What do you find the most difficult thing about coaching? Besides money issues/weird hours…
The most difficult thing about coaching for me, disregarding the money and hours, is working with people who are less dedicated than I am. When I commit to doing something, I commit 100%, not because I’m trying to be that person who is overly enthusiastic or a suck up or whatever but because to me, that just seems like the “normal” thing to do. I think it probably just comes off like that because most other people appear to be OK with settling whereas I’m not.
If you commit to participating in something, why wouldn’t you show up every single day? Isn’t it like, oh I don’t know, assumed that you need to be at every single practice? It pisses me off when people say “oh, well, it was cold so I didn’t think we had practice” or “it rained this morning (for ten minutes) so we didn’t bring clothes or tennis shoes because we didn’t think we’d be going out (eight hours after it stopped raining)”. In that same vein, I have zero patience for people who half-ass the workouts, especially the easy stuff like calisthenics. Complaining about every single exercise, making no effort to do it properly, and then complaining even more because you’re sore and/or hurt yourself … why are you even there? You’re wasting everyone’s time and making me question whether or not you actually want to be there. If you’re not putting any effort into practice, where is my motivation to put any effort into coaching you?
People act like saying things like that is taboo or whatever, like it’s not something coaches should ever think or say, but I disagree. If you’re going to make it apparent that you don’t want to be there or you’re less dedicated than your teammates and coaches, I’m not going to hide my lack of interest in coaching you. I’d rather focus my attention on the people who show up and do what needs to be done without acting like they’re having their teeth pulled.