November is the month that we celebrate Thanksgiving. This is a time where we gather as family and friends and give thanks for the many blessings which God our Father has bestowed upon us. In the spirit of Thanksgiving I would like to take this time to give thanks to the coaching staff at Southern Wesleyan University. Each of these coaches has been brought to SWU to serve this athletic department and the university in various ways. I am thankful for each coach and how they impact their student-athletes, the department of athletics, the SWU community, the Central/Clemson area and the world. I am thankful for these coaches who spend each day supporting, guiding, encouraging and mentoring the student-athletes on their teams. This is a great honor and privilege to work with the youth of today. We as coaches should be thankful that God has given us this tremendous opportunity to use our sport to work in the lives of these young people each and every day. One might think that a coach just comes to the office, runs practice for 2 hours and then goes home to rest up for another day. However, after working as a coach for more than 15 years, I know that a day in the life of a coach is different every day! A day in the life of a coach might look like this: • Arrive in the office to start the day.
• Check and respond to e-mails and voicemails.
• Do laundry (practice gear or uniforms from the night before).
• Attend chapel.
• Keep track of the academic progress of each of the student-athletes on your team.
• Get a scouting report of your next opponent by making numerous phone calls to other coaches in the area or conference.
• Game plan for practice or for the game that day by reviewing game tapes and scouting reports.
• Meet individually with a student-athlete to guide them through a problem, point them in the right direction in times of turmoil or comfort them in times of need.
• Eat lunch (every Wednesday we eat as a group together).
• Continue to get ready for practice or the game to be played that night.
• Make travel plans if we indeed are traveling that day to a game.
• Work on the other duties which are assigned to me throughout the department. Each coach has two other responsibilities in the department besides being the head coach. Some other responsibilities are: webmaster, sports information director, intramural director, warrior club director, eligibility, transportation, event manger for another sport, teach classes, and more…
• Run a practice or coach in a game. This usually requires the coach to be there early to setup and make sure everything is ready to go.
• Deal with the emotion of winning or losing!
• Clean up after practice or the game.
• Wash the dirty laundry.
• Eat dinner.
• Make some recruiting calls, go to game to do recruiting or send some e-mails to prospective recruits.
• If you had an away game you would load the bus or the vans and drive a minimum of 2 hours back to the campus. Usually arriving around midnight or later!
• Put everything in your office, turn out the lights and get ready for the next day.
• Arrive in the office ready to support, guide, encourage, and mentor student-athletes for another day! This does not do justice to an average day but gives one an idea of the many directions a coach is pulled throughout the day. It is not as simple as rolling the balls out and blowing the whistle. I am thankful for the many coaches who have been a positive influence in my life in the past and I am thankful for the coaches who serve the student-athletes here at SWU. They spend endless hours with the young student-athletes who are searching for God’s direction in their lives. I am also thankful that we are able to do this ‘job’ called coaching. I am sure that each of us would not trade our ‘jobs’ with most other people in this world. It is a most unusual job where people can watch you work and then also give you immediate feedback on how they think you are doing your job. It is also very rewarding because you get to see young men and women become everything God intended them to become right before your very eyes. For all of this we give thanks to all the coaches we have had and all these coaches who currently work for Southern Wesleyan University. | 
