No Coincidences

Author: Brayden Quackenbush

  • Why Do I Care?

    Why Do I Care?

    I’ve been thinking recently. Why I care about this?

    This being – the Gospel, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ in general.

    Let’s start with Jesus Christ in general. I feel like I write about this constantly and it’s the constant conclusion to one of my posts, so I’ll be brief here. I care about Jesus Christ in general because He has given me everything. The least I can do in return is share Him, follow Him, try my best to be like Him.

    Let’s go broader. Why do I care about the Gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ? That, I think goes in line with why I care about Jesus Christ Himself. If I care about Him, then I would care about His church, and I’d want to share His gospel. That lines up.

    You’ll notice I distinguished the Church of Jesus Christ with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is what I want to focus on and think about here.

    Why do I care to share that I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Why do I invite people to church? Why do I invite people to activities? Why do I share Book of Mormons? Why do I invite people to meet with the missionaries? Why do I share being a latter-day saint? Why do I talk about it? Why does it matter? Why do I care? Why do I keep doing it with such little success?

    It’s something I think about relatively often. The why?

    How do I stay motivated to write spiritually themed blog posts every week not very many read and fewer still are interested in?

    Why do I keep having gospel discussions with people and trying to convince them that this is the restored Church of Jesus Christ – when everyone I talk to disagrees, or worse, doesn’t care?

    Why do I keep inviting people to church and activities when they never come?

    Why do I keep sharing scriptures and conference talks that no one reads or listens to?

    Why is being a “Mormon” important?

    Hmm.

    Sounds depressing right? Sometimes it’s hard. Being a member missionary is hard. It’s discouraging. It seems like an endlessly fruitless effort.

    And yet I’m not being persecuted or crucified so I have really nothing to complain about compared to saints from earlier times.

    So, I’ve distinguished “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” from “The Church of Jesus Christ” but that’s really the answer to the question of why. I do all these things, no matter how hard or discouraging, because I believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Church of Jesus Christ. I believe they are one and the same. I believe this is Christ’s restored church. I believe it is the way back to Him. I believe I was called and sent here to share it. That’s why I do it. That’s why I care.

    I have a friend who converted to this church who once said something I found fascinating. He said, basically, “Whether it’s true or not, I don’t care. This church brings me happiness. It’s made my life better. It’s made me a better person. It’s made me feel closer to God. Is it true? Is it the One True Church? I don’t know. Really, I don’t care.”

    He doesn’t care because for him it’s about his well-being. This church has helped his life and brought him joy. What does he care about the rest of it? While I think in a completely different way, I can appreciate this line of logic, this way of thinking. This person is an extreme pragmatist. So when he said this statement, it told me a lot about him.

    Does what this individual said make him any less of a latter-day saint and disciple of Christ than me? I’ll say, I think it could, but it doesn’t. This person is still one of the most faithful, serving, selfless, Christ-like individuals I know. Ultimately his why doesn’t matter as much as who he is becoming, which is more like Jesus Christ.

    I consider that person’s why somewhat temporal. ‘This church has been good to me and brought me joy, I’m for it.’

    My why is different.

    My question is, what if the church doesn’t bring you joy? What if it makes your life worse? This friend of mine might leave if that were the case. Right now he has no reason to leave.

    Maybe this is why so many leave. They don’t see how the church is benefitting them.

    This friend and I have a mutual friend. The mutual friend is very interested in religion and so we’ve had religious conversations together. After a few discussions, my friend said the mutual friend would never join the church. He said the mutual friend had too much to lose. His family would disown him, his wife would hate him, his whole life would change. It would be too hard. Should that person join the church?

    My friend would say no.

    Again, my why is different.

    I look at that and say, “Is it true?”

    Response from hypothetical person, “Well…”

    “No well, is it true?”

    If it’s true, if God sent a prophet, and that prophet established a church, and it’s Christ’s church – if it’s true – what else matters?

    Is it true?

    I believe it is.

    That’s why it matters. That’s why I care. That’s why it’s so important to me.

    I’ll write more on the temporal vs spiritual benefits of the church another time. But for now, I wanted to share that.

    Is it true?

    Yes.

