When I started working at Mountain Home High School at the
beginning of this school year, I was also presented with an opportunity to be
the assistant coach on the Tennis team. I
thought this was an amazing opportunity because I have a real passion for the
sport and have played it for decades. I
had done some coaching before at the school I worked out in D.C., but it was
never a sport that I was truly passionate about or that I had played competitively
growing up. I for sure wanted to do
this, but I was really worried about how much of a time commitment it would
be. I told the Athletic Director I
needed to think about it and talk it over with my family.
Think it over I did.
I even asked the AD for more time to think it over when he needed an
answer. He gave me more time, and I
thought it over some more, and fortunately he gave me even more time when I
again asked him for more time while I was dragging my feet deciding whether or
not to commit one way or the other.
There is a nice little stipend that definitely makes it worth your time,
so that wasn’t the issue, it really just came down to me not wanting to find
myself in a situation where I felt stretched too thin on balancing my time
between, family, work, and potentially now Tennis.
I finally made a decision.
Since coaching Tennis is something that I could possibly do every year
for the rest of my teaching career, I decided that I should find out first-hand
how much time it would take to coach and how it felt balancing working, family,
and all my other responsibilities. I
felt like the only way to truly know if I could balance everything or not was
to give it a try and find out for myself.
I am so glad that I decided to coach Tennis. It is tons of fun. I get to be outside on the Tennis courts and
get to know the kids outside of the classroom.
They are all really great kids and it is a pleasure working with
them. I realize now that this is why it
was important to find out first-hand what coaching would be like. I have discovered that it is really not too
much of a time commitment at all (which was my primary concern). As is everything in Mountain Home, the Tennis
courts are really close to the school and our house and I often have to come
home before practice.
The plan is definitely to make coaching the high school
Tennis team a regular part of working at the high school. The pictures included here are of a recent team barbecue we had that I brought the family to. Good times.
This video is of Mason tracking a cat that went into the bushes.
