Interview with Coach Joe

A truly great interview with a truly great coach. I'm excited to share this one with you.

I’m talking with Coach Joe today. Coach Joe played for UC San Bernardino, coached for New Mexico ODP, West Region ODP, and for Division III and Division I colleges. He’s worked as a Technical Director in Oregon and was recently offered a position at an MLS Academy. He has now retired from coaching to spend more time with his dog and walk with his wife (or maybe it’s the other way around). Coach Joe was kind enough to sit down with me and converse about egos, competition, the system of youth soccer, and so much more. I hope you enjoy it!

Joe, super good to see you! Let’s just dive right into it – what factors led to you retiring from coaching?

There were multiple factors related to that; The current culture within youth competitive soccer, the culture at the existing club and leadership. But then, on a larger and more personal scale, it came down to a lifestyle. It came down to a quality of life component for me. Me being in my 50s and looking at what I want to experience out of life. What I was experiencing and doing – was it sustainable in a way that would bring me long term peace? Was it benefiting me and my health? My physical health? My mental health? My relational health with my wife?

I started coaching when I was 18. There was a period of 7 years when I didn’t coach, but I coached in some form or fashion since then. In the last 14.5 years at the club here in the role I had, I was basically working days, nights and weekends for 14.5 years. It wasn’t just coaching a team in the evenings. It was coaching coaches, it was coaching multiple teams, it was helping improve the processes within the club. My role was bigger than coaching a single team, and even with a single team you’re out there two to three evenings a week and on the weekends. It does eat up a lot of time when you might be spending it doing other things that are good for you as well.

And you add on top of that the contribution to retirement and what my personal ideal is in retirement. It wasn’t paying or providing the benefits I need. So now, who supplies the medical benefits? Well my wife, and that’s a lot of pressure for her, and I wanted to relieve her of that. She’s taken on that role for us for 15 years, and that was a lot. She never felt like she could make decisions that were healthy for her. Maybe she didn’t want to do the job, yet if she’s the only one providing the medical benefits then she’s trapped.

There were personal motivations to stop coaching too. I love coaching. It’s a space where I get to positively impact young people. Help them accomplish, or help them experience an experience they want to have. Maybe be the one person in their life that provides a positive light in their day. Maybe be that person who pushes them or challenges them in way they need or want to be challenged.

But there was a component that I’ve been mulling over for the last few years, which is that I don’t know if I believe that the direction of coaching in general in youth competitive soccer is headed in a healthy direction. I felt that we to some extent, me included, were all part of a big machine that used a lot of nice words and said a lot of things that everyone would say “Yeah, that’s important and that’s good.” But there was actually no delivery. It was lacking the emotional intelligence by leadership, and the coaches involved, and the parents and families to deliver on things that we all agree on: being human first and taking care of kids first.

I think that, for me, I notice that all these buzzwords are out there on club websites, being said by coaches “we’re all about developing, we’re all about this and that.” But there wasn’t a lot of introspection happening toward the things they wanted to help kids with and they weren’t actually modeling those things themselves. I spent my life around the game at different levels and I became a little disillusioned with it. I had to ask myself “What are we doing here?” I love the game, I’m still passionate about the game, I still enjoy it. But I was questioning “What is my role here? Am I able to have an impact in a way that I think is healthy for young people and for myself?”

These were a lot of the factors I was thinking of; personal impact on my mental health, physical health, to retirement issues, marital health, to “What am I doing? What is this industry I’m a part of? Do I align with the values of it? Do I align with what I’m seeing happening and do I have the ability to impact and change what I think needs to change?” All those things came into play in my decision.

Those are things I struggle with and have been contemplating too. And I assume you’re referring to when clubs say “We’re about development not winning. We’re here to help people grow holistically” but do you think it’s true across the industry that all clubs are just saying that? What about it in the system makes it that way?

Well I think it’s a societal issue. You have a leader here and there that is emotionally intelligent, introspective, human first, and will have some impact. You’ll have a coach here or there that will do that. But the ability to do that as a single club really comes down to strength in your leader, the people you hire as coaches, and then your ability to educate families to a point where you can mitigate some of their pre-existing beliefs or conditions. And that’s the biggest issue and the hardest one.

Parents want to see their kid have a good experience. They want to see their kid succeed – whatever they define as succeed – and they want their kid to be happy. But what they believe will make their kid happy, and what they believe success is and how you get there, is the problem. The reality is that there’s a lot of parents, coaches, and leaders in youth soccer that don’t do their personal work. They don’t challenge their own beliefs about things.

It’s easy to say winning is not important, but then watch how they behave. Watch how a parent behaves when their child isn’t playing, watch how the coach behaves when the referee doesn’t make the call, or when the other coach is saying something they don’t like. Watch these things, watch what the leader actually does. When I look at it, it’s a tough challenge. I really think that the parent has to be part of the equation, and they’re actually the biggest influence in this whole thing. Them and coaches.

For me personally, there’s a lot of beliefs that aren’t challenged. Particularly if we err on the side of taking care of the kids holistically then the team doesn’t win and that will end up in a bad experience. And the result of that will be that the club doesn’t attract player, and then there will be no club if we’re not attracting players. Everyone agrees in this slippery slope that I don’t agree with. I don’t agree that that’s true and that’s what will happen. But not many are willing to take what they see as a risk to really go down the route of saying “We’re a competitive club and we’re going to be human first. We’re really going to be human first here.”

