Why I Coach

Sometimes I wonder why I coach. Sometimes I wonder what my coaching achieves.

Do I coach for the money? Maybe, but I don’t think that I would stick it out if it was simply for the money. Money doesn’t hold sufficient draw for me that I would keep at coaching day in and day out.

Do I coach for the glory? I used to think that I would get some kind of reflected glory from my kids doing well. But well, I’ve begun to feel that the glory doesn’t matter anyway.

So what do I coach for? I used to want to coach to help my kids believe in themselves. I’ve seen previous coaches short change them, give them less of their time and energy, make the kids feel lousy about themselves. They are the underdogs  in the debate circuit. I’m not coaching the top debating teams. I didn’t get a team like that because it was a first coaching job.

But, to be honest, I don’t think that I feel like I’ve impacted their lives at all. They just take debate as something fun to do, but it stops there.

And I’m getting tired.

I guess that I’m in it out of obligation in the end. I don’t want to let them down. I care about them because I know that they are people who deserve to go to the competition with the best chances possible. They aren’t simply my kids, they’re people and my friends.

And I still am waiting to see the underdog triumph.  To prove people wrong when they believe that my kids have no worth or won’t make it very far.