Coaching youth sports is “depression-proof,” too
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After reading my colleague Chris Erskine’s Fan of the House column today about sports-loving kids being ‘depression-proof,’ I repeated to myself what I often do after one of his reality stories: The guy nailed it.
Saturday afternoon, I wrapped up my second season of coaching my 8-year-old son Tyler in the Upland recreational basketball league. Believe me, in this economic crunch of dwindling jobs, it wasn’t easy to say yes to coaching again. First, I know baseball better than basketball, and, second, if our practices weren’t on Monday nights at 8 and most of our games on Saturday mornings -- good times to avoid breaking news -- I don’t know that I could’ve done it while covering boxing, MMA and investigations for The Times.
But the opportunity to coach my son and the team (pictured above) I was handed was worth it. We called ourselves the ‘Lightning Bolts,’ and were an amazingly diverse group, equipped with kids whose last names were Majidifar, DeLeon, Samarzich, Pearson and my ancestors’ own tough-to-pronounce moniker, along with one girl, Jenna.
My son gives me a hard time about my oft-repeated coaching directions: ‘Shoot close to the basket, play hard defense, get rebounds.’ But I’ve found that keeping things simple, praising the positives and putting each kid in the position where they can achieve the most success are the real keys to youth sports coaching -- and probably part of the secret of life, too.
Our team had an outstanding regular season in the always-tough Upland third- and fourth-grade recreation league. We finished 5-1, then came from behind in the second half to win our semifinal playoff game, as likely USC-bound point guard Marcellus Pearson paced our scoring with our second-leading scorer, Justin Hailey, home sick.
In our practice before the city championship, I told the team, ‘This is what it’s all about. No matter what you’re doing in the future: Work hard for something and you can achieve it. I’m very proud of you guys.’ It was no Gene Hackman. I’ll leave that to a better coach down the road.
We played the unbeaten Trojans in the title game, and were a bit overmatched early on before going on a 6-0 run at the end of the third quarter to trim our deficit to three points. Our crowd was cheering mightily. Early in the fourth, we called upon our most consistent play, a pass inside, to take a shot that could’ve tied the score if it fell in and the ensuing foul shot was successful. Unfortunately, the ball lipped off the rim and the free throw struck unkind iron.
The Trojans took it from there.
As the final seconds ticked off, I looked at the glum faces on our bench and the desperate attempts by our ‘Bolts’ on the court and took a final timeout, telling the kids they should never be ashamed of doing their best and reminding them that 10 other teams in our league would’ve loved to be playing in this final game of the season.
I didn’t think they bought it, and I admit it was hard saying goodbye to them until another season minutes later, after they collected their second-place trophies.
But the kids heaped some thank-you gifts upon me afterward, including a green envelope written for ‘Coach Lance’ with a basketball drawn on it. I opened the envelope later that afternoon after returning home.
‘Dear Coach Lance, You are the best. Thank you for teaching me how to play basketball a little better. You are the best coach ever!’ It was signed: ‘Your friend, Jenna.’
-- Lance Pugmire
