A close friend from my high school and college years passed away recently. He was, quite simply, the most talented and gifted high school athlete I have ever seen. He taught me there is a significant difference between good and great. More importantly, he taught me that in all areas of life, it takes extraordinary and well-directed hard work to elevate natural talent to competitive greatness.
I spent countless hours sharing the journey with him on and off the field. I witnessed firsthand the day-to-day grind with trainers and coaches, teams and teammates, championships and heartaches.
I learned that to maximize their potential in sports, people must have high character and integrity, be exceptional athletes, and be players with elite sport skills. This journey requires an extraordinary commitment, dedication, and perseverance in the classroom, in the gym, and on the field.
If mentored properly, a player learns many life lessons within the game that should translate beyond the game. Sadly, many slip through the cracks due to the nature of the competitive environment today.
American society is obsessed with sports, and players, coaches and parents can easily fall into the trap that trophies in sports will lead to success in life. The truth is an appearance in a SportsCenter highlight is a one-off, not a predictor of success. I believe that the American obsession and glorification of sports is so intense that many athletes cannot replicate that feeling after their competitive sport life is done.
Many coaches use winning as the measure of all past, present, and future success. Winning may ensure longevity at the job, but it does not ensure happiness and contentment. Furthermore, these coaches may wrongly assume that all important life lessons can be learned by inference from competing in the sport, i.e. “You win or you learn.”
Coaches can fail to proactively program life lessons into training and practice sessions by demanding that their players be dedicated to the grind instead of a balanced life. They simply run their athletes and players through their “system” of metrics and analytics, with little regard for the players’ lives outside of the sport.
Another basic contributing factor is there are only so many hours in a day. Players and their families may be pressured to play on multiple teams in one sport in-season and play and train for multiple sports simultaneously year-round.
This sport-centered mindset can also result in mistakes when student-athletes choose a college based on whether they can play their sport there and not whether they can get the best education for their career at the college. After graduation, they may have some fun memories of being a part of a team, but the piece of paper they received during the graduation ceremony is no guarantee of a pathway to a meaningful and fulfilling career they are passionate about.
My friend was one of those good people who achieved greatness as an athlete, but was seduced into believing that his success on the field would ensure the same happiness and success once his playing days were done. For him, just like millions of other former athletes, it did not.
We, as coaches, leagues, schools, and society owed him and all those who follow him, better.
Every day, we must proactively prepare our players to fill the void.