    Then it matters. It matters more than anything else on this entire earth.

  • Ivy and Sage Thoughts

    Ivy and Sage Thoughts

    This would have been the fifth installment of “Ivy Thoughts” but instead we get our first “Ivy and Sage Thoughts”! Welcome to my world of two adorable daughters. Come on in.

    Let’s start with Sage since she’s new to the segment. She hasn’t started forming full sentences yet, but it’s time she became an official part of these posts.

    Sage loves the Bluey song. For those who aren’t familiar, you can click HERE.

    In the song where it yells “Mom,” “Dad,” “Bingo,” and “Bluey” Sage yells “Dad!” every time. If she hears that song she stops, stares, and yells “Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!” I enjoy her rendition of the theme song.

    Sage is off the charts shy, including around family she doesn’t get to see that often. It’s really interesting because this “shyness,” for lack of a better term, has been a part of Sage since she was a baby. When she was a baby she would sometimes start screaming and crying if someone looked at her. That has continued into her toddler-hood.

    Sage doesn’t like extra attention on her, besides from Beth and I. There was a moment where this became clear. We were doing Sage’s first birthday party at her grandparents. There were great grandparents, aunts, uncles and family there. We put a cake and candles in front of Sage. We sang happy birthday to her. What would normally be a dream come true, a whole cake in front of her, turned quickly to a nightmare when we finished singing and she looked around at all this mass amount of love and attention on her. Sage burst into tears. The collective attention and singing was too much for her to take.

    We’ve seen my family four weekends in the last 6 weeks. Every time we see my family Sage needs at least 24 hours to warm up. She will not go near anyone, gets upset if she gets picked up (or even looked at), and is excessively shy. She will cling to Beth or myself, often laying her head on our shoulder or snuggling her face into our arm to avoid anyone looking at her.

    What’s interesting about this is Sage is the outgoing one between her and Ivy. Sage is wild and crazy and outgoing when comfortable. But if there are strangers around, she gets quiet and closes in on herself. I think I’m like this. It’s interesting how our characteristics are passed onto our children and how some things are just built into us, even as babies. Sage is shy and reserved the same way I was always shy and reserved growing up.

    This past weekend when we were with my family it was fascinating watching Sage’s transformations. At one point Sage was sitting on my lap outside. My mom was in a chair across from us. Sage was snuggling next to me and being her normal (for this weekend) shy, quiet, timid self with my mom nearby. My mom got up to walk inside. The second she was gone Sage stood up and started laughing and screaming and playing. It was an instant transformation. She loves my family once she warms up. Once she warms up she’s crazy and laughing and playing, but until then she is terrified of any outside attention coming her way.

    Sage has inherited plenty of nicknames already. Some of her nicknames include Sagey Sunshine, Sagerific, Rif, Rific, Sage Laura, Roo, and Smudge. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. That’s to say nothing of the dozens and dozens of nicknames Ivy has given her.

    One last special Sage moment that I think exemplifies strong second child. I dropped Ivy and Sage off at school recently. This was out of the ordinary as Beth usually takes them to school and Ivy was letting it be known this was not in routine. She was crying, saying she was sick, and making a big hubub. While Ivy was melting down I set all our stuff down – snacks for the school for the day, draw bags of washed sheets, lunch boxes, and waters. The teacher patiently gathered all our stuff while I consoled Ivy. Sage meanwhile had walked in through the first gate and was waiting to be let in to go play. The teacher was holding Ivy’s lunch box and looking around. “Where is Sage’s lunchbox?” She asked looking all over the place. I looked around too. It was just there. Sage walked back from the second gate and pointed on the shelf where she had set her lunchbox. She then turned around with a complete, “See the people I have to deal with?” look on her face as she waited to be let in to school to start playing.

    Now onto some classic Ivy thoughts.

    After getting home late from grandparents’ home one night, I asked Ivy for a hug and a kiss. She gave me a big hug then she got her face really close to mine and said, “sticker time,” patted her chest and said, “Ivy tired” and got into bed. Still not sure what sticker time meant or was referring to.

