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Joel Engelmann Professor Chau Foundations of Leadership 26 January 2012 Life of a Swimmer If you would have seen me step into a pool for the first time you would have never thought I would still be heavily involved in swimming and a coach. My parents always tell the story of my first swim lesson, as soon as that nice lady took me into the pool I was screaming get me out! From since I was 5 I have been an avid swimmer on my local summer swim team, the Sierra Sharks. As a young swimmer I always looked up to the bigger coaches. Even though most of them were only in high school, I still pushed myself to do exactly what they did and be exactly like them. They, among a few others including my parents, are the people who defined my young life. I decided around the age of 8 that my dream job was to be a coach so that I could be as cool and inspiring as the young men and women standing up on the blocks telling all of us little sharks how to improve our strokes. Little did I know that I would stick with my goal and that this dream would eventually come true, in which I would be the one able to inspire and encourage the heart. My first experience in swim team leadership was when I was a sophomore in high school. I decided to volunteer to be a intern coach in which I would help coach the mini sharks, meaning kids that are younger than 5 years old and can't quite swim a whole lap on their own yet. In this atmosphere I learned the basics of coaching, like what techniques to use and how to word them so that the kids will understand. I taught the kids how they should reach out as far as they can in freestyle to try and catch the imaginary pizza out in front of them or how to push their tummy up to the sky like they just ate a huge meal during backstroke (younger kids tend to respond more to

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food). I also had to learn how to connect with the kids so that they would listen to me better but at the same time I had to be strict with them in order to keep them from getting out of hand. We also had to be in the water with the younger kids so that we could teach them hands on and show them what to do, in the words of Barry Z. Posner: Leadership begins with what you do and not with what you say. In this sort of job and atmosphere you really had to lead through example instead of just through words, and I excelled in embracing this way of teaching throughout my years of coaching. My Junior year of high school I decided to apply for a paid coaching position in which I would coach all of the age groups and not just the mini sharks. When I found out that I had gotten the position I was ecstatic, coaching is what I had always wanted to do and finally I had gotten there. My first day was hectic, I wanted to make a good impression for all the parents watching their kids swim. I soon realized that it's not about what the parents think of you but of how well the kids improve by the end of the season and how well you get them to actually want to improve. In The Student Leadership Challenge by Posner, a young basketball captain named Sarah states: Captains are responsible for encouraging, inspiring, and pushing the team through her words and most importantly her actions to achieve (Page 120). This is exactly the case in every form of leadership, especially my coaching position. By the end of my first year of coaching I knew that in order for these kids to get better they have to be able to trust and look up to their coaches and not have new coaches every year which is why I decided to come back for another year of coaching. My second year of coaching brought me even closer to the team. By this time all 300+ kids knew our names and wanted to hang out with us at all times. I had finally achieved what I wanted to be and now my goal was to encourage them to be like me when I was their age. My goal was to make sure they were willing to try their hardest to be exactly like me. At all of our side events such

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as the annual BBQ, luau day, and ice cream Tuesday, whenever a coach would come all the kids would scream your name Coach Joel, come play with me...Coach Kaity, over here! All of this excitement would let me know that these kids look up to me and in order to not let them down I would have to continue to encourage them to be the best they can be. I would be in the water every day helping each and every kid do their best. The team became a family to me, parents would ask me to babysit and coach their kids on the side or even come over to hang out with the kids. Each summer for the past three years, the swim team became my life, the other coaches became my best friends and the swimmers became my kids. As a coach I learned to fully encourage others to look inside them and bring out the best in them. Every year we have a meet at the end of the year called Champs. It's a swim meet that involves all of the teams in the league and decides the winner. This meet lasts all weekend and is when the kids need to be at their best. The week before Champs is when we go easier on the kids and just prosper to get them excited for the weekends events. We encourage them to eat good and get their sleep in order to race good and at the end of practice we play a game with them so that they don't go into this final meet stressed out. Out ultimate goal as coaches is to make sure each and every kid is having fun whether they have fun through winning or have fun through just being able to jump in the water which is why we need to put focus on every kid and their needs to make sure that this is what they want to be doing. In coaching there are multiple steps to encouragement, first we must encourage them to have fun and then and only then can we encourage them to do their best. Without the first step, as coaches, we have failed to encourage their hearts. Without that step we are only pushing them to do what they don't want to do. During the week after Champs we have our award ceremony in which each and every kid gets a trophy, this is my favorite part of the year. It's my favorite part cause nothing is better than seeing the smiles and looks of satisfaction on

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the swimmers faces. As long as I can tell they are happy when they take hold of one of those trophies, then I know I did a good job as being a coach and a leader. In coaching the Sierra Sharks it's not just the money that gets you to come back and coach again, it's also the kids. You develop such a strong relationship with all the young swimmers who look up to you, as I look at all them I can easily see me when I was their age always wanting the attention of the coaches. It feels good to be on the other side of the picture being able to encourage all of the swimmers who want to be just like me. In The Student Leadership Challenge Posner Recognition can spur people to give their personal best whenever extraordinary effort is needed. There was one boy this last summer that I coached who I really realized I affected and encouraged to be his best. He didn't want to be on the team, his mom made him and he made this a notice almost every practice for the first two weeks. I took an interest in him and began to take him to the side and teach him separately how to do the strokes considering how he was convinced he couldn't do it. Eventually he learned them all and started to have fun with it. He would want me behind the block at every one of his races and I made sure I was there to cheer him on. I embraced the words of Patricia Neal: A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations (page 124). Sometimes all someone needs is some encouragement and someone to believe in them in order to succeed and that's what makes me a good leader and coach.

Bibliography Posner, Barry Z., and James M. Kouzes. The Student Leadership Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. Print.

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