Politics

Participation Trophies

/ Jillcoach / 1 Comment

I loved working with teenagers. Even with all the challenges of navigating hormones and high school, they are wonderful, raw, unfiltered humans, still filled with passion and humor and alive-ness that gets bludgeoned out of adults by work and bills and obligations. Teenagers do NOT tolerate bullshit and can smell it a mile away.

Participation trophies: the toxic brainchild of someone, either Boomer or GenX, to smooth the ruffled feathers of a 4 year old who shouldn’t have been in organized sports yet. This pacifier might work OK (I won’t say well) for little tiny kids, to reinforce that showing up and trying deserve acknowledgment, but they need to be phased out by the time kids hit about 8 years old. They catch on pretty quickly that participation ribbons and trophies mean nothing, and by the time they’re teenagers, those expensive little trinkets are being thrown in the trash as soon as Mommy’s back is turned. The “reward for breathing” is bullshit, and every teenager knows it. With teens, giving them praise when they know they don’t deserve it earns you a healthy amount of disrespect and a reputation as a liar. Period.

I’m not going to lie: I was a tough coach. (Or, as the misogynistic moms used to say “mean”. Eyeroll.) I had high expectations, pushed my swimmers to do their best, and absolutely would NOT tell someone they were doing great if I didn’t mean it. As a result, the kids knew when they got praise, it was real and truly meant something. I was honest about the hard work they needed to do to reach their goals and didn’t sugar coat it. There were days when they hated my honesty, and me, but even on those days, they trusted me. They trusted I was telling the truth. They trusted that no matter what, they could count on me. They trusted that even when they were hating me, I was still in their corner.

I think often of those teenagers and what coaching them taught me, and I’ve tried to translate it to what we’re going through right now as adults in this country. Adults still want “no bullshit” people in their lives, and as vile as I personally find our former-soon-to-be-again president, I do see how some equate his constant hateful, tactless, shit-talking to being “no bullshit”. He is awful, but he doesn’t hide it or pretend otherwise. He lies constantly but doesn’t excuse it. He may drown you in an avalanche of manure, but you know where you stand while he’s doing it. For a LOT of people, that’s enough to be able to hang adjectives on him like “honest” or “real”. There’s an old adage: don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining—I’m guessing part of the attraction of DJT is that he just tells people he’s pissing on them and doesn’t care.

Democrats, on the other hand, are so busy trying to please everyone that no one trusts them, even when they have good policies. The truth is that most people DO like their policies, when you remove a reference to what party proposes it; the dislike and distrust come in when people know who is behind it. Even the people they’re trying to help don’t trust them. The people pleasing looks like pandering and ends up meaning as much as those participation trophies. They talk big about fighting, but then roll over and show a soft belly in the face of election results that at minimum deserved calls for a recount. They now seem unreliable as well as dishonest, which has undercut every good idea they have.

Here’s the thing: you can have a big tent and a big heart and try to do what’s right for all of America without abandoning being “real”. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Jasmine Crockett are doing it daily, and there are people that voted for them while also voting for DJT…for the same reason! They found them to be genuine, and that means a hell of a lot to people.

Those of us who oppose the direction this country is about to go have a very hard row to hoe ahead, and the first thing that needs to happen is a rebuilding of trust. We have to go back to basics of being genuine and straightforward, and our word meaning something that is true and that people can rely on. Honestly, I think it’s going to come from those of us who have never run for office and tend to be disgusted with the status quo of politics; we will need to step up and change this mess. It is easy to sit in the bleachers and watch and second guess. If we want to achieve a different end than oligarchy and wage slavery, we need to step off the bleachers and suit up.

Just showing up is not enough. If we want the trophy, we absolutely have got to do the hard work and swim the race to win.

Walls Redux

/ Jillcoach / Leave a comment

Revisiting and updating…seemed timely

The wall is a physical barrier that must be dealt with in our sport, but it is also a mental/emotional one.

