There has been a question underneath all the years of coaching that I don’t think I fully understood when I first started:

Why do I coach?

For a long time, the easy answers were enough.

I love lacrosse.
I love competition.
I love teaching the game.
I love watching players improve.
I love being on the field.

All of those things are true.

But they aren’t the real answer.

The older I get, the more I believe that the real reason I coach has very little to do with lacrosse itself.

Lacrosse is the vehicle.

The real purpose is people.

I coach because I believe that a game can become something much bigger than a game. It can become a classroom for life. A place where young people learn what it means to work when they don’t feel like working, to sacrifice for somebody else, to respond to failure, to accept coaching, to lead, to follow, to compete without losing their character, and eventually to become the kind of person other people can depend on.

That is where I have come to understand the idea of self-transcendence.

Self-transcendence is the decision to look beyond yourself. Most of our lives naturally pull us toward ourselves.

How good am I?
How much did I score?
Did I start?
Did I make the team?
Did somebody notice me?
Did I get the recognition I wanted?

Those questions aren’t necessarily bad. Ambition matters. Excellence matters. There is nothing wrong with wanting to become the best version of yourself.

But eventually, there has to be another question:

What are you going to do with the person you become?

That question changes everything.

• An athlete who trains to become better is pursuing self-improvement.
• An athlete who becomes better so that he can help his teammates become better is beginning to transcend himself.
• A player who learns to lead because somebody else needs his leadership has moved beyond himself.
• A senior who takes a younger player under his wing because somebody once did that for him is paying forward what he received.
• A former player who becomes a coach, a teacher, a mentor, a father, a leader or simply the person his friends know they can call when life gets difficult—that is the return on the investment.

That is the part of coaching that matters to me now.

I don’t want to simply help boys become better lacrosse players.

I want to help them become better men.

And I want them to eventually help somebody else.

That is the part that makes coaching bigger than me.

I have been fortunate to have people invest in me throughout my life. Coaches taught me. Teammates challenged me. Parents supported me. Friends stood beside me. Players have taught me things I never expected to learn.

None of us becomes who we are completely on our own.

We are built, in part, by the people who were willing to invest something in us.

Their time.
Their patience.
Their expectations.
Their belief.
Their example.

And eventually, there comes a point when you realize that the investment isn’t supposed to stop with you. You are supposed to pass it on. That may be the simplest way I can explain why I coach.

I am trying to pass it on.

The lessons.
The standards.
The failures.
The victories.
The hard conversations.
The confidence.
The humility.
The belief that you can become more than you currently are.

And maybe most importantly, the understanding that becoming more isn’t ultimately about you. It is about what you can contribute to the people around you.

The Scoreboard Is Not the Finish Line

Lacrosse provides an unusually good laboratory for this. The scoreboard is brutally honest.

You win or you lose.
You played well or you didn’t.
You made the shot or you missed it.
You picked up the ground ball or somebody else did.
You made the right decision or you didn’t.

There is nowhere to hide. But the scoreboard is also temporary. Eventually, every game ends.

Every season ends.
Every career ends.
Every athlete eventually puts the stick down.

And when that happens, what remains?

Not the goals.
Not the assists.
Not the rankings.
Not the trophies.
Not the college offers.
Not even the championships.

What remains is who you became while pursuing them.

And, perhaps more importantly, who became better because you were part of their life. That’s the measure I increasingly care about.

• If a player leaves my program with better stick skills but worse character, I have failed.
• If he becomes a better athlete but a worse teammate, I have failed.
• If he learns how to win but never learns how to handle losing, I have failed.
• If he learns how to demand respect but never learns how to give it, I have failed.

The objective is bigger.

I want players to understand that excellence is not simply about what you can accomplish.

It is about what you can contribute.

The Athlete’s Bigger Purpose

I think every athlete eventually faces a choice. You can make the sport about yourself. Or you can allow the sport to make something greater out of you.

The first path is seductive.

• Play for the attention.
• Play for the scholarship.
• Play for the ranking.
• Play for the statistics.
• Play so somebody will tell you that you’re special.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those goals. But they are fragile.

• What happens when you don’t start?
• What happens when you get injured?
• What happens when the coach doesn’t recognize you?
• What happens when another player is better?
• What happens when the scholarship doesn’t come?
• What happens when your career ends?

If your entire identity is built around achievement, those moments can take something away from you. But if the sport is helping you develop discipline, courage, resilience, accountability, leadership, friendship and service, then nothing is wasted.

• Even failure has value.
• Even the difficult coach has value.
• Even the season you wanted to forget can become part of who you become.

Because eventually the question changes from:

“What did I get from lacrosse?”

to:

“What did lacrosse prepare me to give?”

That’s self-transcendence.

Why I Still Coach

Maybe that’s why I still find myself standing on fields after all these years.

• I’m not chasing my younger self.
• I’m not trying to relive my playing career.
• I’m not trying to collect another championship for myself.
• I’ve already had the privilege of playing.
• I’ve already experienced winning.
• I’ve already experienced losing.
• I’ve already learned that the game can give you some incredible memories and some painful lessons.

Now I see the game differently.

• I see the kid who is struggling with confidence.
• I see the player who needs somebody to believe in him before he believes in himself.
• I see the talented player who needs to learn humility.
• I see the less-talented player who needs to understand that his value isn’t determined by his athletic ability.
• I see the young man who needs to learn how to respond when things don’t go his way.

And I see the teammate who is beginning to understand that leadership isn’t about being the loudest person in the room.

Leadership is about responsibility.

• It is about serving the people beside you.
• It is about doing what needs to be done when nobody is watching.
• It is about making the people around you better.

That is the kind of athlete I want to help develop.

And ultimately, that is the kind of person I want to help develop.

What We Leave Behind

One day, every coach walks away from the field. One day, every player does too.

The lights go out.
The nets come down.
The uniforms get packed away.
The photographs become memories.

But the influence doesn’t necessarily end. A player remembers something a coach told him twenty years earlier.

• A former teammate teaches his son how to compete.
• A player becomes a coach himself.
• A captain becomes a leader in his profession.
• A young man becomes a father and raises his children differently because of something he learned through sport.
• A teammate shows up for another teammate decades after they last played together.

That’s the legacy.

Not what happened because I was there.
What happened because someone I coached was there.

That distinction matters to me.

I don’t need to be remembered forever. I’d rather the things I tried to teach continue without my name attached to them. That’s the real test. If I disappear from the equation and the lessons continue, then maybe the work mattered.

Maybe that’s why I coach.

Not to make myself bigger.

But to make somebody else a little stronger.

A little tougher.
A little more confident.
A little more accountable.
A little more willing to serve somebody else.

And hopefully, one day, a little more capable of doing the same thing for someone who comes after them.

That is a purpose bigger than winning a lacrosse game.

That is a purpose bigger than a season.

And, ultimately, it is a purpose bigger than me.

Become better. Then use what you’ve become to make somebody else better.

That’s the kind of life I want to model. That’s the kind of athlete I want to coach. And that’s why I keep showing up.