    Ivy flushed a toy down the toilet. I told her if she did that again the toilet would break and we’d need to go to the store when we needed to go to the bathroom. She seemed perplexed about this and continued to ask questions. I emphasized that flushing things down the toilet could break the toilet. “I break the house?” She asked. Seizing the opportunity to potentially get her to understand the severity of flushing something down the toilet I replied, “Yes, flushing toys down the toilet could break the whole house.” This had a big impact. She proceeded to tell Beth that she was worried she was going to break the house.

    The next day we were at church. Beth took Ivy to the bathroom. Ivy looked up at Beth and said, “If I flush a toy down the toilet, I break the church?” Beth told me later, that time I caught Ivy flushing a toy down the toilet was the second straight day Ivy had flushed something down the toilet at home. Beth hadn’t told me because she didn’t want me to freak out. Well, now Ivy is convinced our house is going to collapse into a pile of rubble if she flushes anything besides toilet paper down the toilet. She hasn’t put anything in the toilet since. Parenting win.

    Ivy really doesn’t like crane flies. They freak her out. We explained to Ivy that crane flies aren’t bad. They’re actually pretty good because they don’t bother people, but they eat the little bugs that annoy us. Ivy said, “They kill little bugs?” “Yes,” we replied. “They don’t kill people?” That made us laugh. “No,” we explained, “they don’t even hurt people.” Ivy said, “I’m glad they don’t kill people.”

    There’s a toy I grew up with called Playmobil. They’re little figures that I played with nonstop. I still love Playmobil. Ivy has the same love of them and they are all she plays with when we visit Grandma and Grandpa Q’s house in Las Vegas. Ivy has the same love of order that I do and can spend hours lining them up in orderly groups.

    These little figures have plastic hair pieces that click into their heads. When a Playmobil figure is missing its hair its head becomes bowl-like. The top of their head basically becomes a hole. Ivy saw a Playmobil figure without its hair once and exclaimed, “Oh no! He has a hole in his head. Let me see the hole in your head.” I showed Ivy the spot in the back of my head where hair still doesn’t completely grow. “Awww,” she said sympathetically.

    Before one more heartwarming story, I’ll share a full on threenager moment. This morning Ivy got out of bed and came out of her room. I was just about to walk out the door. Ivy does the cutest thing right now. She walks out and says, “Good morning, Dad, Cory is here” (new alias, Cory Matthews from Boy Meets World).

    I said, “Good morning, Cory, come give me a hug before I leave for work.”

    She walked over and said, “A hug and a big smooch.”

    She hugged and kissed my leg. I put my arm around her and patted her head. She started to walk away then came back and did it again. I again patted her head. She started to walk away then came back again. Same process. I started to think she was broken when on the fourth return walk she said, with feirce anger in her eyes, “No, no, no, Dad, don’t touch my head.” So I didn’t touch her head this time and she hugged my leg, gave it a kiss, and walked away. Then she turned around and looked at me and said, “When you touch my head my hair gets so so so crazy! Don’t pat my head, Dad!” She was holding back tears as she walked to our room to say good morning to Beth. As she walked into our room she slammed our door. The teenage years are going to be great, I can feel it.

    But to balance that, let’s end with a heartwarming Ivy moment. Ivy recently hugged me one night and looked up at me and said, “You’re the best, Dad.”

    I love being a dad.

  • Trip Report – Kayaking Horseshoe Bend

    Trip Report – Kayaking Horseshoe Bend

    My family and I went on river trip to Horseshoe Bend. Lees Ferry, the launch off point was roughly 4 hours from my family in Las Vegas and from me in Scottsdale. I left at 4:00am to get to the launch point by 8:30.

    15 miles out my car died, and I coasted those last miles until I reached the overnight lot across from Lees Ferry. I was lucky I made it. I didn’t have time to worry about the car because we were late and needed to get on our boat.

    My family arrived and we quickly organized our wet bags and loaded our kayaks. It was ~an hour boat ride to the dam. We unloaded our kayaks and equipment, then loaded up our kayaks for the trip down the river.

    It was beautiful. We were surrounded by 1000 foot high red rocks. You could see how this canyon had been sculpted by so much water over so much time. It was spectacular.

