7th observation

It is Friday April, 26th around noon as I am walking to the ASA building which is the building that holds all of the coaches offices. Today I have an end of the year meeting with my coach. As I walk into coaches office hes starring at his computer with his normal white collard NSU shirt that you can see him wear at least once a week. The meeting was about how I feel on a personal level my performance was then he tells what he thinks. I realize this is a very important meeting for a coach. This gives my coach a chance to have a one on one meeting to talk about the season and see how his athletes feel about it. Coach let me know what I did good on and what I can improve on which has given me a ton of confidence heading into my training for next season.

6th observation

This past Wednesday I decided to observe a coach who coached a sport that I have never seen competed in. I observed coach Michael Coleman as he coached the women's tennis team as they took on Tufts. The women's team fell to the Tufts 5-4. Even in the loss I could see that coach Coleman was very pleased with the effort as he applauded he girls effort after every point. I later learned that the Tufts were ranked 12th in the nation for division 2, so to only lose by one match is a morale victory. As I observed coach throughout the match I could tell he was very emotionally involved. He would be encouraging his girls through every point and coaching his players every step of the way. Coach was coaching so much that he was working up quite a sweat himself that i could see through his white collard NSU shirt.

Interview

During my interview I discovered that becoming a coach can take some time. Coach Hagopian who is the track and field coach at Nova Southeastern University let me conduct an interview and answered questions based on his profession. I discovered that coach Hagopian studied at three different colleges and universities. He attended grad school at Mount St. Joseph's. Coach Hagopian has been coaching for 14 years now and has been a coach at three different schools. Coach Hagopian knew he wanted to be a coach since in high school when he would help his coach with everyday coaching responsibilities. Coach Hagopian's favorite part of being is a coach is helping his athlete's succeed and mature.

3rd observation!

It was about 5:15 on Wednsday afternoon when I walked into the back of the UC after a tiring practice. I was drowning in sweat for the ten mile run I had just finished when I heard music coming from the gym. I rushed to the lockeroom to get a quick shower and watch the girls basketball team in action against the University of Tampa that night. As I took my seat in the stands I was watching coach Marilyn Rule pump up her team. Coach Rule was wearing long black slacks with a white dress shirt and a black overcoat. As her team warmed up she was clapping in encouragement and looking inot a thick binder. I am not sure what she was looking at but I can imagine it was for some sort of game planning. As the game was played it was easy to see that the coach Rule's team was overmatched. Even with her team down by many points she did not stop coaching. For example, she would call a timeout every ten minutes it seemed liked and she pull an athlete to the side and coach her on technique and tell her what she needs to do better. Coach Rule was always into the game no matter what the score was, she even got into an arguement with the referee over what she believed was a bad call and her team was down almost thity points. The game eneded with Tampa winning 62-36 but Coach Rule never showed any disappointment in her team and kept encouraging them as they walked off the court.

Recruiting

It is 12pm on a saturday and I am sitting in the NSU press box entertaining guest. But these just aren't any guest, they are recruits looking to come to NSU and run run track/cross country. Recruiting is when a coach contacts high school seniors and tries to pursuade them to attend their program. I asked my coach what was the hardest part of recruiting and he replied with "making phone calls". He told me how some nights he will call up to fifty recruits to get their attention on NSU's program. As the recruits came in for their visit to NSU they were greated by the coaching staff and current athletes on the team. Coach had ordered about what looked like thirty pizza's and who knows how many drinks for the recruits to enjoy. After all the recruits received all their food they sat at a large table with me and my fellow athletes. We had to try and entertain the recruits and answer all their questions. After we ate it was our coaches turn to try and awe the recruits with his coaching philosophy. Coach began talking about every little detail that goes witht the program, from weight training to the type of snacks given out on meet days. Observing this whole recruiting day amazed me that coaching entails so much more than just coaching. The coach has to be a good salesman if he wants to land good athletes. I could tell my coach was stressed the whole day by how he kept going through his notes. Thats when I realized coaching is only a percentage of what the job is made up of. I could tell by how stressed he was that this was very important.

Everyday I go to track practice but I have never really noticed what my coach goes through to run the team. I am studying the subculture of coaches to see what the up and downs are of being a college coach. Yesterday at 3:30 I was at practice when my coach walked up wearing his usual khaki shorts with a blue and white colar shirt sporting an NSU logo. He had already made our workouts for the whole week, something he does sunday night before every week. When he met up with us we were standing behind the Unviersity Center and he gave his usual speech of everyday matters and get the most out of each workout. One thing I do seem to notice about coach is that he seems to be stressed a lot, which I can understand when he is just one person trying to coach 55 other athletes. I wanted to get away from my coach and observe a coach of a different team that was in action. That is when I decided to watch the men's basketball team in action at 7:30 against Palm Beach Atlantic. Gary Tuell is the head coach for the Sharks. I could hear the coach encouraging his team as soon as they came on the floor just for warm-ups. I could see the highs and lows a coach goes through during a game as coach Tuell was walking up and down the sideline coaching his team either in fustration or encouragement. At the end of the game NSU pulled out an 76-68 victory the ended with the both coaches on each team shaking hands. I will continue to try and get more in depth of what a coaches job consist of not only at practice or during competiton, but what they are doing in their offices and away from the sport.

My Blog

Hello everyone, this will be my first time ever using a blog so I hope it is not a total disaster. My blog will consist of observations I collect on the subculture I choose to study throughout the semester. Hope you enjoy!