Learning to Coach - Lesson 2
Craig Peltonen, the Marian University men’s and women’s head coach, sat me down and said, “Harry, you’re coaching the goalkeepers.”
“I’m coaching the goalkeepers?! That’s idiotic,” I thought, but didn’t say, aloud. I knew better than to question Craig on my second day of work – I waited at least a week to commence our “Firing Line-esque” dialectics. His logic for my appointment: “I don’t have someone to coach the goalkeepers and I’m not doing it.” Craig demoed a couple techniques, showed me a few drills, handed me a couple books, gave me some VHS tapes and said, “If you want to coach Harry, then learn to coach.”
I never played goalkeeper. I’m 5’7 when the sun is right. I have tiny hands and you know what that means – I play the ukulele. Jumping isn’t my thing either. I’m built for gravity. However, now I was assigned to coach goalkeepers, a position inverse to my DNA, adverse to my sensibilities. I’m a field player; therefore, I coach field players.
It was fall of ‘92, about three months after college graduation, so I knew how to study. I got busy studying goalkeeping. I read the books, watched and re-watched the tapes. I studied the game film. I asked the important questions: How the hell can goalkeepers tolerate all that standing around? Why is Craig making me do this? Where does it say in my contract, “coach goalkeepers?” When do I get to coach field players?
I remembered my college teammates’ goalkeeper warm up. They threw the ball back and forth. Then they volleyed it back and forth. Then they threw it back and forth. Then they volleyed it back and forth. Then they stretched. It looked like baseball practice. After their “intense” warm-up, they told us, “We’re not ready to take shots yet[1].”
“No shit!?” I wanted to respond, but didn’t, because they were my friends.
I swore I’d make my goalkeepers, Amy and Phil, feel pain; I mean work hard. I constructed every exercise and drill to include a fitness component. I was psychotic about fitness. Maybe I just hated goalkeepers or coaching them. Then I’d shoot on them, and boy, did my shot get better, like a lot better, like maybe I should’ve been practicing shooting more before I started coaching. I also started enjoying myself. Most of my coaching consisted of asking Phil and Amy questions: “Why do you step like that?” “Why do you position your hands that way?” “Where do you position yourself in the goal and why?” “What are you thinking about when the shooter is really close and the ball might smack you in the face? I mean, you know it’s really going to hurt, don’t you?” I paid attention to everything, eventually made observations: “Phil, your hands need to get forward,” and “Amy you’re off balance,” and never stopped asking questions. They were award-winning goalkeepers; they knew more than me. Was I in over my head? Of course. And yet not one bit. Craig had said, “If you want to coach Harry, then learn to coach.” But the more accurate phrase is, “If you want to coach Harry, learn to teach something you’ve never done before.”
Being assigned to coach goalies, at the very inception of my career, was a gift. Was it intended? Absolutely. Phil and Amy, all those damn videos, and Craig himself taught me more than goalkeeping. I learned the science of teaching.
When the season ended, I asked Craig the number one question on my mind, “Will I have to coach Goalkeepers next season?”
He said, “Well, I’m not doing it, so I guess that leaves you.”
“That’s fine. But, how ‘bout, every once in a while, we swap roles?”
I think you know his answer – my shot got even better.
[1] Sorry Nick, Andy, Jay and Doug, but I swear that’s how I remember it.