    The water was freezing. It is 47 degrees year-round, never heats up. Cold. We were off down the river. During our boat ride up the river our guide pointed out campsites, hikes, notable features, and other stops. Our first stop was going to be a good one. Our guide pointed out a white rope, barely visible, dangling along the canyon wall.

    We got off at the first stop and hiked up the red rocks to the white rope. It was dangling ~30 feet straight up a canyon wall. I was the first to climb up it. Easton went next stating, “If it held him it will hold me.” There were two main ropes that went straight up the canyon wall. After that there were a dozen more ropes helping you up crevices, canyon walls, and through gaps. I think it was the best hike I’ve ever done. At the end were near the top of the canyon, looking down at the now tiny river below.

    We hiked back down, the ropes being even more exhilarating going down than up. We made a fire and had hotdogs. At one point during lunch a huge gust of wind came along and shot dirt and pebbles at us. This was not pleasant and not a good sign. Luckily it was the only such experience we had the whole weekend.

    We packed back up and were on our way back down the river.

    We came to our second stop. It was just down from a campground my mom wanted. Unfortunately, that campground was already taken by a group of women. We found a good beach and my parents started exploring the area. I sat in my kayak on the beach and dozed off. That 3:45am start was catching up to me.

    There are many campsites down the river to choose from. This would be one of the first options. The next couple sites would be around Horseshoe bend itself. During our boat ride the guide let us know those were by far the most popular sites. Made sense. A lot of people probably kayaked/boated/paddle boarded this river simply for the Horseshoe Bend portion.

    The area we were at had a decent campsite that wasn’t taken. There was already a guy and his son camped out in the best area overlooking the river. The main downside to our campsite would be lack of view. It was up into the trees a bit and we wouldn’t be able to see the river at all. But it was a 10 second walk down to the beach that no one had claimed so we decided to make it our spot. We were worried about the Horseshoe Bend sites being too crowded and this was about as good as it got, we guessed.

    Pro tip: fall asleep like this so when you wake up camp is setup

    That night we invented a cornhole-like game in the sand, played 3 flags up, 2 on 2 football, cards, and ate copious amounts of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate.

    The next morning I woke up first and went down to the beach. I stretched and read. It was the most peaceful time I’d had in a long time. Except for the duck that didn’t stop quacking for an hour straight.

    The fisher’s boat who camped by us got beached and he asked for some help getting it un-stuck. Garrick, Garrick’s friend Hunter, and myself moved the boat back into the water. It was the perfect amount of exertion in the sun to warrant my first plunge into the freezing water. I ran into the water. I must restate – it was freezing. I end every shower I take making it as cold as I can. The coldest shower in Scottsdale doesn’t come close to that water.

    We packed up camp and started down the river for our final day. We travelled roughly 4 miles the first day and had 7 to go.

    My parents have some really nice kayaks with tons of space and lawn chairs setup to sit in. They look like a king and queen up on their lawn chairs kayaking next to us sitting in the other dinky kayaks they have. My mom and dad let Dresdan and I experience the king and queen kayak treatment for much of the river. My mom would drift behind. I thought she wasn’t paddling hard, was weak, or was just coasting. More on that later.

    We stopped and looked at some petroglyphs that were really neat. We continued on and were searching for a cliff jump our guide told us about but forgot to point out. We knew roughly what mile it was at and were told to “look for a big boulder.”

    We found a big boulder. There were some trees that needed to be climbed through to get behind the boulder. Garrick and I got out of our kayaks and made our way through the trees. Now we had to navigate our way on top of this boulder. I found a tree that could be climbed so I could shimmy up the boulder. I was on top!

    I went to the edge. I asked my dad to poke his paddle into the water to find a deep enough spot to jump. I could see the huge rock in the water that I needed to avoid. Next to us was a smaller rock. The water was clear in front of it. We realized that was definitely the cliff jump our guide was talking about. But it was like 7 feet high. Hardly worth it. Our jump had the exhilaration of needing to clear a huge rock to be safe, plus about 15 feet of air.

    I jumped quickly. Can’t think about these things too much. What was way more exhilarating than the jump was the icy plunge. Again, it was freezing!

