Being a coach's wife is one of the greatest joys of my life, but it isn't the only one.
Not all coaching families have the luxury of being a one-income household, and many women take pride in their ability to produce excellent results in and out of the house.
While I will always admire the ability of a coach's wife to lean into this role full-time, I can't help but think about the many times I have felt a sense of guilt as I prioritize my professional career over football.
Being a registered nurse, I have served in many clinical and non-clinical roles. Throughout my experience as a nurse, I knew I was destined to lead at a higher level. I always knew my husband would be a coach and I would be a nurse who would have the luxury of a career that could go where football led us.
I realized within a few years of nursing, around the time coach told me he was switching his graduate major from Occupational Safety and Health to Athletic Administration, when I, too, wanted more. I was finishing a Master's degree with dreams of being a Chief Nursing Officer or Dean of a School of Nursing.
I began developing my goals and identifying a path forward. And that's when it all changed….we started a family. In the family planning phase of our marriage, we envisioned a life where we would split all of the parenting duties, and we felt sure it would be a breeze for us.
Let's face it: we had already been through surviving a long-distance relationship and surviving 18-hour days of collegiate sports. I ended up changing career paths, lowering my expectations for myself, and sinking into the reality that it was coach's turn to soar.
I took a backseat to everything I wanted professionally to maintain the home life. It was one of the worst decisions I made.
In years five to seven of marriage, I reignited my passion for nursing. We had a heartfelt discussion of why my career mattered too, and then came up with a game plan- in true coach fashion.
When to Run the Ball and When to Pass the Ball: In any good game plan, you have to figure out what to do in a variety of situations. As a woman devoted to family and to work, I had to know when it was the right situation to run the ball (AKA take care of it on my own) or pass the ball (AKA get help from coach or from others).
I am the absolute worst at asking for help. It takes a conscious effort to do this, but it has gotten easier for me to ask for help from coach. Coach always makes the kids lunches and packs their backpacks each day.
Take what you can get and set your expectations before the season starts. I let coach take the kids to the dentist. He goes in June and December, so we book the kid's appointments at the same time.
Who really cares about the Red Zone? It is in times when you can see the goal line in sight that you recognize you have less margin for error and must make critical decisions. Crunch time for me has always been when I have competing deadlines at work and during the season. I couldn't always rely on coach being 100% available, so I had to prepare for any situation.
Backup plans: My path forward was to plan and over-plan. I had a backup kids' pickup plan and a backup babysitter plan if the pickup plan was only a short amount of time.
Build your community: I have all of the wives on speed dial "just in case." It is a security blanket for me. Although I rarely use it, I know they are there. My family and friends surround me and understand my commitment to football during the season. They are my rock, and I couldn't succeed professionally or personally without them.
Strong family values: I love talking about our family motto: Faith. Family. Education. Football. and in that order. I always made sure we prayed together when we could and put family first by calling them regularly, especially when we lived out of state, prioritizing the kids' education and pursuing my own higher education.
It took at least three years of us actively working together to live out our family values, but when we did, it helped us thrive during crunch time.
Be willing to pivot: It goes with the saying, "God laughs when you make your own plans." Be ready for that. My pivoting often involved Friday Night McDonald's trips before game night because it was too hard to get off of work early enough to prepare dinner before the game.
Touchdown: Never forget to take an opportunity to celebrate the wins you get in your professional career. Don't feel guilty about the one game you missed, so you could go to a really cool conference or exceed a quarterly deadline. You may not be able to celebrate on the field after a touchdown (darn celebration restrictions), but you should take every opportunity to celebrate every single win at home or at work!