Thursday, December 3, 2009

Coaching

I began volunteer coaching at MIT yesterday and I always forget when I am not doing it how much I LOVE to coach. I adore coaching, I love watching people learn and get better at things and knowing I had a slight hand in it. I also love coaching because it is one of the only things I have in my life that isn't affected by gender or sexuality. My athletes don't care whether I am male or female or how I represent my gender identity. All my athletes care about are my credentials as a thrower, an athlete, a coach. They care about what can I give them, what can I teach them and most importantly how hard I am going to push them at practice :p . But they don't care about how I look or how I identify they just care about how am I going to make them a better thrower. That is what I love about coaching. It is pure, it is sport and when I am coaching or even when I am throwing everyone around me is just an athlete or a coach they are a member of that sport and that is it; they don't have anything other than what they can and can't do in the throwing circle. Our only flaws are technical flaws that prevent us from throwing farther. I guess that is what makes leaving sports so hard, the ability to either participate or coach and be who I am without the judgment. It has always amazed me that when I am coaching college athletes we are laughing and having a good time and everything but I always catch myself wondering if that is how they would feel if they knew me outside of track or would they only see me for my "flaws"?

2 comments:

  1. I feel the same way about teaching. I've been reading your blog and it's really helpful to hear about what a fellow trans* athlete is going through and succeeding at, especially since yours is the only blog I've found about being a colligate/post-colligate trans* athlete.

    I also happen to be a closeted trans* athlete on one of MIT's varsity sports teams. I and a few others have started talking with athletics about how to make things better for trans* athletes at MIT. If you have any suggestions or want to help us out, I'd love to talk on/offline my non-MIT e-mail is ferniink@yahoo.com.

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  2. you should consider approaching people from www.glaf.org to join you in any advocacy/policy work

    best Z
    www.qSPORT.info

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