Joseph Farroha

Instructor: Cathy Ryan

September 28,2021

My Coaching Dilemma

In life we are given opportunities that we believe is what we always wanted, but in the end, it
turns out that in the grand scheme of things it was the exact opposite. For me that opportunity was
after I stopped playing basketball in high school as a player and became a coach. During my sophomore
year in high school, I was a 6th man off the bench for my school’s basketball team, this was fun for me at
first, but at the season progressed I was given less and less minutes. This broke me because I really was
committed to the team at the time. But in this void, I found Robotics. The ability to always be part of the
process and help determine the outcome of a competition between robots sparked a new joy in me that
I haven’t felt in a while on the basketball team. So, at the end of the season, I had the dilemma of
choosing between playing another year on the team or commit more to robotics. I chose to commit to
robotics, but I still wanted to be part of the team, so I asked my coaches to let me join the staff.

In that season we started early in the school year, like the very first day. In the afternoon you
can see all the players getting ready, either stretching, visiting the athletic trainer, or getting a good
workout in before practice began. But since I wasn’t a player, I had to walk in ready to almost every
practice I went to. In the beginning, I would be watching with the other coaches while everyone warmed
up, discussing how each player has been doing, and how we can start to get the best out of everyone
there. In this, internally, I was thinking how I could be part of the team itself. But I was only there for 2
practices and every home game. My school wouldn’t let me go to away games. In games, they stuck me
with score table duty, so I would be watching every game, recording stats, keeping up with the score
and providing my opinion on certain plays. In those games, I would be feeling the anger and
hopelessness that I felt sitting on the bench the year before. The anger would sometimes get to me and I
would excuse myself to go down the stairs to do find a way to destress myself.

The moment I realized that this was not what I wanted to do was when one night I excused
myself and sat in the locker room crying, and I had a flashback to the first game I didn’t play. I went
home that night upset, depressed, and angry. I cried myself to sleep and that moment I realized the pain
I am putting myself through wasn’t worth it anymore. I told the coaches the next day that I couldn’t do it
anymore and said that I just had to much work. I couldn’t handle telling the truth that it just hurts to
watch other do what I know I could do better than them, and never giving myself the opportunity to
determine the outcome of a game.