Autoethnography

This site displays my amazing Autoethnography: This story takes place during my senior year of high school when I was playing soccer, and in many ways it represents the end of a long chapter that started four years earlier. At Lakes, I played all four years of high school soccer beginning my freshman year. During my freshman and sophomore year, I played under our JV coach, who at the time seemed like a pretty calm and respectable person. But everything shifted when the Varsity coach left after my sophomore season, and our JV coach was promoted up to lead Varsity. That meant when I reached my junior year and finally made Varsity, I was once again playing under the same coach but now in a completely different environment, with far higher expectations and pressure surrounding the team. At first, I was excited. I had worked hard to earn a spot on Varsity, and I wanted to prove I belonged there. But almost immediately, things felt different. The coach I remembered from JV wasn’t the same person leading our Varsity practices and games. He would switch from being chill and relaxed to suddenly angry out of nowhere, and it wasn’t the usual competitive fire you expect from a coach his reactions were extreme. He could go from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye. When he hit those moments, the whole team paid for it. We’d be forced to run, sprint to the other end of the field and back, or do some kind of exhausting punishment drill. During junior year, it only happened a handful of times, so I brushed it off. I figured maybe he was adjusting to the pressure of being a Varsity coach, or maybe he was just having bad days here and there. But when senior year came, everything got noticeably worse. His outbursts were more frequent, more intense, and way more uncalled for. It didn’t matter if we had just lost a game, or if someone messed up a drill, or even if a pass was slightly misplaced he would erupt. There were times a player took a shot that he thought was badly hit and he would completely lose it on them, yelling in a way that made the whole team tense up. Being on the receiving end of that anger was exhausting, and honestly, mentally draining for all of us. Behind his back, everyone on the team talked about how annoying and unpredictable he was. No one dared say it to his face because none of us wanted to be the next target or the reason the entire team had to run for twenty minutes straight. We had all wanted to bring up the issues with him since junior year, but we knew he wouldn’t take it well. The way he reacted to criticism or even simple suggestions was unpredictable and usually ended badly. Every once in a while, we could get him to have a constructive conversation, but those moments were rare. Most of the time he was extremely closed-minded. If you ever voiced an opinion, even politely, he would shut it down instantly and make you feel like your idea was stupid or impossible. It was frustrating because we’d be in the middle of a game and see something obvious that needed to be changed, but he refused to adjust his plan no matter what. To be fair, he wasn’t always like this. There were times when he was chill, and during those moments he could actually be a cool guy. I had a few good conversations with that calmer version of him, and it made everything more confusing because I knew he wasn't a bad person he just had a terrible way of handling stress, emotion, and leadership. At the beginning of senior season, I started as a Right Back/Fullback, which fit because I had recently been converted to a defender during Club soccer. I was more defensively minded that year, and I felt comfortable in that role. But during our first game, I got put up at winger near the end, and I actually did pretty well. I think that moment planted a seed in his mind, because later in the season he kept playing me there more often. I didn’t mind playing winger, but I felt like I could contribute more defensively. After one game we lost, I suggested calmly and respectfully that maybe I should go back to Right Back. I didn’t say it was anyone else’s fault or that the current Right Back was doing badly; I just offered the idea since the right side had been exposed all game. But he immediately exploded. He started yelling at me, accusing me of trying to tell him how to coach. He insisted it wasn’t the other player's fault even though I never blamed them. He made it into something it wasn’t, and it embarrassed me in front of the whole team. Walking back to the locker room after that game, I felt furious and honestly hurt. My teammates even told me privately that they agreed with me, and that the coach needed to learn to take input from his players. That meant something, because it reminded me I wasn’t crazy he was just impossible to talk to. That night, I hit a breaking point. I realized that if he wouldn’t even consider a small change like that, especially after a game where it would’ve clearly helped us, then nothing was ever going to change. Our team would keep losing, he would keep reacting the same way, and we would keep dealing with the same frustrations. Lying in bed that night, I decided I was done. With only a few games left in the season, I told myself that the next morning I would go to the Athletic Director and turn in my jerseys. I didn’t want to keep playing under a coach like that. I didn’t even feel like I was playing the sport I loved anymore. But then my best friend who was also our team captain called me that night. I told him what happened, and he listened. Then he told me to finish the season, not for the coach, but for my teammates and my friends. He reminded me it was our senior year. We only had a few games left together, and after that we would all go our separate ways. Hearing him say that actually got through to me, and it was enough to convince me to stay. So I showed up the next day, and I finished the season out. Looking back, I think one larger cultural phenomenon in this story is the very common experience athletes go through of loving a sport but having to deal with a coach who struggles with controlling emotions or communicating in a healthy way. It’s something you hear about in professional sports and in other high schools, but I had never personally experienced it until then. My story reflects that broader sports culture phenomenon where the passion for the game is constantly battling the difficulty of being under a coach who doesn’t always lead in the best way.