Inspirational coaches who changed your life

[Steve19]

This thread is about values. It's about coaches. Many BP'ers can trace their values to an inspirational coach. A coach who said or did something that changed the way you looked at the world forever.

In my case, that coach was a track and cross-country coach named Marc "Whit" Whitaker. Whitaker is now deceased and was a former coach at Brookhaven, where he coached various teams to state championships. He was inducted into the Ohio high school hall of fame and acted as an assistant coach for the US Olympic team.

Whit taught me to play to your strengths. My dream of playing basketball at Ohio State ended when everyone else just grew taller than I did in high school. I am 6'1" now, but at 5'3" entering my senior year, I had no chance of making the team. Whit convinced me that the end of one dream is the beginning of another, if you know yourself well-enough to play to your strengths. I was able to train for and run cross-country. Even though I was not a champion, I still was able to compete and continue to run marathons today.

I was able to see Whit a few years ago to thank him for the impression he made on my life. He died a few months later. In his 80s, he was still working out with weights and still incredibly active. His final comments to me concerned finding the next challenges that would play to my strengths and winning. He also urged me to help young people.

I am quite sure that I would not be in the physical condition that I am today or have achieved the limited success that I have, if Whit had not made the effort to sit with a shattered kid who had been cut from the basketball team for the first time and talk to him about what it means to be a winner in life.

 

[BB73]

Great post, Steve. The only coach I can remember talking to years afterward was my 4th grade baseball coach. Of course, he wasn't my coach for very long. The team was made up of 4th through 6th graders, and they only took 4 fourth grade kids for the team. So I appropriately got cut.

A couple years ago I saw him volunteering as a church usher. I told him that he was my baseball coach in 4th grade and that he cut me. At that point he's a little nervous looking at me, apparently concerned that I was still ticked about it. I told him that I deserved to be cut, and that I wanted to thank him for taking the time to coach all the other kids on that team.

 

[tedginn05]

with me only being 16 i can't really "think" back on my coaches from years before, since i'm still being coached at the time being, i wish i could say i've had a inspirational coach but i really haven't, maybe in 15-20 years i'll think differently

 

[stxbuck]

I never had a coach who was a particular inspiration-although both Dick Berning (RIP) and Steve Rasso at St. X are great guys, and a definite model for what coaches should be. One of the biggest influences tho, was my supervising teacher for my student teaching, Steve Poitinger at Lebanon HS. His love and knowledge for the the material he taught, and the way he interacted w/ his students were definitely professional inspirations for me, and I hope some of the good things I do in the classroom were taken from his example.

 

[ekeen]

I haven't had too many coaches I would call role models. My freshman english teacher was awesome - Mrs. Morrison. Firm but fair.

Another role model was Roger Blackwell......except the part where he broke the law.

 

[ScarletInMyVeins]

My biggest role model wasn't a coach. He was my choir teacher at West High here in Columbus. My sophomore year in H.S I found myself going down the wrong fork in the road and hanging with the wrong crowd. At the time I was going to Briggs H.S, had quit playing football, started somking the summer before, and was failing every class. Eventually I just stopped going to school all together. A friend of mine who was going to West, and was deeply involved in the music programs invited me to come to one of thier rehersals that they were having after school. I went and sat in the back of the room bored and wondering why I ever went in the first place. After the rehersal was over the teacher (Mr. Wallace) approached me and asked why I was there and why I wasn't participating. I explained to him that I wasn't a student there, that I was just there watching my friend. He began to ask where I went to school, how I was doing, etc, etc. We talked for wht seemed forever, and by the end of the conversation he convinced me to start going back to school.... His school, and joining the choir.

If it wasn't for Mr. Wallace I believe that I probably would've ended up in jail or possibly worse. That's how far off course I strayed. My junior and senior years at West were probably the best two years of my life so far. I had to work my ass off to make up for the classes I failed my sophomore year (I had to retake all of those classes and all of the classes for my junior and senior years), and he always made sure that I was doing what I was supposed to. I could never thank him enough, and speaking of that, I haven't paid him a visit in a while. Maybe I'll to that this week sometime.

 

[CausticMick]

Rocky Pentello. I believe him to be the best coach in the state, but of course that's because I've never experienced any other in high school. I pick Pentello because of the way he motivates. He makes good players great and great players world-beaters. He motivates his kids on and off of the field. In football, I played for two coaches in 8th grade, Rocky's staff in 9-12, a full college staff at ONU for 2 years and another staff at Capital. I played 4 sports in high school (track, baseball, and wrestling as well) and no other coach made nearly an impression. There is only one coach I liked nearly as much as Rocky throughout my scholastic football career- Joe Loth, who is now the head coach at Otterbein was our D-Coor at Cap. He was a great X's and O's guy who I respected because he gave it to us (his defense) straight. He called you out if you deserved it. He taught you when appropriate. He treated us all like men, not boys. Those two men could get me to return in a heartbeat if I still had the eligibility. Good coaches are rare. Great coaches, nearly unheard of- I've had 2 of them and feel very lucky for that.

 

[RugbyBuck]

Great thread, Steve. While I have had my share of coaches, I would have to say my dad. Before I began playing organized team sports, my dad was into long distance cycling (not a common hobby in the South in the late-'70s). He and I rode together through small towns all over the southeast. We had no "sag wagon" and there was no way to get home other than under your own sail. I'm sure that had there been an emergency, we would've called it, but just being bone-dead tired wasn't considered an emergency. I rode my first century (100 miles in a day) a few weeks before my 10th birthday. It took close to 14 hours and every single minute sucked, but 26 years later I'm grateful for the opportunity to have done it and that he wouldn't let me quit.

I learned self-reliance and resolve from my dad that served me well in later team sports and continues to do so. I hope to somehow convey that to my kids as they get older. My dad and I began a cross-country bike trip when I was ten, but only made it from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. We had to break it up into stages because of work and school and never got back to it. My wish is to do the next leg alone, the next two with each of my girls, and finish at the Pacific thirty-seven years or so after we started with my dad and his grandchildren.