Strength #8: Coaching

The PND State Swim Team!

So it's been awhile since I have posted anything and I apologize for that. My life has been crazy between studying for boards, clinicals, moving from Champaign to Kansas City, and saying goodbye to my host family and meeting my new one! These past few weeks have been a whirl wind for me and to top it all off I had a few swim meets to attend as well! (IHSA Sectionals and State!)

So anyways, on to my strength... Last year I was home in Peoria for a clinical rotation and I had the opportunity to help out the Peoria Notre Dame boys swim team after work everyday. It originally just started out as a little thing on the side, but as the season went on, I became more and more invested with the team. I was at the pool everyday coaching them, at every meet cheering them on, and I even used my PT knowledge and wrote dryland (swimmer's weights) for them.

Where is the "selfie stick" when you need it?

As the 2014-2015 season rolled around, the head coach asked if I wanted to help out again. Although I was going to be away for most of the season, I of course said yes and made it to every practice and meet that I could. I wrote dryland practices for the boys and helped out the coach in whatever way I could. The team accepted me as a coach and made me feel like a part of the team.

Shawn, the head coach, and I

This experience of coaching the boys team the past two years has been incredible for me. I have learned so much about coaching and it has made me realize that I would love to be a high school swim coach at some point in my life. The reward you get from working with the kids is amazing, whether they are beginner swimmers or state medalists. Every single one teaches you something (no matter how stupid and immature it might be) and in return you hope you teach them something.

Just last weekend with the boys, I got to watch my baby brother and his team get second overall at the State Swim meet. A pretty darn impressive feat considering there is one class for high school swimming, not six like there is for football. These boys are literally the second best team in the entire state! In the back of our minds we thought a state trophy may be in the cards but we really had no idea how everything was going to play out. Thankfully, at the prelims on Friday night the boys swam out of their minds and set up a perfect day for Saturday's finals.

Myself and the other coaches spent the night scoring the meet and talking strategy for the next day and we super excited to see how it would all play out. Sure enough Saturday came and the boys swam great. The meet was so close that it came down to us having to win the last relay to get a trophy. And sure enough the boys did exactly that! They swam like gangbusters and earned a second place trophy by one point over the two teams that tied for first. The feeling as a coach watching these boys give it their all was amazing. I was literally jumping up and down, screaming for them, and beaming with pride. Everything came together at the right moment. Every single boy on that team swam out of their mind and I could not be more proud of these boys.

This weekend at State gave me such a sense of happiness that it made me realize this is something that I want to do further on down the road. Now I am not writing about as a strength because I am the best coach in the world, because I am the first to admit that is not true. But helping coach these boys to their success made me realize how important it is to find things you love.

Second place gets to jump in too!

I clearly love CrossFit and everything it has given to me, but as I quickly learned a few weeks ago, I may not always be able to do what I want with it. However, turning around and having something else that you love to do can helped keep me focused, driven, and happy. I learned a few weeks ago putting "all your eggs in the same basket," for lack of a better term, places a lot of your happiness there. It is important to have a balance and something else to look forward to so your happiness doesn't rely on one thing.

Mark, Grant, and I. Always proud of
the little brother.

I know my future job as a PT will bring me a lot of happiness and satisfaction, along with CrossFit, and hopefully swim coaching one day. Spreading myself out (but not too thin) to the things I look forward to will help bring me happiness in my life. It will help keep my focused in every aspect but allow me to enjoy the process as well. Being able to switch between mindsets will be a welcomed situation for me and help me maintain a balance between life and all other things.

A few more thoughts... I literally could not be more proud of the PND swim boys. They work their a** off as each and every practice and really stepped up when the time called for it. My brother Grant dropped 7 seconds in his 200 IM this season (9th in the state), 4 in the 100 fly (10th in the state), 4 in the 100 free (1st in the state on the relay!), and countless others in all of his other event he didn't swim at state.  And every boy on the team did just this the entire season. It was so much fun to be a part of and I can't say enough good things about these boys. They reaffirmed the importance of coaching in my life sometime down the line. So thank you boys for showing me the love.