My Life as ‘Practice Coach’ — The Educator Part
This is one of those milestone posts, a true blend of professional and personal. You see, when it comes to my life, moreover my profession, it is and has been centered on passion + purpose + people; my journey has been about tough choices and what is often pegged to the ‘hard right’ over the ‘easy wrong’. It has been one extension of experiences after another, loosely coupled but laser focused on coming at a problem from different angles and inflections.
In the mid-1980s, among a few other possible interests, I began to explore and try on a career as an educator. It was a great fit, one where I dabbled part-time in the classroom in Baltimore, entered headlong as a high school coach in New England, and ultimately settled in as teacher-coach in the Mid-Atlantic. My pedagogical and cultural sweet spot was 5th and 6th grade interdisciplinary English and history, often in a project-based learning #PBL environment. My primary sport to coach was boy’s lacrosse, a sport that I had also played in K-12, college, and post-collegiate club.
“The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.” — Vince Lombardi
My K-12 teaching and coaching career spanned fourteen years and included six states and stints in the UK and Japan. It was a memorable, life-changing journey, one that was never about the games. It was about the blood, sweat, and tears that come from working with students and players and peers to maximize their individual and collective best. It was about practice, which, of course, makes permanent — not perfect. It was about winning, never really about the win-loss record. It was and is about the journey, about the grind, about getting better, about the habit, discipline, and wherewithal to recognize what to do when opportunity presents itself. Below are a few episodes in the twists and turns that depict my life as a practice coach.
Episode 1: The Peaks and Valleys
In the mid-1980s, I was drawn to Boston to sort out where I would finish my undergraduate degree. I spent the first half of college at Denison University in quaint Granville, Ohio focused on decidedly the wrong things and needed a change, needed to find my ‘why’.
On the tail end of a ‘test and learn’ phase in the middle of my undergraduate continuum, I landed my first coaching position in assistant varsity lacrosse at The Roxbury Latin School and dug into the Boston metro’s famed ISL. Turns out luck and talent play a part. In my first year coaching, in the spring 1987 season, we finished 12–2 and were crowned ISL co-champions. We were all teed up to have another great season but were also aware that we had graduated an All-American and other leading talent. We prepared as we had the previous season; we worked the boys hard in practice and let them perform at game time. There was absolute consistency in coaching method and personnel year over year. Occasionally, we called a time out and instigated a set play, but this was the reactive exception, not the planned norm. The boys worked hard, learned, performed, won or lost because of what they did and reacted to on the field, at performance time. That second season, we finished 7–7. Enough said. It was a great two years at RL, the beginning of my run as a high school coach, a stark reminder that you can have absolutely zero control of the win-loss record so must enjoy the journey and analyze and accept the outcomes.
Episode 2: The Cash Cow
Three years part and full-time finally, fitfully finishing undergraduate studies at the University of New Hampshire availed three seasons as assistant varsity coach of boy’s lacrosse at Phillips Exeter Academy, aka Exeter. This coeducational, secondary boarding school is a top flight place with top flight expectations. The campus and correlated endowment are larger than most colleges; it merely imbues an air of success and high achievers. Three years yielded a 32–11 record, where we got progressively better year over year, from win records of 67%, 70%, and 87%. These seasons provided a great way to see the pinnacle of New England prep school lacrosse and a very certain refinement period in methodology and style. Per the episode title, the cash cow analogy is more fitting of outcomes than that of practice. Enough said.
Episode 3: The Bootstrapped Startup
Following undergraduate studies at UNH, I moved to Nashville to take up full-time M.Ed. studies at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. The sport of lacrosse was brand new to Nashville high schools; in fact, was only found at one school. I met the Montgomery Bell Academy head lacrosse coach via post-collegiate club channels; he asked whether I’d be interested in starting a high school club team in the Nashville Metro, specifically in Brentwood, a southern suburb. Full-time graduate studies, plus men’s lacrosse club with regional travel, plus a stay-up high school club? The answer is default Yes, right? The Brentwood Lacrosse Club was born that fall, and I was head coach for two seasons before I finished grad school and moved to Delaware and a full-time teacher-coach role.
Startups are hard. Some days you feel like curling up in a ball and sucking your thumb. Some days you win, a little. But you celebrate the wins, no matter how small. We lost over 75% of our games, in both seasons, but we did win a few. We traveled to Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Memphis and even chose team colors independent from the local high school, an alignment that has since changed. The boys and parents enjoyed the experience, worked hard, and improved. And the community pitched in big-time and that is why the club still exists today.
Episode 4: The Turnaround
Grad school endeavors in Nashville begot a national search for a teacher-coach position that yielded a full-time faculty at Wilmington Friends School teaching 5th grade (in an elementary school setting), as Head Coach of Boy’s Varsity Lacrosse, and as Assistant Coach of Varsity Football. I was there for a quick but fruitful two years.
The boys’ lacrosse program was less than ten years old when I arrived, and it had a losing record. The culture of the school, the student body, the parent base, the faculty were all great. There were quality players with the spirit to excel. A very qualified assistant coach and I got to work. He was a part-timer who ran the defense; I was a full-timer who ran the offense and built the team culture and drove the daily work ethic. It worked. We transformed a program from a losing record to 4th in the state in two seasons. I still see some of those players, now men with careers, spouses and children, some of whom played in college. It was a great experience that keeps giving back.
Episode 5: The Perfect Season
After a Head Varsity stint in Delaware, I moved on for a middle school teaching position at St. Anne’s-Belfield in Charlottesville, Virginia. In a three year span as assistant coach of boys’ JV lacrosse, we attained something that some never achieve — the perfect season. I was one of three coaches, each with a clearly defined role. The season just came together, one practice, one game at a time. You could just see the rhythm evolve on a team where many believed we were unstoppable. I never had another coaching experience with an undefeated team in a competitive league. It’s just not that common. It starts in practice with a successful rhythm, the belief that you can pull off something special. You relish the fun in the grind no matter the outcome, because you know the team and all its parts will leave it all on the field.
This storyline is shared to emphasize three beliefs: 1) Winning is about preparation, particularly if you want to win the war. 2) You take each outcome as a learning moment to catalyze improvement. 3) Along the way, you win and you lose, sometimes big, sometimes after jarring back-to-back highs and lows, and sometimes you yield the perfect outcome, one that you should strive for but never, ever expect.
I approach startups, moreover entrepreneurship, the same way — as a ‘practice coach’. You must love the grind because that is where you learn the most, that is where you bond with others the most, that is where you leave your mark. But that’s for another post.
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I am an edupreneur, edtech investor, and teacher-coach located in Baltimore, MD. As the Director of Venture Creation , I help support Maryland’s largest cluster of edtech companies from TU Incubator and associated programs.
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