Good Coaching
As homeschooling parents we feel that it's important to look and seek out opportunities for our kids to be able to learn how to work with and thrive among other people. It's not something that you can learn from a book. Since we homeschool, it's difficult to find ways for our kids to participate in the high school sports or other extracurricular things that public schools offer. If a child isn't fully enrolled in the public school then they can't participate. I think it may be different in other states but that's the way it is in Maryland. We do get together with other homeschoolers and our kids do get that needed interaction. Now I'm not trying to complain about Maryland's laws. I do feel that it has forced us to look harder and dig deeper and because of that our kids have been able to participate in some really good things over the years. For our daughter, having a super great experience playing high school sports was one of those things.
Maryland requires homeschoolers to be accountable to someone, either the Board of Ed or a licensed school of some sort. Aiyana really wanted to play high school soccer and so we moved her under the umbrella of Calvary Christian Academy. This is great because they allow her to play high school sports and go on field trips and to be part of graduation ceremonies and other things that most homeschoolers miss out on.
And soon after we signed Aiyana up for Calvary’s homeschool umbrella, it didn't take them long to get around to asking her if she would play volleyball as well as soccer.
At first she wasn't sure about playing. She hadn't really played a whole lot of volleyball, where with soccer she had been playing since she was little.
But volleyball was my favorite sport and so I encouraged her to go for it. I had played from when I was seventeen until up in my mid thirties. There is so much that you can learn from volleyball that can be directly applied to life, and I loved the thought of her playing on a team.
And so she went for it! She's had a great coaching staff and has really learned to love the game, her team and her coaches!
And that brings me to my original thought for writing this blog.
Thursday evening was senior night.
The seniors from our team gave the seniors from the other team some flowers. Then the parents of each senior got the honor of standing on the court with their daughter while someone makes a little speech and of course there are more flowers and gift bags and pictures being taken. It felt really good to be out there with my daughter. I'll just say that I was a proud father.
Because this is a small school, we only had two seniors playing volleyball this year, Aiyana and her friend and teammate Emmy Wilson.
Of course there was a festive spirit around the gym with lots of pictures of Emmy and Aiyana.
One was the picture at the beginning of this article. It's a picture of Coach John Wall with the two girls. Coach Wall loves volleyball and loves teaching the game and wants to see his players succeed, not just in volleyball, but in life as well.
In my mind the photograph portrays that behind every good team is a good coach. Since Coach Wall has been in charge of the volleyball program the Calvary Eagles have become a team to be reckoned with. Whether it's in their own conference or playing add on games against the public schools in the area, they've been hard to beat.
One of Emmy's parents took the picture. I'm not a photographer or photo judge or anything like that, but in my opinion that picture could be a ribbon winner. The reason being that it spurred an image in my head that says, if a school has a good team with a great team spirit year after year, it probably has a great coaching staff. And Aiyana has had that great experience at Calvary, both in soccer and volleyball.
Because the school is small, finding enough for a team can sometimes be slim pickings. And so they take anyone that is willing to put their heart into the game, and they work with them, helping to develop their strengths and then putting them in positions where the team does well.
I often line judge which gives me a front row seat to the bench and the coaches. And it's been fun to watch and see the differences in coaching style on the opposing teams.
I see so many teams that come out strong and then almost crumble as they get criticized play by play on almost every play by their coach. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't. You can almost see the players that aren't on top of the game cringe because when the ball comes to them they will probably get chewed out, even when they're trying hard.
And so it's been really good for me to know that Aiyana has had some great coaches, both in soccer and volleyball. Coaches that help her to do her best, putting her in positions where she is strong, like serving or hitting. Sometimes that means sitting on the bench and cheering on the team while someone that is good at passing plays the back row. Her coaches have all been ones that encourage and praise. They recognize that everyone is growing, and in doing so they all make mistakes. But that's ok because they're working on it. But they mostly work on those things during practice. And somehow they've created this really strong team spirit, where the girls want to play and they want to practice and they love hanging out together.
Sometimes life is a little bit like volleyball, except that we get to pick our coach. When we let everyone and anyone coach our lives and worry about what others think we'll often find ourselves stressed out and playing in roles that we aren't gifted at, and getting burned by trying to be someone we aren't meant to be. And that can take the joy out of the game.
But by choosing God as our head coach, we can focus on who we are meant to be, keep working on what we're gifted at. And when things aren't going well and it feels like you're losing, you can just do your best, and know that the Coach is going to find you the help that you need to make you a better player and maybe next time… well, I hope that you're so excited that you just can't wait to play!
Have a great game!
Go Eagles!