It is in our nature to slow at a wall, to look up at it, to ponder how to get past it. Our tendency is to assume our path continues on past the wall, following the track we have been on, and that the wall stands in our way. In swim training, we must overcome this mindset:  our path does not continue on, but resumes in another direction. The wall becomes a chance to speed up, to readjust, to jump off and speed away on our new path. The wall is not obstacle, but opportunity.

My other experience with walls is The Wall exercise in team building. After working through a series of smaller challenges with a group where you have (hopefully) ironed out differences, insecurities, communication issues, and trust, you are faced with a final challenge. A huge and intimidating wall that the whole team has to get over. There are no handholds or ways to boost yourself, and it is too tall for even your tallest group member to jump to catch the edge. You MUST work together, using the gifts and talents of the group, to find a way over. It is one of the most initially disheartening things to face, and it is easy to fall into “this is impossible”.

I don’t know how others have experienced this, but our group struggled a bit at first. Several people (myself included) balked because of physical limitations like weight or bad back. Some people balked out of fear, or body image issues, or lack of confidence in their physical abilities. I say we struggled “a bit”, but the truth is that we hemmed and hawed and bickered for probably 15 minutes before we made any attempts to get over. FINALLY, a woman who had been a gymnast as a kid and was all of 5 feet tall, told a couple of the guys to give her a boost. Even pushing her as high as they could, she could only get hands to the top of the wall…but then, using her knowledge of gymnastics and flexibility, she tossed one leg straight up and hooked her foot on the top of the wall and pulled herself over. (To this day, it is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen someone do.)

Once that happened, we were re-energized. Seeing it was believing it, and working together we got everyone over that wall…boosting from the bottom, reaching from the top to catch hands and help pull, shouting encouragement. When the last person came over, we were EUPHORIC. We all felt the lesson in our bones: we had accomplished something that seemed impossible because we worked together. None of us, no matter how talented or accomplished or naturally gifted, could have gotten over that wall alone; success was only possible as a team.

So how does all this philosophical rambling about walls matter in broader context? In preparation for writing this, I looked up the definition for the word wall, and was interested to find this:  an extreme or desperate position or a state of defeat, failure, or ruin. Those of us who supported a different vision of America’s future than the one we’re facing are feeling this deeply right now. We hung our hopes on joy and progress only to run face first into the wall of other people’s fear, prejudice, and apathy. What now, what next? This wall looms over us, and I now stand in front of it, feeling a bit desperate. I cannot see past it to where we go from here.

We can take lessons from both swimming and team building. We can speed toward this wall, and see it for the opportunity it is. We can have the confidence to race at this wall, lower our heads, hold our breath, flip and jump as hard as we can in our new direction. We can remember that we are not alone in this endeavor, and that our way to deal with the wall is in community. Our “team” can succeed where we as individuals will struggle. Our path is on a different course, one that we cannot yet see, but it will be there, and this wall that seems so daunting is our best chance at finding it. The alternative is letting the wall stop us, leaving us stuck in a place we don’t want to be and weren’t trying to get to. Screw that—let’s push off this wall together and see where our new direction takes us.

Fighting my Imposter Syndrome

/ Jillcoach / 2 Comments

The first time my head coach had me run practice for his elite senior group was nerve wracking. The kids didn’t know me well at all, and my mouth went completely dry facing this group of about 25 teenagers, with looks on their faces ranging from uncertainty to skepticism to hostility. Who was I to tell them what to do? Why would anyone want to hear what I had to say? My imposter syndrome raging, I resisted the urge to recite my resume at them and plowed forward.

I’m telling this story mainly because I’m back there again, only this time with venturing into writing and trying to figure out publishing in a social media environment. At the age of nearly 60, learning how to reach people and establish a following is more challenging than that first practice with a new group. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY keeps pounding in my head, trying to get me to quit as I have before with my writing.

