Starving 4 Attention

How balanced is your life?

One of my favorite authors is John Eldridge. I have a number of his books. In one of his books he talks about being involved with the arts. He spent part of his early days as an actor. He, of course, was asked to play a number of different roles. He said we tend to continue playing roles in our real life as well. He said this playing of roles in real life make us "posers." This term caught my attention and made me self examine who I was and what I was doing.

I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who said an unexamined life is not worth living. We tend to avoid self examination and one of the reasons for that is we are so busy. Now that I am retired I spend time wishing I was busy again. Strange how I equate busyness with being useful or productive. I also must admit one of the ramifications of retirement is my phone messages and contacts suddenly dropped off considerably and my email box took a hit. In a very brief period of time, I became much less "significant." I wish I could tell you this didn't bother me but it did. I am indeed a "poser." I missed the attention I received when I was coaching.

Either this guy can't decide which sport he wants to play or he is expecting a rough game of hoops!

Now I don't think my feeling are all that unusual. Nor do I want to spend the whole blog analyzing my issues, because I could, and much of it does not put me in the best light!

Why are so many of us posers? Just like so many questions we wrestle with, the answer to this is complicated. I do believe many of us. Yes, even teachers/coaches are starving for attention. We tend to be insecure and measure our value based on how well we perceive the season is going. If the season is going well and we are winning, we feel more valuable, but if we are losing, that tends to alter our perception of self considerably. The media

directs attention to the "winners" and tends to ignore those who are so called "losers" unless they can find a reason to blame. Many of the young people under your supervision are very much like you. They are starving for attention and want badly to be recognized. Some of our players are incredibly good at playing a role. What may appear as bravado or cockiness can be an attempt to cover up insecurities. I believe selfish play at its roots is often about the player's need to gain attention. I have even

witnessed situations in games where a player seems to give more attention to a relative in the stands rather than his/her coach on the sideline. The need for approval and recognition can be very strong. Coaches can be

the same way. We (coaches) also want the approval of parents, peers,

and fans. I am not proud of this just being honest. This pose for approval

affected my decision making at times. It is so easy to want to perform

the role of a people pleaser!

Coaches often measure their value based on won loss records and awards.

Players (and their parents) may measure the player's contribution/ significance based on stats/playing time. Unfortunately, if we aren't self aware, we may also measure the value of the players under our supervision the same way. We become far to concerned with skill development and not nearly enough with character development. I am not being overly critical. The trap so many of us fall into is directly related to which garners us the most attention. Someone once said, "the problem with being in the spotlight is it can blind you!"

Coaches are not doing brain surgery nor are we curing cancer. What we do

is important and we can make a difference in the lives of our players.

Somewhere I heard this coaching axiom .... "The only statistics that matter

cannot be measured." Most of your players will not remember your won loss record or who the rebounding leader was, etc. but I will guarantee you each player will remember how you made him/her feel.

It is very easy to make high school basketball more important than your family, your spouse, your teaching position and even your health. Take some time and evaluate what role you are playing. Are you keeping it

all in perspective? Remember the author of this post was at times a major league "poser". Remember this quote from the legendary Red Green; "Remember I'm pulling for ya.... we're all in this together!"