    We continued our kayaking. We were going very leisurely, taking our time. The last thing we wanted was to get to the ferry with tons of time that we could have spent on the river or hiking. There was a hike we intended to do still coming up. It was likely our last activity before the last miles to the ferry.

    We came to the hike and for the first time realized it was 5:00pm. We didn’t want to be kayaking after the sun went down. We probably would have enjoyed that hike a lot more, and done a lot more exploring, but we were now in a rush. We quickly went through it and got back to our boats.

    I swapped kayaks with my mom. Remember earlier when I thought she was just weak? Now that we were in a rush everyone started paddling as quickly as they could. We were on a time crunch.

    I paddled, and paddled, and paddled, and watched everyone fly ahead of me. I was quickly at least 200 yards behind anyone else. My mom wasn’t weak, the kayak she’d been using was a brick!

    I’ve hiked rim to rim at the Grand Canyon and that was the hardest single physical act I’ve ever done. This might have been second. It was grueling.

    Part of the problem was the wind blowing against us. If I stopped paddling for 10 seconds I’d lose 5 minutes of work. It was brutal. I decided I couldn’t stop paddling for even a second or else I would get pushed back and have wasted all that energy. I started counting my continuous strokes. 300, 10 second break. Start over. 400, 10 second break. Start over. 500, 10 second break. Start over. 600. After 600, I stopped counting, I never stopped. For almost 2 hours I didn’t stop paddling for one second. No water breaks, no breaths.

    I couldn’t decide what was worse – paddling as hard as I could and watching everyone fly ahead of me, or paddling as hard as I could and watching Easton in my dad’s kayak, not paddling at all, getting further ahead from me.

    It was hard, and awesome.

    We got back to the ferry, emptied our kayaks, loaded them into the car, and it was now a 4 hour drive for each of us to our respective homes.

    It was an awesome trip. We’re already planning our next one. Next time I’ll probably bring my inflatable kayak. I recommend this trip to anyone. It was great.

  • Blessing of Sickness

    Blessing of Sickness

    I think getting sick is a great blessing.

    Before anyone gets mad at me, let me clarify. I think short-term, temporary, not too dangerous, not too terrible sickness can be a great blessing. I’m talking the colds, the stomach bugs, the flu, the non-life threatening sicknesses are the best. Being sick sucks. It’s miserable. I’m the cliché ‘whine and cry more than anyone about being sick’ person, but, I am so grateful for sickness.

    Let me elaborate with a specific example.

    Sage started throwing up like crazy at 9:30pm, soon after going to bed. I got her out of bed. She was projectile vomiting and writhing in pain. We ended up at the hospital. We brought Sage home around 1:30am.

    Sage went right to sleep in our bed with Beth. I slept on the couch. I think I finally fell asleep around 2:00am. At 4:00am I awoke to a familiar sound, but this time it wasn’t Sage. My worry had come true. Ivy was crying. I ran to her room and turned on the light to find her, her pillow, and her quilt covered in throw up.

    I knew more was coming and was too exhausted to do the whole strip the bed and cleanup routine so I’m ashamed (not really, actually) to say I just cleaned it up and told Ivy to lay back down. I wiped her mouth, got a bucket, made sure she was comfortable, got a blanket and pillow for myself, and laid down next to her.

    For the next 2.5 hours, I could have set my watch to Ivy throwing up. Every 20 minutes from 4:00am to 6:20am when we finally got up, she would throw up. Just enough time for me to start to doze off while holding her hand. I’d hear it start, I’d jump up and give her the bucket, I’d wipe up any that missed, I’d wipe her mouth. Rinse repeat (pun intended?).

    This all sounds miserable, right? Where is the blessing in this? This is horrible!

    Well, it kind of is. No doubt it is heartbreaking watching your little ones be sick. It is heartbreaking. They can’t control it. They don’t know what’s going on. It’s sad.

    At 6:20am Ivy and I got up and cuddled on the couch. We put on the cartoon Doug by Ivy’s demand. 18 minutes into a 23-minute episode she said, “This episode is too long put on something else.”

    Ivy and I proceeded to have a Boy Meets World marathon. She was Sean for the rest of the day. I was Cory. Sage was Morgan. Sometimes I was Allen. If you don’t know those characters, step up your Boy Meets World knowledge.

