oh-and-one

you cannot fully understand something until you experience it firsthand.  you can come close, sometimes.  sometimes, you can convince yourself you understand something fully, just by studying it from a distance, but it's just not true.  it is true that some things are easier to understand secondhand than others, though.

i remember having a conversation with Sarah (Howard, then) and Kate Olson in The Treehouse about marriage.  more specifically, "cold feet." i think it was after watching "Up In The Air".. Sarah agreed with me — it doesn't really matter how much you thought about it leading up to getting married, you could never simulate the same feelings that you'll have when the idea of being married finally becomes real to you.  Kate disagreed then, though that was a few years ago.. she argued that avoiding pre-wedding jitters was a matter of willpower; you can prepare yourself by having the right mindset.  i tend to think it's that approach which results in the worst outcomes, because those people haven't allowed the possibility of being surprised.

my latest experience with this happened Saturday morning.  it was my first game as head coach of the Scottsdale Prep junior high football team.  i know a lot of about football and a little about coaching, but i went in knowing it would be a learning experience.  thankfully, i had most of the high school staff and several helpful parents on the sidelines with me, or it would have been a disaster..  i can't remember a situation where i've had more information thrown at me in such an urgent, time-sensitive setting.  just as an example, my team has 35 players.  our league is 8-man tackle, so at any given juncture i have 8 players in the game and 27 players wanting to be in the game.  where do you even begin?  at the junior high level, a coach has to:

get the right personnel on the field on offense, defense, AND special teams
call plays..either by signaling or sending in calls with a substitute
know down-and-distance at all times
recognize what the opponent is doing/how they're hurting you
substitute often and intelligently
be aware of the clock*
manage time-outs*
know the score*
get all the players in the game
keep the referees honest
stay off the field
keep the off-the-field players off the field
make sure all the players are hydrating
deal with injuries

*more difficult than you might think, with high-scoring games and no scoreboard!

these things are not happening in a neat, organized manner; they are all happening simultaneously, and you never have a second to gather your thoughts, from start to finish.

we lost.  it was against Chandler Prep, our biggest rival and the only team to beat Scottsdale last season (twice).  they scored the winning touchdown with under 2 minutes left in the game, after we had held the lead nearly the entire second half.

the earlier list was things i knew about, but didn't understand in that context.
some completely unanticipated factors?
1) the heat.  it was scorching at 9am, and my best player (on both sides of the ball) ((that means on offense and defense)) left the game with heat exhaustion at halftime, and couldn't return.
2) the players didn't know everyone's names.  i would be yelling at Jonny to go in for Greg, and he had no idea who that was.  i have names down but not numbers..
3) the refs were antagonistic.  they started the game looking for trouble..  they gave the teams 55 seconds between quarters, not even enough time for everyone to get a drink.  they flagged me for stepping onto the field to yell a play.  on our last drive, they kept the clock running on more than one occasion when the player had gotten out of bounds with forward momentum, and they refused to tell me how many timeouts i had on the final drive.

it was a tough game to lose, and the worst way to lose, but i learned more about coaching football that morning than i have from watching/studying football for years.  i'll be more prepared next week, and more prepared the week after that..and when playoff time comes? Chandler Prep is done.