Many of us love to read, and learn in other ways too. Something in many of us was pricked by something we read when we were young, and that desire to learn about faraway lands, or how to fix a bicycle, or solve a case with a great mystery writer just stayed with us. The simple love of learning is often enough to keep us on the path toward knowledge, but I would say there’s another reason to maintain a love of learning. From personal experience, I have found that I have so much more to offer others because of this continuous quest to learn. In fact, we who lead in the athletic environment are teachers, aren’t we?
We are more effective and more credible the more we know. Sometimes knowledge allows us a more complete way of conveying something to our coaches and athletes. The examples that I often used in the midst of an intense basketball practice had nothing to do with offense, defense, or fundamentals of the sport. Sometimes something needed to be said in a different way, and because knowledge becomes instinctive the more one knows, it allows the teacher in us to figure out a more effective way to communicate what we need to. I also felt that I could relate more effectively to a broad group of coaches, with their own varied personalities and relatability by bringing information that I often took from the non-sports world. Often in staff meetings we would have the most spirited dialogue on something we took from those very books.
I believe that the more we appear to be more than simply a ball coach, the more credibility we have in the eyes of our players, and their families. When we care enough about our own lives to better ourselves by learning, and we offer that to those we lead in a constructive manner, it’s motivating for them to be around. They’ll be more willing to learn, too, and that’s the goal!
(For a list of my recommended readings, you can visit the ‘Resources’ page of my site – my list is always growing!)