Life Lessons from the Coach's Playbook

“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”  Vince Lombardi

Randy Richard 2001

As a football guy I have to share my favorite quote from one of the greatest in the game.  For me there is no better way to express the feeling of being on a team… scratch that… serving on a team.

Even Tom Brady and Nick Foles had to start somewhere.  Likely their parents began bringing them to practice at a young age with no realistic thoughts of them someday becoming a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback.  When I think of my own experience with sports I remember playing soccer when I was very young and eventually enjoying a range of other sports before focusing my attention on football.  I remember the 100 degree August mornings with 100% humidity, the sun beating down, and blades of fresh cut grass sticking to every inch of exposed sweat covered skin – trust me, no one would endure that unless they loved the game and the teammates next to them enduring the same.  Playing sports has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  Now, as an athletic administrator, a coach, a former college football player and a proud dad, I appreciate the lessons learned from these experiences and I better understand their impact on my life as well as that of others.

Fitness
The physical benefits of sports seem obvious.  Sports allow children to be active in a world that makes it easy to remain inactive. Playing sports can boost motor development and encourages an interest in overall healthy habits.  However, the skills and benefits an athlete obtains from playing sports go well beyond the physical.  As Coach Lombardi references, the lessons learned from playing sports are things an athlete can take with them for the rest of their lives.  These benefits far exceed the circle of sport.

Balance
Because sports provide structure, many athletes develop time management skills early on.  For example, in practice, athletes have set times to run drills,  brush up on offensive or defensive skills, or work on set pieces that are scenario specific.  Students absorb this and use the structure and time management skills developed in practice to manage their academic load.  They learn to balance their classes with sports and social obligations with their own personal “practice plan”.

Trust
As a team member who is fully committed to the team and its members, athletes learn trust.  They must trust that their teammates are working just as hard as they are and even hold them accountable if they aren’t. They also develop a sense of personal accountability knowing that everyone has a role and a task, and they must perform their own assignment for the team to be successful.

Community
Playing a sport, even an individual sport, also helps athletes develop socially.  Athletes learn to interact with others and they have the opportunity to meet people they might not otherwise have known. I’ve often said to athletes I’ve coached that they don’t have to be best friends, but if it has to do with the team, each teammate is priority one.  We’ve had athletes here that join a team and end up finding their place at the school or even a surrogate family.

Resilience
Athletes learn to handle adversity.  It comes in the form of injuries or a particularly bad flu season that runs throughout the entire team.  They learn to lose and win with respect for others and they learn to lose and win together.  All of this teaches them to be flexible in a range of situations, including unplanned events that often occur.  In addition, athletes learn that not everyone can play at the same time or on the same level.  Even in the NFL there is a practice squad comprised of athletes more elite than most,  whose full-time job is only to practice.  Many of them not elite enough to ever see Sunday playing time.

Goal Setting is a byproduct of this resilience that serves competitors well throughout life.  Whether the goal is to score in soccer or be captain of the team, the concept of setting goals helps students learn to think long term about what they want to accomplish.  They also learn that to achieve these goals they will have to commit and work through both successes and failures. This requires patience and persistence.  We see examples of this in both present Episcopal students and our Episcopal alums daily; from Oliver Jack working on his jump shot before most students get to school and Lili Pellegrin placing in the 100 breaststroke in State to Olympian Meghan O’Leary competing for a spot in the 2020 Olympics and Todd Graves’ Raising Cane’s successes.  Four people Four paths.  The core of their goals list, I bet very similar.

Randy Richard 1990

Fun
While sports can help student athletes achieve so many things both on and off the field there is one thing to keep in mind: it should be fun.  As I mentioned previously there’s nothing like preparing for football season during a hot Louisiana summer.  But that’s just what my teammates and I did, because it was fun.  Most of us weren’t even aware of the secondary benefits we were receiving.  We just knew that we enjoyed the game and we were committed to each other 100%.

We are lucky to have such caring and compassionate coaches here at Episcopal.  Good coaches certainly make a tremendous difference for the athletes.  We are competitive and we recognize that sports are competitive, but we are also aware of how athletics prepares our students for meaningful and purposeful lives.  

 We want them to do their best, have fun and learn a few things along the way. The majority of us won’t go on to be a Vince Lombardi, a Tom Brady or a Nick Foles; and that is okay.  That said, sports can provide each one of us regular folks, no matter the path we choose, with the same skills those guys use to achieve their successes.

For exciting news on the future of Episcopal athletics, visit the Spirit Mind Body Campaign page by clicking the button below.

Coming Soon! The Episcopal Athletic Field House

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Randy Richard

Randy is in his second year as Athletic Director at Episcopal School of Baton Rouge.  Randy is from Baton Rouge and attended Catholic High School before moving to Ruston to earn a degree in education from Louisiana Tech University.  Since joining Episcopal in 2002, Randy has served in many capacities including Dean of Students, the Physical Education Department Chair, teacher, and coach for a variety of boy’s and girl’s upper school athletic teams.