Someone’s FRAME encompasses who they are as a person and what led them to where they are today. We all come from different walks of life which give us different perspectives, so there is no one-size-fits-all scenario for sport coaches. I firmly believe that my values, my culture and background, my experiences, and the context in which I coach now have played a huge role in who I am today.

My Values

            As a person, I value my faith, my family, and my community. I was saved at an early age, and I will forever be grateful for my church and the many individuals that poured their time and energy into teaching the Bible to me. I am a Christian, believing in our Lord Jesus Christ and I firmly believe that has helped mold me into the patient teacher and coach that I am today. My family is one of a kind and I would not trade them for the world. They are the most supportive group of people from my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Anytime anything is needed, they are willing to step up and help in any way. To me, my community is any place where I live or work. I grew up in a small community where everyone knew everyone. Where everyone greeted everyone and if something happened, you knew they would be there for you. That type of mentality has traveled with me everywhere I have gone and will continue to follow me.   

            As an educator, I value education first and foremost. I encourage education to all my students, but I also understand that education, further than high school, is not for everyone. I am a strong advocate for informing young people of the options they have for higher education and for careers. I find myself working with school counselors to help students understand the various opportunities for college, technical school, and careers. I strongly encourage young people to seek a job that they will enjoy so they can provide for themselves and for their families. It is important for me to help young people be informed of the many challenges that they could face in life. Therefore, we have many conversations while learning about sports and physical activity.

            As a coach, I value education of sports, sportsmanship, teamwork, honesty, and perseverance. Sports education is knowing and understanding the sport that an individual participates in. Sportsmanship is displaying good behavior and being fair in the sporting context. Teamwork is working with your team to accomplish specific goals. Honesty is being truthful and trustworthy. Perseverance is staying steady and never giving up. These characteristics take time to teach and may not be developed in one season. I use teachable moments to encourage these characteristics and provide opportunities for my athletes to display these characteristics through role play and examples. 

            Every team that I have ever coached knows that I do not care if they win or lose as long as they are learning from their mistakes and working together as a team. It is of utmost importance to me that my athletes portray the above characteristics whether they are participating in sports, in a classroom, or at home with their families. My athletes know that it is extremely important to me to see them succeed and to be the best individuals that they can be.

My Culture and Background

            I grew up in a small community with a very close-knit family. We are a traditional American Caucasian family that shares meals, family time, and just enjoy being together. Our family has a farm where I grew up driving tractors and trucks, and I learned the value and meaning of hard work. There is something special about caring for a plant or animal and seeing the produce of your love, sweat, and energy. I also grew up going to church where I was saved at a young age. I thought everyone went to church, had a farm, and had the same things that I had while growing up. Once I got a little older, I quickly realized that was not the case, and it hit me like a ton of bricks when I really understood that most did not have the same opportunities that I had while growing up. We did not have everything that we wanted, but our needs were met and that taught me that I was going to have to work for what I wanted.

            One example was in a college class at Valdosta State University. I had a classmate that stood up and discussed his own personal life as his part to the group projects that we were presenting. When he got done talking, there was not a dry eye in the room. He explained that as a small child, his mother would run drugs at night where he would be in the back floorboard of her vehicle hiding. She would drop him off at school the next day in the same clothes that he wore the day before and he quickly became known as the pee-pee boy. He experienced many sights and sounds that a small child should not have to experience and consequently, caused him to perform poorly in school. They were living out of her car and would occasionally spend the night in a hotel room. On those nights, she would leave him alone where he would sit terrified not able to sleep due to fear. His father’s parents later recused him from his mother and gave him a better life, but the effects stayed with him.

My Life Experience

            As I already stated, I grew up in a wonderful farm family. My grandfather (PawPaw) planted my older brother and I our very own patch of squash each summer. This was no small patch of squash as my grandfather did not believe in small gardens. We picked rows and rows of squash and then we washed, graded, and packed each one. The treat was to ride to the market with dad or pawpaw to sell the packaged squash and to learn about the financial facet of farming.

            While farming has made a huge impact on my life, it is not the only aspect of life that has molded me into who I am today. Thankfully, my parents allowed me to be a part of any extracurricular activity I choose. Softball was a large part of my life growing up. I played recreation ball every year and I was chosen to be on the all-star recreation team every summer. Those recreational softball experiences rolled into school ball, once I got in high school, and ultimately helped guide my high school softball and soccer experiences.

            I was also involved in 4-H and FFA where I competed in livestock shows, livestock judging events, shot on the shotgun team, participated in land judging, and I was also in the band where I played the trumpet. I was an extremely busy young person that was pulled in many different directions. I had to be extremely organized and prepared for whatever was needed on a daily basis. Those experiences have allowed me to juggle so much as an adult. While I am a teacher and a coach, I am also a wife, a stepmother, an involved aunt, and I am the president of the Calvary Lions Club where I wear many hats in our large yearly festival.

Coaching Context

            Currently, I am teaching and coaching at Lee County Middle School East in Leesburg, Georgia. I teach physical education, and I coach middle school softball and golf. Our high school is classified as class AAAAA. The district has two middle schools, East and West. Our school has over 600 students and approximately 160 athletes. We offer 15 sports programs where seven are shared between East and West. While our school demographics show that there are more Caucasian students than African American students, there are more equal numbers amongst our athletes. We have around 32 coaches who are mainly Caucasian. Most of the coaches are physical education teachers as they mandated us to coach two sports as of this school year.

Conclusion

            In closing, it is easy to see how an individual can be modeled and shaped by their values, their culture and background, their experiences, and the context in which they coach. There are many aspects that influence our lives, but the ones that make the most impact are the ones that we remember most. Those aspects are the ones that make us or break us, and we either want to continue to take that path or pave a new one.