Where Our First Coaches Go Wrong

Feature Writing for N.C.C. News on Tuesday, Oct. 31:

By Jesse Cook

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A retired athlete laces up his skates for a trip around the frigid rink in a warm early October. He is 21 years old, covered in twice as many layers as the Central New York locals, and mentally exhausted with the competition.

“I didn’t even want to play with my dad, but he had me try out for it anyways because he had played soccer with the guy who ran the team like 40 years ago or something like that.”

Jared Johnston is a broadcast student at Syracuse University, but before he ever picked up a microphone, he was a top tier athlete in his home state of Florida.

“I went with the Clearwater Chargers, and they had a development academy that they called the D.A. Team, but basically it was a roster of about 26 players, of which I was probably like 25 or 26.”

Jared continued, “That team had won a national title before I joined. After I joined, no they did not. But so yeah, they did have some sort of national reckoning, I guess for sure.”

What changed that?

“So [my dad] just kept making me play,” Jared said of his father. “But I didn’t want to play after a while for that. And then on the tennis side, I had quit when I was 12, 13.”

Now, Jared uses his old ice hockey, tennis, and soccer equipment for intramural teams. On Monday, he lugs his hockey bag to Tennity Ice Pavilion, a 23-year old barn where the Syracuse women’s Division One team plays, as well as the club men’s squad, and other teams like Jared’s, “The Oakies.” On Thursday, he swings a pair of cleats over his shoulder before driving to S.U.’s South Campus to play at the bustling Skytop Soccer Field for his “Deportes” crew. Occasionally, he spends Sunday morning smacking a tennis ball around the Drumlins Country Club courts with some combination of his four roommates.

To Jared, the Oakies, Deportes, and his roommates bring him a sense of the old without the unpleasantness. “I’d say it’s just kind of like a getaway, I guess a lot of people might read books, do puzzles, write in a journal. I guess if they want to not think about things, I guess… even if it’s a very simple intramural game, you’re not really worrying about anything else.”

Jared began his sports journey like many of the N.C.A.A. athletes he covers in his broadcasting, as just a kid who was a little bit better than the others.

“My brother and I are twins, and as we got better, my dad and my coach -- of which we had different coaches -- would play us up division. So we were eight and we’d play U10 instead of under 8. When we were nine or ten, we started playing U12. And when we turn like 10, we started playing U14. So sometimes it’s a kid who’s 14 about to turn 15, and you’re 10 years old.”

On the ice, a senior from Ontario breaks through the defense for a goal from the slot. It is just her second tally of the season. For someone who led the squad in scoring the year before, two goals by the fifth series of the year is a major setback. Her mom overlooks the contest after her second three-hour drive from Ottawa of the season.

That goal scorer is forward Sarah Thompson. One of those teams Jared covers is her S.U. women’s hockey squad. She said her experience throughout college has been a difficult one, but that the people make it better. She said, “You know, I think it’s my teammates -- it’s not easy to get up every single morning at 6 a.m. and come down here to the rink.”

“Having them here helps a lot,” she continued. “We push each other a lot and try to bring the energy up, even it’s 7 a.m. practice or if we’re going into the third period after a tough battle out there. They motivate me everyday and push me to be my best because no one wants to let these girls down.”

The camaraderie that Thompson emphasized never existed for Johnston.

“As far as team sports go,” he explained. “When I played soccer, it was just me moving around to play for a bunch of different teams that I wasn’t motivated to play for.”

“You’re on a team of 26 people after you left the team of seven years of everyone you played with for seven years, so that was kind of demotivating after a while for sure.”

That loss of longing for the game is by no means uncommon.

For a former tennis player who now satchels a briefcase to his lecture hall instead of taking a racquet bag to the courts, the athletic retirement is a familiar memory.

Dr. Jeff Pauline is a professor of sport psychology at Syracuse University, and like Jared, he was a high-powered athlete in tennis during his youth who eventually abandoned competitive athletics.

Dr. Pauline said that the idea of what flips the switch for kids is simple. He started, “Especially when we’re talking about young kids, they want to have fun.”

It all comes back to the idea of a team mentality for many of these young athletes.

