Behind the Scenes as a Coach's Wife

Often times I am compared to a farmer’s wife, and now that I am older I see the comparison. Farmers work long, endless hours during the spring, summer, and fall months to plant their crops and eventually harvest them, with all the little things in between that making farming a hard and tiresome job. Many wives call themselves “farm widows” during those months and they long for the winter so that they can spend time with their farmer. It can be a lonely life but somehow that one little season of “being home” makes it all worth it, every year. When I think about farmers and how thankful I am for them, I always say a little prayer because somewhere behind each farmer is a wife who spends more time alone than she ever will with her husband, and that can be a lonely place.

My husband works long hours during the spring, fall, and winter months. He spends all of his time working on practice plans, watching game tape, practicing, going from game to game, and making sure that kids are taken care of. Somewhere between all of that he coaches, because really any wife will tell you that coaching is not just standing in a gym telling one kid how to shoot a lay-up or making sure their footwork is perfect. Coaching is being a mentor, counselor, step in parent, chauffeur, disciplinary, and friend all in one instance.

It does not matter where you go, there are going to be good kids and bad kids. There are going to be kids with absentee parents, maybe one or maybe both. There are going to be kids with the utmost manners. There are going to be kids who have never had someone to teach them the difference between right and wrong, much less enforce it. There are going to be kids with a heavy past and some who have no idea what that is like. There are going to be kids who “have it easy” and there are going to be kids who are carrying around more responsibility than half of the adults you know.

There are going to be broken kids. There are going to be kids who lost all their trust for any human long ago. There are going to be the overprotected kids, mom puts a band-aid on everything. There are going to be intelligent kids and there are going to be the ones who struggle. There are going to be procrastinators. There are going to be kids who walk to practice and there are going to be kids who text and say, “Coach I can’t make it to practice today because I ain’t got a ride.”

There are going to be kids who have been and are going through things you have never walked through and hopefully never will. There are going to be kids who listen and those who don’t. There are going to be kids who need you and those who don’t. There are going to be kids who are thankful and those who could care less. These kids…these kids will be an everyday thing, not something you can swat away like a fly. Their problems will become your problems, even when you say it won’t happen, it just does. Something like dedication, character, and having a heart comes over and these kids become your kids, your group, your team, and your family.

Coaches don’t leave that stuff at school, at least mine doesn’t, and I would suspect that no other coach does either. Those things come home with you. As a coach’s wife I hear about the good days, the bad days, the okay days, the wins, the losses, and go through the emotions with him. It’s not always the same emotions, but they are there. While my husband worries about his team and his kids, I worry about him and them as well. Even when he is home, he’s not ever completely there. Some part of him is always wracking his brain about what they can do to be better, who he needs to pick up for practice the next day, or how he can help one or five of them with whatever they currently have going on in life.

It never does get easier either. There are new problems every day. Someone doesn’t have shoes for practice and can’t afford them. Someone’s parents got arrested. Someone has eaten a bag of chips for the last three days because there is no food at home. Someone hasn’t been at school because they are taking care of their little sister. As a wife, as myself, I want to bring them all home because that’s just how my heart works but as a coach’s wife and someone who wasn’t blessed with an endless bank account we just can’t. So you worry and you harbor these things until they are taken care of. You watch your husband worry and overcome mountains for kids, just because. Not because he wants to win but because he’s all of those things that no one ever realized a coach is. The mentor, counselor, chauffeur, and so forth.

Sometimes he’s up till three in the morning figuring things out and sometimes he’s doing what seems impossible. On top of all of this, he is practicing and going to and from games and trying to win. He is dreaming of state titles and working with kids on everything from how to shoot a free throw to how to work as a team. The saying “basketball never stops” is one hundred percent true. As a coach’s wife it has become normal to step back and remember that when he is home we only need to enjoy it because those times are few and far between. I have to often remind myself that summer will come back around and he will spend more time at home than he does the gym for a brief bit, and that is our life and that is okay, because in the end I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

I think people often forget or never realize just all that a coach does but as the coach’s wife I have a different view. I get to see all the “behind the scenes” things that they do. They might do it for their team, they might do it for themselves, or they might just do it for one kid. Either way, often times they are bending over backwards to make things happen and to take care of “their kids”. Being a coach’s wife can be lonely and down right heartbreaking sometimes, but its never a title I would give up.

Being a coach’s wife is one of the proudest titles I have because the amount of work any coach puts in without recognition is something to be proud of. You know, they don’t hand out state rings for “the coach who slept the least this year” or “the coach who acted as a bus route” or “the coach who played the therapist role” or even “the coach who loved his kids”. Those things, they just happen, it’s just part of the job.

Thanks for listening,

#JWT