When Our Players Lift Us Up

I had an interesting conversation with a coach yesterday where he told me about a day where one of his players lifted him up.

One-on-One mentoring is an essential piece of coaching in SportsLeader. This particular coach had done an amazing job of dividing up his team amongst all his assistant coaches so each coach had a player for a "Walk-Out" and a "Walk-Back" ...

The "Walk-Out" is walking out from the locker room to the field for practice and the "Walk-Back" was the walk back to the locker room ... pretty complicated (smile). During the walk he would just talk with the young man to see how life was going and try to come to a resolution for him to work on in an area of his life to help him grow in virtue.

Well the young man in question was his "Tuesday Walk-Out". He had had a very difficult year due to circumstances within his family and he really opened up with coach over the course of the year. Coach saw him grow in confidence every week and he became a better football player because of it.

At the end of the season, this coach was hit with some pretty disappointing news and most of the school found out about it.

Coach would always arrive to school pretty early and to his surprise who was waiting for him that following morning? His "Tuesday Walk-Out".

"Coach, how are you doing? You helped me every week this season. I figured it was time to help you."

Coach talked, the young man listened ... in the process this young man lifted him up beyond words.

As we finished our phone call, Coach summed it up pretty well - "When I first started coaching, I never did the one-on-ones. I'm sure glad I do them now. They've changed MY life."

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Do you have a similar story? Write it up so we can share it with other coaches to encourage them.