    Sage woke up around 8am or something. This is all a blur now as I hadn’t really slept at all. Sage ate some grapes and I immediately put her back to sleep. Ivy and I were back to our marathon.

    Beth mentioned I should go pick up our prescription of Zofran. As exhausted as I was, I decided this was the best opportunity for me to do that. Ivy was getting tired. She went into the room with Beth to lie down and I packed up to go down the street to the pharmacy.

    Oh did I mention Beth was sick the whole day too? Side note, this is how things go in our family, I’ll likely be puking my guts out 24-48 hours after the rest of the family, I always catch these things on a delay. We joke it’s my Quackenbush DNA. My girls only have 50% of the Quackenbush DNA. The virus will get me, but I’ll fight it off for a while. (I can even more gratefully say now, as I wrote this a couple weeks ago, that I never got this sickness, boo-yah).

    I came back from the pharmacy and luckily got to sleep for an hour(?) before Sage woke up. I got Sage up and fed her some food. We spent an hour bonding, cuddling, and snuggling in the living room before Ivy woke up. I put Sage back to sleep and Ivy and I continued our BMW marathon before going on a walk.

    We walked around the neighborhood, sat in the grass, played eye spy.

    You get the picture.

    Came back. Sage was up. Feed Sage. Bathe Sage.

    Long day.

    Awesome day.

    It’s so hard to slow down in this world.

    Sickness makes us slow down. This was a special day. This is a day I will treasure.

    There were so many special moments. Like on our walk when Ivy held my hand to make me feel safe. Or when Ivy asked on our walk if I knew where the dumpster was and then told me, “You’re absolutely right.” All those sad but tender moments of grabbing a bucket and holding Ivy and telling her, “I’m here, you’re OK, I’ve got you” while she retched and threw up. Sage cuddling in my lap and looking up at me and I knew she knew she was safe and going to be okay. Seeing Sage and Ivy get better before my eyes – getting back to their normal selves.

    There were so many moments that were so important with my girls that day.

    I wouldn’t have had those moments if not for their sickness.

    Being sick is miserable. But it can also be really special.

    One final memorable moment – Ivy was going potty and I was about to get in the shower. I told her, “I’m going to shower and when I get out I’ll get you some food. You can have nachos or noodles or toast or crackers or a sandwich. Think about what you want when I get out.” Ivy’s response, “Dad, I’m not going to think of all those things.”

  • Yelling Coaches

    Yelling Coaches

    I grew up with a lot of yelling coaches. There’s one in particular I still have nightmares about. He was a coach who communicated in only one way: yelling as loudly as possible. I always had the feeling he hated me. As an adult, looking back, I haven’t gained a new perspective on this. It hasn’t become one of those, “He yelled at me to make me stronger, and he really did care about me.” No. I still think he hated me.

    I didn’t respond well to yelling.

    One of my concerns when I started coaching basketball 5 seasons ago was how I would handle yelling. As I mentioned in How do we speak to others, I have an inherent aversion to yelling. I didn’t want to yell period, let alone at my girls. I was worried how the girls I coached would respond to me if I wasn’t willing to yell at them. Would they respect me? Could I discipline them?

    What I’ve found, and I’m grateful to report, is that in my experience you don’t need to yell at anyone to get them to respect you. A quiet, private chastisement or loving criticism is 1000 times more effective than yelling or publicly embarrassing a player.

    There was one game I’ll never forget. We were beating the team badly in the second half, but it hadn’t always been that way. It was a close game through the first half. But as the second half got going, their coach started to get flustered. The coach was yelling at the refs and their players constantly. It was a classic case of a coach losing their cool as the game stayed close. This was obvious from my seat. As the coach yelled at the refs more, their players lost focus and started complaining about the officiating as well. Then the coach started turning their frustration on the players, yelling at them after turnovers or mistakes. I saw their team quickly devolve. Players were throwing their hands up in frustration. After every play, they were looking to their coach to make sure they weren’t about to be yelled at. It reminded me so much of my time playing for my yelling coach.

