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[savethewave]

I put an entry up in a community to which I belong, and a reply to a post I made flabbergasted me.

Here is one line from it:

"My coach is absolutely ridiculous, he makes me cry and I'm 22. I think about quitting all the time because of him."

Is it just me, or does this seem almost silly for a person of that age to react like that?

Link:

Comments

[dudeitsawesome]

Actually, at 22, I probably would have felt that way.
I've toughened up and grown up a lot since then.
It is only in hindsight that I see how immature I was in my early 20s.

[savethewave]

Maybe, but perhaps there were different values than from when each of us were 22. When I was 22, I was running a $13 million a year electronics retailer, and saving up money to go back to college. I recall I would have laughed in the face of anyone who would have tried to yell at me like that.

[dudeitsawesome]

Probably so. I mean, I was 22 in the year 2000. My generation is a bunch of pussies, and I'll admit it. If I had to pinpoint when I really started growing a backbone, I'd say it was when I was around 24-25. Now I have bigger balls than most guys I know.. figuratively speaking.

[dudeitsawesome]

The real world might eat you alive. However, you cannot define an entire generation by the feelings of one person.

[anonymous]

Yes it is silly, and this person obviously has the mental acumen of a 12 year old. As the old saying says, "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

[mastercontrol20]

There is no relationship quite like coach-athlete. You as athlete purposefully surrender some of your control and authority to your coach. In return, they will push you past your limits physically, mentally and emotionally. Coaches will piss you off, push your buttons, praise you, cut you down to size when you win, hug and exaggerate your strengths when you lose, talk smack to you in front of your peers, promote you to leader of the team, describe in exacting detail how you screwed up, and then celebrate with tears and hugs a major victory.

And yes, they can make elite, macho, 22-year old athletes cry with abject frustration and hatred.

[cinema_babe]

Sorry, not buying it. Unless your coach is beating you with a bull whip, your coach shouldn't be able to make you cry. I miss the dinosaur days when men played hurt and in pain with a nary a whimper.

Too many young people are simply sissies who can't deal effectively with conflict, adversity and stress.

[mastercontrol20]

There is the trick. Coaches don't need to use whips or beatings. They can use mental assaults, emotional attacks and clever manipulative head games to get you to do something you may not want to do, nor believe you can do, and somehow you do it anyway and even learn to like it.

I have never had a bad coach, so I have never cried, but I have hated my coaches with a ferocious passion, resenting them for punishing me, for singling me out in front of teammates, for favoring other athletes over me, and forcing the entire team to suffer because of my actions.

If you can imagine bootcamp where grown men cry, then you can turn down the intensity but still get a sense of a coach's power to manipulate and yes inspire and motivate young elite athletes.