Pauline continued, “That’s by far and away the most important thing to them… They like to do stuff with their friends, so just being affiliated with sport and social groups that are a part of sports is a big part of it, too.”

Similar to how Jared and his brother (Joseph) played sports together as kids on those ultra-competitive rosters, Dr. Pauline comes from an extremely athletic household. Not only do both of his kids play high school sports in every season, but he played semi-pro tennis, and his wife Gina was a collegiate swimmer.

“I think it’s a big part of who we are as a family,” he began. “I’m sure we do put some expectations on our kids, not in terms of performance, but just doing things to the best of their ability.”

For Jared and Joseph, those expectations came in the form of incentives. “With my father, at least, it was kind of to a fault where he just wants you to succeed, succeed, succeed; go to this coach, do these lessons, get this equipment. You can do this, and I’ll put you in this position.”

The switch from the playing field to the sidelines felt quite natural for high school lacrosse coach Tracy Parker. She called those expectations a drain on young athletes saying, “There’s some self-doubt sometimes that if I’m not doing x, y, z club that I might not be good enough.”

Parker crouches down in a swarm of her players helping them collect stray lacrosse balls from practice clad in a black windbreaker hooded over her head amidst the cold, constant, and misty October rain. The weekend of Halloween, her teenage athletes wear bright smiles throughout the gloomy weather in costumes covered by lacrosse pads.

By the time that Tracy took her current job as the lacrosse coach at Jamesville-DeWitt High School, she had already surpassed most athletic stress. As a college field hockey player at Syracuse in the late 1990s, Parker earned two All-American seasons.

Parker focused heavily on the inter-personal team aspect of the mentality of sports. “From my vantage point, why they peter off during middle school is just their own self-confidence.” As she said this, a girl wearing a Batman costume sprinted after a ground ball tossed by a young woman in a unicorn suit.

“My husband would say that even though I’m busiest during the season between being a mom and a teacher and coaching, I’m happiest.” Tracy circled back to the team mentality as Batman laughingly returned the ball to her unicorn teammate. “There’s just something about a dynamic of a team and those friendships and those bonds and those lessons that you take with you for life.”

The common drive between Sarah, Dr. Pauline, and Coach Parker is the family aspect. Sarah scored her second goal of the season in a home loss to No. 15 Penn State on Sunday, Oct. 29 with her mother in the stands. Her last goal before that came at home against Merrimack on Friday, Oct. 6 also in front of Mom.

“I think she’s my good luck charm!” exclaimed Sarah. “I’m crossing my fingers that she’s here the next time we play at home.”

Dr. Pauline emphasized the importance of those parental and coaching relationships in early development. He said, “Hopefully what we have, too, is quality adult leadership that can guide young people not only to get better at their sport, but also perhaps to develop better as a person.”

According to N.B.C.’s youth sports outlet Sport Engine, 70% of kids quit playing by the time they turn 13. Jared lasted until high school, far beyond that expected range, but it still took a toll.

Amidst those years of aggressive competition in hockey, soccer, and tennis, the combination of sport and home life simply became too much. He said, “At the end of those like really seven or eight years of me playing competitively like I just didn’t want to play in general.”

“[My dad] just told me to keep playing until I finally would just relent after like, years, basically,” Jared carried on. “So I do think it’s parenting and just kind of having a little bit of maturity to kind of step back and let the child develop autonomy.”

Despite all that negativity, just like Sarah, Dr. Pauline, and Coach Parker, that competitive drive still runs for Jared, even if it’s against a much lower tier of opponents.

Jared contemplated the difference between sport and play for years before finding the balance he’s come to enjoy in college. “I do think it’s when there’s less pressure and you’re just going out there to exercise, have a good time. It is a lot more gratifying, but I don’t think you get there without the experience of being pushed to the competitive threshold.”

He finished, “I’m nowhere near regretting any experience I was put through because at the end of the day I accumulated enough experience to at least be competent in these sports and have that skill set to at least have fun with people.”

A final skate around the rink in high school has slowly meshed back into the routine, even if the Florida-native has to wrap an extra sweater over his weathered pads.