Back For Another Season: What You'd Do for Love or Money (#3 in Lessons from the Pitch Series)

Over the past few months I've had an "aha" here or there about the similarities between coaching a kids' sport and working in "Corporate America". I've learned things in each environment that I've applied to the other, whether through observation, trial and error and heck, even some success. 

The latest parallel isn't a skill to transfer from one environment to the other, so much as it is a common reflection. 

As I sat around with some co-workers at a going away party recently, the topic shifted from the daily grind to something a bit deeper - would you do your job if you weren't getting paid? Some said yes, they loved what they did and who they worked with, etc, while others shared an adamant "He$& no". Then I thought of the "work" I do coaching - the countless hours of prep, practice, scheduling, fundraising, and all the things we have to do as a club sport. For context, we have Spring and Fall seasons, run open gyms in the Winter and coach the girls in Summer tournaments. It's a full year commitment and I, along with countless other coaches, do it for FREE. So am I, and many other coaches out there, just crazy or what? 

Then the next night, I was reminded why I still do it and probably will for a long time to come. We hosted our end-of-season banquet to celebrate our accomplishments as a team - it's a great time to share stories, meet our players' families, hand out awards and just enjoy the unique bond that only rugby brings. At the very end the grandmother of one of our girls pulled us coaches aside and told us how much she appreciates us, how happy her grand-daughter has been, how excited she gets when she talks about practices, how we're great role-models for the girls and so on. It was almost over-whelming and so thoughtful of her to share. And then another mom said something similar, and then a dad. 

When I think about it, the expression of gratitude is a nice bonus, but the real kicker for me was being reminded that we are impacting these girls' lives and really making a difference. Win or lose - and this season there was more of the latter - I'm proud to be their coach and I want to get better at it, to be better for them. 

For any workplace that can bring even an ounce of that feeling of pride and impact to their employees, I'm not saying you can pay them in "thank you" cards, but a little bit goes a long way!