Serving a Team Through a Losing Season

Across my thirty years of serving collegiate sports teams, I have endured two 1 win & 10 loss seasons, one 2 win & 10 loss seasons, many sub .500 seasons, and some painfully long losing streaks. In addition, seven of the coaches I served were fired at season’s end. As Jesus was a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”, I am certainly acquainted with the pain of losing seasons.

 

For anyone in the sporting environment, enduring a losing streak of a few games is painful. Imagine an entire season of more than thirty games with the gnawing, gut-wrenching ache of consistently coming up short on the scoreboard. It’s awful.

 

The local or national media pile on, question and criticize. Worse, social media is even more sudden and brutal in its assassination of everyone and everything related to the team. They have no clue as to how the trend can be reversed, but they offer their ridiculous solutions anyway. Usually it sounds like, “Fire the coach!”

 

We can even begin to doubt ourselves and our value to the team. Coaches begin to brush up their resumes, anticipating the worst. Players consider transferring from the program, imagining greener pastures elsewhere. Some coaches and players contemplate leaving the game entirely. The once gleaming fortune of competing in collegiate sport has lost its luster. Despair chokes the life from these once courageous hearts.

 

I’m their character coach, what am I supposed to do in this swirling vortex of loss and despair? I will do these simple and basic things:

·      I will maintain perspective. I will endeavor to see through, above, and beyond all these strong and confusing emotions.

·      I will love extravagantly – my loyalty is valued.

·      I will serve selflessly – my consistency builds trust.

·      I will encourage constantly – my voice makes a difference. I will offer no criticism, nor suggestions related to strategy or tactics. I will encourage effort and attitude with my voice, on paper, via text messages, in gesture, in body language, in every way I can imagine – I will encourage.

 

This season of losing will not last forever, I promise. Changes in personnel are likely to occur. It will be painful and grievous, but things will improve. In the meantime; maintain perspective, love, serve, and encourage.

Perspective Amidst Sporting Chaos

Recent changes in collegiate sport enhance the value of character coaches and sports chaplains to their coaches and athletes. With the advent of the transfer portal and the introduction of Name, Image, and Likeness payments to players, much of the sporting landscape has dramatically shifted in the past few years.

 

Below are some of the factors leading to this season of chaos.

·      College athletes are now virtually free to transfer between institutions at will, as many times as they like, without restriction. This has led to some players being on four or more teams in a span of five seasons.

·      Coaches could always move between institutions at will, so everyone advocating for the athletes is happier with this change.

·      Name, Image, and Likeness money being paid to players has made collegiate sport, formerly embracing an amateur ethic, is now at the highest levels in fact professional sport.

·      Professionalism in sport brings a totally different approach, and veterans to the process who were raised in the amateur ethic, are enduring a harsh adjustment period.

o   Collegiate sport has always been populated by both transactional (100% results oriented) and transformational (process and people oriented) coaches.

o   The injection of professionalism is making the players more transactional than even the most bottom-line oriented coaches I have known.

o   Many players being recruited now have this as their first question for a coach, “How much are you going to give me?” The process is transactional from the start.

 

Here are a few of the characteristics that make character coaches and sports chaplains of greater value than ever.

·      We provide perspective in a volatile environment. Christian men and women serving sports teams have the unique ability to see through, above, and beyond the thick cloud of money, celebrity, noise, ambition, sycophantic fans, and hangers on. Biblical examples like Moses, Jesus, and the apostles provide us models to follow and principles to embody.

·      We don’t want anything from them, but God’s best intentions for each one. We don’t want to be their agent, to sell them anything, to get their endorsement, or to even shoot a selfie. They find this remarkably refreshing. It builds trust and relationship.

·      We love those on the move. Whether they be players transferring out, coaches climbing the sporting ladder, or coaches being fired, we love them. We welcome the newly arriving players and coaches to our institution, to our community, and to our family. We sail with coaches adrift in a career typhoon, searching for direction and purpose.

·      We love those who stay. We certainly prefer the longer, developmental, and relational approach to our relationships with people in sport. Given more time, our relationships deepen and grow stronger. We help build legacies with the coaches and long-term players. We help build families. As we are afforded relationships across multiple years, we find ourselves at graduation ceremonies, weddings, baby showers, and other joyous events. We occasionally also bear the more grievous burden of walking with coaches and athletes through injury, illness, loss, and death. In short, we love extravagantly.

 

Collegiate Sport has undergone a number of changes in recent years and I seriously doubt it will ever return to its former nature. In fact, I would imagine there are more, possibly even more drastic changes just on the horizon.

 

All these changes, all the chaos, all the transactional attitudes, and even the crass focus on finances only serves to build the value of character coaches and sports chaplains. When we serve wisely and well, we are immensely valuable to the coaches and competitors. When we love extravagantly and serve selflessly, when we honor Christ by emulating Him, we are these people’s greatest allies and most trusted friends.