to spend a couple of hours playing with the kids or taking your wife to dinner on Saturday instead of watching college football. 

We tell the players to live in the moment, focus on THIS play, not the next one or the last one.  Maybe we should take our own advice in our own lives. And for God's sake, get some sleep. 

I couldn't disagree more with this comment.

I'm not disagreeing with your personal stance, it SHOULD be just HS football, but in the world we're living in, that is getting farther from the truth.  If you can get away with thinking it's just HS football then you must be fortunate to either be winning all the time, have the most supportive parents I've every heard of, or have parents and community members who don't care about the team.  

With so much "at stake" for kids trying to get scholarships for sports and parents reliving (or living for the first time) their glory days through their kids there is constant pressure to perform and win.  Not winning enough games?  Good chance your best players are outta here.  

Add to that the fact that with 24 hour coverage of football everybody is now suddenly a football expert and knows how to cure all.  Heck, even one loss (or one play if you're Pete Carroll for example) turns people into a frenzy of "you gotta do this and that."  It's all trickling down and I think HS coaches are feeling the heat WAY more than they have in the past.

This is a slice of what I see and I am definitely nowhere near big time football in big time football states.  And I understand the whole "can't listen to the noise" stuff, but as some others have pointed out the noise can start to cause more than just noise, ultimately leading to your termination.

Last thought, I think the hard part about our profession is that the outcome isn't completely predicated on our own personal performance.  As a coach, I could have been extremely prepared, had a dynamite game plan, and made the right adjustments, but if the players don't execute or if my OL coach did a bad job coaching fundamentals or if their players are just better than my players it ultimately leads to failure.  And when you are taught that hard work brings success, yet you still fail, the only response is to come back and work harder.  And down the rabbit hole you go...

i was told years and years ago in college, by an old professor who coached just about every sport possible.
when you get up and go to "work" it is just that, work.
If you get up and go to "school" it is a passion and is enjoyable, it isnt work.
up until this last coaching spot I had(got fired day before spring break by an AD 2 months on the job, I wasnt bowing down to him and his lousy coaching advice/career and a principal in his 1st yr) I went to school daily, stressed when it was necessary, busted my tail to make perception not reality, clean up the joint.
now, i go to work. daily.
looking for that next piece of pie and hoping its the 1 that lasts 25 years.

thats the dream job, do what my high school coach did. took over at my school in 1972, retired 1 yr before they consolidated the 2 high schools to 1 in 2013.
31 years in 1 spot, wins, losses, boys to men, men to fathers, those men he coached and their kids playing for him.
to me thats the end all be all.

I think you are misinterpreting the emotion here.  I don't equate "grind" to "work" anymore than I equated "lifting weights" to "work" as a player.  I see the grind as a means to a better end.  If that end is not achieved, than damnit I'm going to do even more to achieve it.

That's the problem.  It's never being satisfied.  Or more, it's about being downright consumed by failure.  And when you grind and grind and grind even harder and finally start reaping the fruits of your labor how do you scale back?  You've put in all this work and grind to achieve your success that you'll be damned to let it get back to the way it was before.

And you could say "it's just HS football," but it would be the same if I was a pianist, or whatever I chose to have a passion for, felt I was good at, and couldn't stand the idea of being a failure at. 

 

I agree with funkfriss

I think we are seeing a trickle down effect. Not everywhere, but in some places. It's happening to me here. in a place with no football history. In an area that "doesn't care" about football (the north). The people think they should have Nick Saban and they won't settle for anything less. The pressure they are putting on the admin is crazy. We aren't very good this year, but we were last. That doesn't matter. It's about right now. Same thing is happening around us too. It's never enough. Treating kids right and holding them accountable are irrelevant to too many places. Get the W's or get out. Sorry, this isn't college and we can't recruit the guys to fit what we do, we have to work around them and do the best we can with what we have. If that isn't good enough, many of us can't help you.

I just got a 12,000 dollar raise, to go from varsity in one state to junior high in another. Now i would have gotten a raise just off the teaching. But for me this made a difference and a chance to move back up , I was not going to advance where I was unless changes at the adm level were made.

Then again our definitions of "good " money to coach might just be different.