All of this World Cup hoopla has me reliving my glory days as a high school soccer coach.
Yep, I know what’s going through your head right now. Some of you are confused, thinking that’s a typo, that I really meant to write about my time as a high school tennis coach. After all, that’s the sport I actually played in high school and know something about.
But no, I really did have a short stint as a JV soccer coach . . . and it was as comical as you might imagine.
If you’re questioning who in their right mind would hire a soccer coach who didn’t know the difference between a free kick and a penalty kick, I don’t blame you. That’s a fair question. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that when I started coaching at Mid-Carolina, I knew less about soccer than Ted Lasso did when he took the reins at Richmond. But, like Ted, what I lacked in soccer knowledge and ability, I more than made up for in my propensity for baking delicious treats for the team.
Honestly, though, no one had any delusions of grandeur when I agreed to coach. The varsity coach, the AD, and I all knew going in I was basically hired to be a warm body in order for us to start a JV team. I wasn’t offended in the least, as I was looking forward to getting to know a different group of students. The $100 coaching stipend was just icing on the cake.
When it came time for me to take the field, however, I was pretty anxious, and I worried that my lack of experience would frustrate my players and their parents. Sure, I could blow a whistle and make a bunch of middle schoolers run laps, but I couldn’t teach them many soccer skills. #dontuseyourhands
Soon, I realized there was an advantage to my inexperience: Because I knew I wasn’t qualified for the job, and I knew I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, I didn’t put a lot of pressure on myself to have some super impressive record. We celebrated the little victories, and that mindset opened the door for me to learn, to grow, and to laugh at my own mistakes . . . like telling my goal keeper to make a move that resulted in his getting a yellow card—whoopsie daisy!
Bottom line: I may not have been the most able to coach soccer, but I was ready, and I was willing, and that’s all my AD needed.
God works in the same way. When He calls us to a job, He just wants us to try. He doesn’t expect us to know it all before we start. In fact, I read somewhere recently that God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.
There are so many leaders in the Bible who started out with a great deal of hesitation. Moses was worried he couldn’t speak, Gideon and Saul both felt insignificant because of their families, and Esther feared King Xerxes would never listen to her, a female and a Jew. And yet, despite their feelings of inadequacy, God used each one of these people to do great things.
As Mordecai encourages Esther to go to the king, he asks her, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for a time such as this?” (Esther 4:14). In the moment, we don’t always know why we’re in the position we’re in, and we may doubt our ability to be effective. Luckily, God doesn’t need our perfection, He needs our obedience, and if we lean into Him, He can use us to fulfill his purpose.
As for my legacy at M-C, did I leave the most impressive record behind when I gave up coaching to work on my Master’s . . . absolutely not. But did I help start a JV program that made the varsity program stronger and gave girls the chance to play soccer, eventually leading to the development of their own team . . . why yes, yes I did.
Over my four years of coaching, I learned a lot, and not just how to recognize offside. I learned about teamwork, I learned about motivation, and I learned that I can, in fact, fit in a locker room dryer.
But above all, I learned that we don’t have to be the best to give our best. Sometimes our willingness to try is the key to victory. It’s amazing what God can do if we let Him work within us. All we have to do is BELIEVE.