The thing is: I’m a big believer in paying attention to what the universe puts in your path, and over the last couple weeks I have encountered several blogs, podcasts, and posts where people are talking about everyone needing to use the gifts they have to get us through the next few years. It felt like something was calling me to step up and try again. So here I am, in the face of all my insecurity and imposter syndrome, putting myself out there just in case there is a nugget of something I’ve learned that would help another person navigate their challenges.

Insecurity is debilitating. It drags you back before you even start, constantly whispering to you that it doesn’t matter, no one cares, who would pay attention to you, it’s better to not even try than to try and fail. I saw it so much in the athletes I worked with—why work hard and put myself on the line when I might not win or reach my goal? There is vulnerability in caring and reaching wholeheartedly for what you want, and coming up short can feel awful and devastating. Our insecurity makes us back away from the consequences of trying and failing, but blinds us to the consequences of not trying at all. It makes us defensive and cynical, telling ourselves that our choice or non-choice simply doesn’t matter, that caring is for chumps.

But what is the alternative?

At a macro level, I think we saw the alternative in our last election. Millions of people told themselves “my vote/voice doesn’t matter, why even try, nobody cares anyway, no one wants to hear what I have to say, I’ll just bury my head and protect myself.” The consequences of this choice remain to be seen, but certainly seem to be rolling toward very negative for most Americans.

I don’t know how this journey will go for me, but I do know that I need to try. If what I write helps one person, then throwing myself out here and being vulnerable was worth it. What do I have to lose really? If I never get beyond a follower or two, that will feel embarrassing, but if I give up after two weeks because my insecurity is dragging me back, I will feel worse about myself as a person.

I don’t want to be click-baity…not my style. I want to be authentic and sincere, but maybe that’s not a thing that gets followers. Gotta try anyway, right? Maybe I should put a cat picture on my post to at least get someone to open it.

?????????????

Culture of Violence

/ Jillcoach / Leave a comment

I originally posted this to Facebook in February of 2018…and nothing has changed.

Another school shooting…another mass shooting. I find myself completely numb to it anymore. Not sad or “tense” (as some of you will think) or even advocating for change. Numb. Numb because if I let the heart ripping grief back in, it will overwhelm me. The darkest part of me shrugs and thinks, “Maybe this is America’s choice for population control.”

The arguments are tiresome and somewhat sickening. Yes, the gun is just a tool. No, this isn’t about lack of disciplining by parents or kids not tattling on their friends in time. No, taking away all the guns isn’t the solution. Yes, it is somewhat about our broken mental health system. No, everyone being armed isn’t the answer. Yes, “thoughts and prayers” has become an empty and useless sentiment. No, wanting to fix something that feels so broken is not “politicizing” grief. Yes, there will always be bad guys who will find a way to do harm.

Our problem, deep down, is our culture, and we need to own it. Whether we ultimately fix it or just accept this as status quo, we need to own the fact that we are, at heart, a culture that embraces the idea of violence as a solution to our problems. Don’t get me wrong: I love my country and the ideals we were built on, but the reality has unfolded in a bloody way. Think about it: we brag about how our Founding Fathers fought and killed for their beliefs; we euphemistically call our period of genocide and invasion “Western Expansion” and celebrate those pioneers who took territory at the point of a gun; we continue to wave the flag of secessionists who brought about the bloodiest and deadliest conflict in American history; we romanticize the “Wild West” as a time when right and wrong were decided by street duels and death; we chose a National Anthem that is a celebratory ode to war; we cheer movies where the hero ends the story by blowing away the bad guy. We must face the fact that, flag be damned, we have raised the gun as our true symbol of freedom and righteousness.

Being me, I’ve tried to figure out WHY. Why is the 2nd amendment the only one we fight so hard to preserve? Why do we argue so vehemently and with such vitriol at any whisper of gun control? It is a little too simple to say it’s money and the NRA. The NRA would have no crop without a fertile field to cultivate. So why is it that Americans are so ready to go all in for this one amendment while we shrug and turn away at the violations of free press and free speech and equal protection?

