I had my last tournament of the season yesterday, unusually early compared to previous years because we're not going to do regionals. It's a bittersweet ending.
On one hand, I feel like they were finally starting to make some meaningful improvement as a group. There were plenty of great accomplishments among them as individuals, but they never really connected as a team. On the other hand though, it feels good to be done with it just so I can devote more of my emotional batteries to other thing in my life right now.
While it was difficult to go from five straight winning seasons to a very difficult series of losses, I learned a lot from the kids and about my approach. Because of a general lack of experience (through no fault of their own, but rather some ugly high school coaching scenarios), I had to back off my normal advanced game theory mode and get back to fundamental skill teaching. I don't enjoy that as much, but we certainly did make some progress there.
It's also interesting to see how different people react to difficult times. While one parent insisted I was too hard on them, another thought I wasn't hard enough. That really demonstrates the awkward (and thankless) position you can be in as a coach, because you can't please everyone, and rarely does anyone else see the bigger picture, in a team context, the way you do. And hey, when your kid is in the mix, I can't say I blame any of them for having strong feelings either. It's hard sometimes to put your own feelings aside and keep that in mind.
I have to say that I'm particularly proud of my two seniors. The one got cut from her high school team, which strikes me as crazy because she's pretty good defensively. In fact, she turned in her best performance in our tournament yesterday since I started coaching her last year.
The other senior I first saw last summer, and the previous assistant coach said she was a real question mark in terms of skill and coachability. That shows how different personality mixes match better than others. She was awesome for me, in every way. She worked her ass off to become a very well rounded player, and despite some early apprehension, embraced everything I threw at her. I'm so glad I got to have two seasons with her.
All things considered, I still liked every kid, and I still love coaching. But that said, I'm really ready for a team where the work ethic and experience is already at a high level. My previous two teams to this one had one or the other.
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