The Question Every Coach Faces
It is always a question whether a good coach has to be a good player. You can find good coaches, even older ones, who develop excellent athletes, and you can find mid-aged coaches whose top physical form has long passed. Coaches like me. I often feel slow or weak, even if my juniors say the opposite.
They tell me I move in ways that are hard to follow, that I hit with power they cannot understand, that I read the game in a way that feels impossible to them. I do not feel this way anymore, therefore I have to realise that my feelings somehow irrelevant.
I could give many explanations for the above, and each of them could become its own article. But if I had to summarise it in one word, it is this, experience. Probably that is what they see. The kind of experience what turns an educator into more than a regular teacher.
It turns them into a leader, a mentor, a laser light going through every boundary in front of them. Experience becomes a way of life. The children do not fully understand it yet, they only see pieces of it, parts that make no sense right now. But one day it will.
Why Playing With Them Matters
Playing with them matters for a simple reason. It gives them time with someone who cares and someone who counts in their world.
Someone who has experience, not playing against them, but standing beside them while happening to be on the other side of the net. They feel the incredible control when the rally is tight. They also feel the vulnerability when they surprise me with an unexpected shot.
They see me as an adult, a strong man, an idol or a master. And I have to handle that with the most natural and humble attitude, to show them that none of it means anything without kindness and the willingness to fight with full spirit.
How do I transfer that to them? Do I explain it in class? Do I turn it into a lecture? Of course not. They do not need more information about the game.
What they need is the experience of it, the feeling of how maturity comes through movements that look like a dance, followed by another powerful shot from nowhere.
The Mark You Leave on Their Memory
And on the flipside, when the day comes that I can no longer play, I will still have stories. Stories from matches I have seen from top athletes or unforgettable competitions.
These will help them imagine themselves in those situations, and that is also enough. If you cannot play at a high level any longer, but you have something real to share, something you genuinely love or admire in the game, that will still reach them.
As long as I can play, I will. Because I know it matters to them more than most trainings. These weekly tests they secretly crave tell them who they might becoming. Those few minutes against me do not matter for my athletic development at all. But through the years I have realised how important it is for them
Those short moments will leave a deep mark in their visual memory, something they can carry forever, tucked in the back of their mind as a reminder of what is humanely possible and what they are possibly able to become.