What I learned from coaching this year

Eddie Cmehil
Nov 3 · 3 min read

Sitting in my Sunday feels about this year’s incredible season and I keep coming back to 3 things.

Also, I coached St. Michael’s 3rd and 4th grade football team this year. It was one of the most fulfilling opportunities I’ve experienced.

The first is that this group of kids in particular is extremely talented and intelligent. I cannot overstate how impressed I was this year in not just their athletic abilities, but how quickly they were able to pick up new plays, schemes, and new rules that, to be honest, I am still confused about after a season of coaching them! I am incredibly grateful to all of you parents, guardians, and family members that allowed your boy to play this great game of football. They taught me more than I taught them and each young man improved in so many ways throughout this season.

The second is the sheer resilience of these kids. Us coaches were tough on them and had incredibly high expectations from day 1. But they rose to them and continually exceeded them, week in and week out. They hardly complained but instead came together as a group to accomplish a 9–0 season. Not once did a kid (or parent! - not even my dad!) come up to me this year and ask why they weren’t getting the ball as much as the next kid. If you’ve ever coached or been around youth sports, you know how rare that is. They believed in something more than themselves and always made sure their teammates were the ones who were successful.

The third, and on a more serious note, I can’t stop thinking about the biggest threat to these kids: us (adults). At some point, the innocence of these kids is overthrown by the agendas of parents and “adults” around them. Instead of stepping up and being examples for these kids, we use them as pawns in the games we are playing. At some point, it becomes more about us and what we want and not about the passion of the kids.

Whether I was driving a few of them to a game or when we had a few minutes of downtime during practice, there were always great conversations between them that involved things like race, religion, socioeconomic situations, and all of the other topics that can’t be said in public anymore without “adults” getting heated. These kids explored with each other the diversity that makes them so special and celebrated it. They asked questions and challenged each other and instead of hostility and anger, they approached those conversations with compassion (except when it was Matt & Max — that got a bit hostile).

Children evolve to the environment around them. The environment around them is us. They look at how we act, how we treat others, how we behave, and emulate those behaviors.

This generation of children is incredibly talented and have the capability to do remarkable things, there’s no denying that. The largest threat to them is not some video game or some politician. It’s us — the people closest to them.

Let’s set the example.

Eddie Cmehil
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