The Coach’s Notebook
At the end of each season, there are scraps of paper everywhere. On my bedside table. In the center console of my car. Stuffed into my pants pockets (and often melted by the washing machine). I have a problem.
Each scrap is different: a lineup sheet, a grocery receipt, a torn and creased square of yellow legal pad paper.
Each scrap has something scrawled on it: “toes” in the margin of the lineup sheet, “Pokemon” on the back of the grocery receipt, “bearcrab” on the yellow paper. If I died, CSI would never connect the red strings.
I’ve certainly tried to consolidate the information. Every few months, I buy a notebook. Sometimes it’s a pocket Mead spiral-bound one, sometimes it’s a leatherbound one with a ribbon bookmark and an elastic band to keep it shut, sometimes they’re grid ruled, sometimes they’re unlined. For Christmas last year, my wife got me a fancy monogrammed coach’s notebook with pockets and pen holders, but I always forget it in the car or in my duffel bag and, once again, my pockets fill up with scraps.
Minnesota summers are short and my closet is small, so every fall I swap my swim trunks and tank tops into the attic for my thermals and cardigans, and last weekend, as I turned over my wardrobe, I pulled all those scraps of paper from drawers and pockets and piled them on my desk to sort and catalog before they head to the recycling bin, and I realized why scraps work for me.
They’re not just notes. They’re totems.
Totems are emblematic. They’re important. They represent history and sense memories and context.
A year later, “toes” on a lineup sheet means there was a ten-year-old girl who once had an opponent escape off the bottom because she did the thing that kids naturally do when they are new to wrestling - she put her knees on the mat. When you put your knees on the mat, you can’t put pressure on the opponent. You can’t move as fast. You give up your biggest advantages. And your opponent gets away.
Because I wrote “toes” on that lineup sheet, every time I see that girl in the room I think to myself, “is she on her toes?” And I ask her “are you on your toes?” And then I look around the practice room and I take that extra second with each wrestler to make sure they get that small-but-crucial detail right. And I am a slightly better coach.
I grew up in a small town. The kind of town where it’s rare to go to the grocery store and NOT run into someone you know. Sometimes I miss that. Coaching a neighborhood team in a big city - and running into wrestlers and their parents at the store or the beach or the dog park - makes the city feel smaller. More like the town I grew up in.
A year later, “Pokemon” on the back of the grocery receipt means there was an eight-year-old boy who was scared to tie up, and when he wrestled from space he’d get taken down. And one time I ran into that boy and his mom at the grocery store, and he was wearing a Pokemon shirt. And his favorite Pokemon is Garchomp, so now I know he’s cool. Equally as important, as I checked out, it reminded me of how Garchomp, a ground-type Pokemon, deals with opponents who are faster than him (if you’re not into Pokemon, bear with me): he sets up, tanks the attack, and makes them pay (swords dance, rough skin, earthquake…if you know, you know).
At the next practice, we talked about the ways Pokemon is like wrestling, and how we could think of our setups and attacks and counters in the same way we think about that game. Did that kid immediately become the very best, like no one ever was? No, and I promise that’s the last Pokemon reference, but he did start tying up, and I could see his mindset and the way he approached a match shift. It made me ask myself how I could change up my approach to fit different personalities. I pay closer attention to what’s on my wrestlers’ shirts and what books they leave tucked into their coats and who their favorite musician is. And I am a slightly better coach.
I coach wrestling three or four days a week for about four months of the year, but I spend the other eight months thinking about what I wish I’d said to an athlete, how a new example or different approach might have solved something I’ve been chewing on since then, and how I’ll do it better next season.
I have a day job at an office. When I’m at the office, sitting on a Zoom call, I’ll often think of one of those things and, below the camera, where no one can see, I’ll look like I’m taking notes about the meeting but what I’m really doing is tearing a piece of paper out of a legal pad, scribbling a note to myself, and crumpling it into my pocket for later.
A week later, “bearcrab” is a tag game we’ll play at the end of practice when everyone is “too tired” to work on technique and conditioning, but will happily chase each other around the room while secretly working on shoulder and core strength and hip heist motions. And at some point this season, a wrestler is going to hit a switch for the first time, and they won’t realize it’s because they practiced it 400 times playing bearcrab. It’s gonna work.
My goal for this season is to take all of the scraps of paper that will inevitably find their way into my pockets, all of those moments, all of those totems, and put them into something that won’t melt in the wash. Something CSI (or, maybe, another coach) might be able to make sense of.
Hopefully, it’ll make me a slightly better coach.
