This year my local city soccer organization was short on coaches for my daughter’s soccer league, so I took the bait and signed up.

I have to admit, it wasn’t an easy decision for me, after all you have to deal with grumpy parent,  kid issues, and time that could be spent on other more productive things.

But is this a fair assessment?

Let’s look at the benefits of coaching soccer:

1. This role is great training on becoming a leader, even if the audience is little girls and parents.
2. If I do a great job, I can provided valuable guidance for young minds and influence their thoughts in a positive way.
3. Perhaps my daughter will have bragging rights, aka “my dad is my soccer coach”, but probably not (lol).
4. I get exposure to being head of a team and all the glory of winning (or perhaps not).
5. If I had a business to promote, I could try to develop connections in my social network.
6. One could develop new friends and make something more of the job than just coaching.
7. Taking this coach position keeps the number of girls on a team to a level where all the girls get to play at every game.
8. Ice cream for the team after wins!

Now let’s take a look at the Cons of such a role:

1. I might have to manage criticizing and disrespectful parents, so there is some stress.
2. There might be some problem kids on the team, so more stress.
3. A child may get injured during my watch, did I mention stress?
4. I lose valuable time that  don’t really have.
5. Maybe I won’t be a mind molder, after all, I’m just a short time coach.

Well, actually these points, both Pros and Cons are moot at this point since I already signed up.  If I had a bucket list, this would be one item I could cross of the list.  Plus this is an age specific task!  Once all of my kids are grown, it would be harder to become a coach for your typical 7-year-old girls.

I’m a little naive in this new coaching role, I hope I don’t disappoint!  Have you ever stepped outside your comfort zone because the benefit to the community and in particular the girls on my team outweigh the option of doing nothing?

-MR

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