    That was the reason our lead extended in the second half until we were blowing them out. I always wonder how a coach can expect their players to stay calm and composed if the coach themselves is unable to do so.

    At one point in that game, when the opposing coach was yelling at one of their players, a player on my team who was sitting next to me on the bench looked up at me and said, “Thank you.”  I replied, “What?” and she said, “Thank you for not being like that coach and yelling at us.” That was about the best coaching compliment I’ve ever received.

    I explained to that player my coaching philosophy. Yelling doesn’t help. All yelling does is put everyone on edge.

    That same player, at the end of the season, gave me a card with a note that read, “Thank you so much for this season. I loved playing with you as a coach, thank you so much for being the coach. I hope you have a great time with your wife and Ivy” (this was before Sage).

    If you’re wondering why and how coaching is rewarding, there it is.

    So, do I yell? The season from this example (3 seasons ago now), I actually had to apologize to my team on a couple occasions. There were a couple games where I wasn’t proud of how I acted on the bench. I lost my cool, exhibited frustration on the bench, and sometimes yelled. One time I snapped at a player in the heat of a game. I felt really bad about that. I pulled that player aside afterward and apologized. At practice after a game where I got frustrated and started yelling, I explained to the team my philosophy: how can you stay composed if I don’t? I told them I was disappointed in my behavior and planned to be better.

    I hope that taught those kids something about accountability. If I don’t hold myself accountable, how should I expect to hold them accountable? I doubt they’d ever had a coach admit to being wrong. I wonder, how can we expect these athletes to respect someone who doesn’t admit when they’re wrong?

    One more story from this last season, our first at Notre Dame Prep. We had a really good team this year. We were 15-0 with two games to go. I knew this second to last game would be our toughest test. At halftime, my worries were justified as we were down two points. Throughout the first half I had to constantly reign myself in to keep myself from losing it on my players. They weren’t playing like themselves and I was disappointed. It was only after that I realized they were doing their best, but the lure of that undefeated season had really gotten into their heads. As I was walking from our bench to our locker room, I was prepared go crazy on my team under the guise of lighting a fire under them. If you’ve played serious sports, all these coaching tropes probably sound familiar.

    As I walked from our bench, I received wise words from Cameron. He said, “Before you go in there, remember that these girls have never been down at halftime.” He clearly saw in my face what was about to happen in that locker room. I’m glad he did. He saved me from what would have been a mistake. He was right. These girls didn’t need to get more flustered by not only being down at halftime but then getting yelled at in the locker room. How could I expect them to be composed if I wasn’t? Instead, I put a smile on my face, walked in, and told the girls how awesome it was to be in a close game for once. I then got into the things we needed to do better.

    Now, our team had some stern halftimes throughout the season. As a coach, you’re perpetually trying to lift your team higher, no matter how much you’re winning by. But, what would I have taught those girls if, in the one game they were losing, I walked in and blew a gasket? I would have taught them the worst possible thing – that habits, and effort, and sportsmanship, and accountability were not as important as winning and losing. That is not a lesson I want to instill in any young person.

    As for yelling productively, another fear I had, that didn’t end up being a problem. I used to wonder if I could coach when I don’t like to raise my voice at all. I quickly learned, that in the intensity of a game, I can’t help but raise my voice – to the players on the court, so the ref can hear a question I have, in the huddle over a crowd. This is what I consider productive yelling. My fear of not being able to yell during a game is lost. If anything, I need to tone it down. Those games can get exciting and intense and sometimes I’m tempted to run to half-court in the middle of a play to call a timeout because the ref won’t look at me (that happened).

    Productive yelling is good. Yelling to try to demean a player or to get their respect is not. Especially when that yelling is insulting or embarrassing, which it often is. I didn’t respond well to yelling when I played and it’s my experience that a lot of kids don’t.

    Winning is fun, but it’s not our primary goal as a coaching staff. These girls will all go on to have jobs, be professionals, get married, have kids, and do all the things that make this life rewarding and challenging. Our primary goal as a coaching staff is to prepare our student-athletes to be prepared for life. Basketball will pass. But learning to keep your cool under pressure, have confidence, do your best, and treat and speak to people with respect will better them for life.