I think it’s fear and uncertainty, combined with the tangibility of “arms”. People are scared of how fragile their life circumstances are. We feel vulnerable to a government that can take away our money through taxes and our property through the power of eminent domain, and insignificant and powerless to change that at the voting booth in the face of billions in lobbyist money. The abstracts of free speech and equal protection are cold comfort when you feel like you are one illness away from losing your home. But a gun. A GUN is something we can buy, something we can touch, something we can own, something we can hide, something that scares other people, and something that gives us a sense of power. We believe we can defend our safety, our livelihood, and our property EVEN AGAINST OUR GOVERNMENT with the power of a gun, backed by the Constitutional protection of the 2nd Amendment. It is our line in the sand against fear and feeling powerless.

The sad irony is that despite the ideals of our Enlightenment forefathers, despite the beauty of the ideas they penned into the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, they chose violent rebellion as the mother to birth our country. That willingness to accept that the ends justify the means, no matter the consequences, and that blood must be the price of freedom, is embedded into our national DNA. We need to face it and own it, and then decide: do we fix things or accept the status quo?

The Level Playing Field

/ Jillcoach / Leave a comment

I think part of why we all love sport so much is that every game, match, or meet starts off even, with everyone having an equal chance to win. Teams of equal size, equal opportunity, the scores all at zero, the playing surface identical…a tableau of possibility and hope that we spectators can pour our emotions into, rejoice or mourn the outcome, then start fresh the next time.

As a coach, the absolute essence of competition was based around the idea that both teams were operating from the same basic framework of rules, events, and number of available lanes, with the only differences being who was on our team and how we chose to use our entries to maximize our chance of doing well. NEVER ONE TIME did any coach try to alter the rules in their favor, eliminate members of my team to gain an advantage, take away my assigned lanes, or outright cheat to win. Imagine your favorite sport:  your team shows up to play, and part of your team is barred from entering. Your scoring area has been reduced while the other team’s is larger. You’d be pissed, right? You’d scream, “NOT FAIR!!!”

That is exactly what is and has been going on in American politics for years. Gerrymandering has reduced the scoring area for Democrats across the country, which to my mind is just flat cheating, despite how “legal” it may be and no matter who is doing it. Writing cheating into law doesn’t make it right, and the concept of the winners getting to draw the districting map for voting was a BAD idea from the start. Gerrymandering has given a huge advantage to Republicans, who are now using that power to further abuse the rules of fair play.

Let’s think about this in terms of the NFL. All of the coaches get together to pass a rule that whoever wins the Superbowl gets to make a rule change that the rest of the league will live under. At the time, the coaches (all being confident in their ability to win the Superbowl) would think this was a great idea, and imagine some minor tweaks they would make. For a few years, the NFC and AFC trade wins, and the changes are relatively benign; then AFC teams win three or four years in a row, and the NFC coaches are disgruntled. A few of them get together, and decide next time one of them wins, they’re going to take advantage of the rule change ability to really make it hard for the AFC to win again. An NFC teams wins, and the rule change that year is that AFC players must play with their ankles tied together during the playoffs and Superbowl. It would be in the rules, but it would make it so no AFC team could ever win the Superbowl again. The level playing field would be gone.

Just this week, Republicans in Tennessee used a violation of a procedural rule (not a LAW, just a rule of behavior in their workplace) as an excuse to expel (not reprimand, EXPEL) members of the House who represent a large, mostly Democratic, portion of Nashville. They used their power to tilt the playing field in their favor and remove their competition and silence their “fans”. This idea offends me to my core. It goes against every single thing I operated under as an athlete and believed in as a coach.

I have to wonder sometimes if any of these Republicans ever played sports. If they did, they’ve certainly forgotten the lessons, and the concept of the level playing field.

If you have to cheat to win, is it really winning? If you have to bully to get your way, are you really strong? I have never understood how the people who do these things can possibly feel as though they’ve achieved something.