And that’s a challenge because healthy competition is rare. Competition where you actually care about the people you compete against, where it’s not about “I win, you lose.” I believe you can create that environment where you can take care of people and you can create a healthy competitive mindset and have players that have a great experience. And the ones that want to do more will be able to do more. And you’ll have teams that still win games. I believe that can all happen, but I just don’t know if there’s enough leaders within the soccer community.

If you think about how club leaders are hired and how coaches are hired at any club, there isn’t a strong vetting process. It’s “Hey, you played the game? Oh, you played at a high level? Oh, you happened to coach a team that won some games before? You’re hired.” It’s not like if you go for a job interview for a business organization where you’ll go through 2, 3, 4 interviews. They might ask you to show the skills they want. You go through a whole process.

And really what are they looking for? They’re looking for your emotional intelligence, they’re looking at you as a person. Now that’s not everywhere, but in general, for corporations and organizations, the vetting process is more detailed. But to be hired as a youth soccer coach or DOC, that’s rare. And sometimes it’s a board that’s made up of parents who hire a DOC. Well, what’s the filter and predispositions of those parents? What are they looking for?

They might see someone and say “Oh, this person sounds like they know what they’re talking about. They say the right words. Oh! They have a winning history somewhere.” That does not make for a coach that makes great experiences for teams or for individuals. I would say that’s the challenge. There has to be more people willing to challenge the status quo, more introspection, more challenges to the beliefs about what makes a club successful, what makes the experience a good experience for youth. I don’t think those beliefs are challenged.

Yeah, that type of reflection can be difficult and painful.

Absolutely. I’ve worked with a lot of coaches and we’re very ego-driven. We’re very ego-driven in general. I put myself in that bucket too. I’ve been there. I’ve been the guy yelling at the referee, I’ve been the guy yelling at the other coach across the sideline, I’ve been the guy who said something harsh to a player because I was frustrated. And why was I frustrated? Because I wanted to see a better result. And that result might not have been in the wins or losses column, the result was I wanted to see the things I was coaching being done and it wasn’t happening. So I got frustrated and then I turned on the kid and said something harsh to them. So I’ve been there, I’ve been in the bucket.

But I started doing my own work, saying “This doesn’t feel good.” I don’t like walking out of a training session and walking away from it saying “Ya know that didn’t feel good.” And what didn’t feel good? It wasn’t what I was teaching. It was something I said or someway I reacted to something at our training session and I knew that hurt somebody. And I knew it because I could see how kids would respond and I still went ahead and said something that I knew would hurt them.

I would walk away from sessions thinking “Yeah, on the soccer end I could have done a much better job of teaching that,” or “How I designed that session would be more effective if I did it this way or that way.” But that’s not the thing that killed me the most. The thing that killed me is when I knew I walked away and I took an action that was probably unhealthy. But I did my work on it.

I didn’t like it when I walked away from a game and I said something to a referee that was hurtful. Or I got in a pissing match with the other coach. The things I would ask my players to do I wasn’t even modeling. I wasn’t even modeling it from the sidelines. But yet, everybody around me, including parents, would go “Good for you, Joe. You should have yelled at that referee.” “Good for you, Joe. That other coach was a dick.” Parents would say “Our kids needed to be yelled at today because blah, blah, blah.” So you’re applauded for bad behavior. In youth competitive soccer you are applauded for bad behavior, and we have too many people who believe that unhealthy behaviors are actually a good thing.

That’s funny because I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of ego this past week. Obviously having an ego is important in terms of being confident, assertive, and enforcing your will to some degree. But like you said, the ego is dangerous because it blinds you to so many different things. You end up hurting people without even really being aware of it. What signs do you look for that say “This is my ego talking, not necessarily me”?

It’s actually pretty easy. The first thing you do is check in with your body. How does my body feel right now? Are my shoulders up? Am I tense? Do I feel tension in my body? That’s the first place you can check in. If you feel tension, it tells you that your ego is getting involved. You’re believing something in that moment that is absolutely not true. So that’s the first place.

I noticed that when I was on the sideline I could deliver a message, with passion, and be at peace. And I can also deliver a message with passion and be tense, angry, and stressed. So that’s the second place I would check in. How am I feeling right now? If I’m feeling anger, I probably need to check it.

And here’s the thing, anger in sports is promoted. I’m not saying anger is bad, you don’t have to get rid of it. It exists and it’s there for a reason. But who’s that anger being directed at and what’s it for? If you’re not inspecting it in that moment, like “I’m feeling really angry. I’m feeling really frustrated. What’s that about?” If you just go with it and run, that’s when bad things happen. That’s when you hurt people, that’s when you go off the rails, and you send a message that you don’t really want to send.

But if you ask yourself in that moment, “Okay, I feel tense. I notice my shoulders are strained and I’m angry. What is that about? Why am I angry?” If you take that moment before you say anything to a player, to a teammate, a coach, a referee, if you take that moment and say “Why am I angry?” And check in with yourself, more than likely you’ll find an answer that will bring you some clarity, and that anger will subside. And then out of that clarity you’ll be able to speak without hurting somebody.

….That’s where I’m going to pause this interview for now. Our conversation went on for much longer, I want to release it in multiple segments since so much of it is helpful and I don’t want any of it to be lost in all of the other great stuff. Hopefully you found something helpful that you can take away and implement into your own coaching over the next few weeks. In the meantime, keep an eye out for the next part of my interview with Coach Joe, and if you liked what you read pass it along to other coaches you know!

The second part to the interview is now up!