I have always found it frustrating to not get to where I want to be, with new friends, with the new house, in the new community, immediately. I also fall victim to always comparing my brand new beginning to the well developed ending that just occurred. I’ve learned that I need to be patient and realistic. It takes time to get where I would like to be, usually years.
So, whether we go to a cookout, munch on samples at Costco, or even vacation across international waters, he’s almost always guaranteed to be wearing at least one high school football item.
Give it time. You are going to fall more and more in love with this life than you ever knew was possible.
I want my children to learn through you that one person can make a difference and that the most effective way to lead is not through words, but through one’s actions.
I didn’t know Coach’s role would change unexpectedly and shake up our lives drastically. But some of you had experienced that before.
I didn’t know that we would watch each sport shut down, one-by-one. But even when the stadiums emptied, there you were.
Some lost seasons. Some lost jobs. Many wrestled with their mental health and moves and the new normal. But we didn’t face these things alone. But we figured it out together.
You see I never thought the small town we landed in would end up being a place where we had to worry about the politics of coaching. We were wrong.
Yes, football and being a football family requires physical demands and emotional commitments from everyone involved. There are so many lonely dinners and difficult bath times. There are so many rushed labor-day cookouts and daddy-less trick-or-treats. There are so many tears from kids who miss their daddies -- and occasionally from mamas missing them too. Because there may not be crying in baseball, but believe me, there is crying in football. A lot of crying.
But most of those tears are the good kind.
But there is a difference between being familiar with a community and feeling at home isn’t there? Familiarity allows us a certain level of safety, but when we are at home we can rest.
You do not have to do this coaches’ wife thing alone. There are many who have walked before you, and there are many who walk alongside your journey. Embrace your title; it’s part of your calling.
It may be bittersweet, but sometimes change opens up a whole new happiness for you that you weren’t anticipating.
It’s the middle of the season.
The excitement and novelty of a new season and new team has died down. We’re not yet to the playoffs when the whole town is vibrating with pride and bleeding school colors. District games are underway and tensions are high with so many must-win games up ahead. Your husband’s hours are getting longer, if that’s even possible, and your schedule is filling up now that school is in full swing.
Your evenings consist of taking the biggest to soccer practice and the middle to piano just in time to turn around and head back to soccer practice to pick her up. Then, the baby is crying because apparently she can’t feed herself.
Some days, you manage to make it up to practice so the kids can see their dad, even if it’s only from a distance.
It’s the middle of the season.
Game nights are … difficult. The kids are exhausted from a full week of school. Whether they make it through the whole game is a crap shoot and even if they do, their little sleep deprived souls will be in shambles for the rest of the weekend. You’ll be the only one around to pick up the pieces.
It’s the middle of the season.
The weekend comes. You get the kids ready for all the things: Big Kid’s soccer game (which never fails to be the 8 o’clock game… who schedules this crap?), middle kid’s friend’s birthday party at 10. You know you said you’d help out at that church event, but you realize by noon everyone is DONE. With fingertips full of guilt, you text to let them know you won’t be able to make it. Stop with the guilt. You’re doing the best you can.
Your friend calls you about joining some girls for dinner tomorrow night, but you don’t have money for a babysitter (“Yes, he works Sundays, too”). And even if you did, you’re not sure you’d have the energy to put a bra on, much less makeup.
It’s the middle of the season.
Your husband comes home after all the kids are asleep and tells you about how the staff ate lunch at Pizza Hut and how the team had a ping pong tournament and he and his partner won. He tells you about kicking that one kid out of practice today and letting another cry on his shoulder about stuff that makes your stomach hurt.
Meanwhile, you tell him about how your middle child followed you around the house all the ding dang day and how the baby smeared poop EVERYWHERE and you didn’t throw up cleaning it. #winningatmotherhood. You feel a little silly telling him about your day and wonder silently if he really cares.
Y’all give each other a tight, lingering hug. Then sit down on the couch together, turn on ESPN, and see who falls asleep first.
It’s the middle of the season.
And you’re lonely.
You love this season. But you also feel like your life is put on hold until it’s over because you’re too busy being everything for everyone.
You need help. You need reinforcements. You need friendship and companionship and just to feel less alone.
Oh, mama. You’re not alone.
You. Are. Not. A. Lone.
Coaches wives everywhere are with you. They are cheering you on and standing with you in your loneliness. They feel it too.
It’s the middle of the season.
And you might feel forgotten. You might feel unseen or unimportant.
You aren’t.
That coach, the one who is working so hard and so long, he knows what you’re doing behind the scenes. He might not say it loud enough but he sees you and he’s thankful for you.
And those other coaches’ wives, the ones whose kids are a little bit older, the ones who sit by you on game nights and help you pack up all your stuff afterward, they know how hard and draining it is. They’ll be there for you if you’ll just ask.
And those players, the ones you cook for and clean for, the ones you loan your children’s father to for a few months to love on, they may not have the words to say it but they are so grateful for the way you’re sacrificing for them.
You, sweet mama in the middle of the season, are not forgotten.
By me, by your husband, or by your God.
It’s the middle of the season.
Hang on. We’re halfway there.
Resist the urge to fill every moment of dead week with picture perfect memories. Yes, these are the days that we cherish with Coach, but over planning can make dead week a chore.
I can promise you I will go wherever you go, stay wherever you stay, and your people will be my people. I will put in the extra work to get our family settled and make the new place feel like home. I will be open and flexible to wherever this journey takes us.
I can’t promise you I won’t doubt it, complain about it and/or be about upset it. I can’t promise that the thought of having to start over again won’t frustrate me. I also won’t be able to stay off of Zillow, searching for houses, even with only a mention of a potential job opening.
I can hear my voice calling out to my son playing in the summer heat in the backyard way past his bedtime.
I can feel the rush of excitement when my stepson and stepdaughter run up the brick steps, fling open the front door at Thanksgiving Break, and call out to us, “we’re home!”
And I know because my family will feel at home here, that I will be just fine starting over too.
After two moves and two kids under two, I finally decided that something needed to change. And if it wasn’t going to be his job, and if it wasn’t going to be our marriage, then that left only one thing—me.
These are the things that helped provide that change.
I, Mr. Coach, promise to:
Recognize that this woman is an actual superhero and treat her as such
When she is sad just hold her, don’t coach her
Make a valiant effort to not wait until the last minute to ask for something
Brag about her to my friends
Get her swag asap, especially at a new school
In a spare moment, keep the kids and send her out on her own
Remember that she is the one who is still there when the lights go out and the career is done
Love on my kids after wins AND losses
Consider that your career moves are her moves too
Find her before talking to the media
Recognize that I am a better coach because she is by my side
Great is thy faithfulness...even when I feel alone and unknown.
Great is thy faithfulness...even when the unwanted diagnosis appears.
Great is thy faithfulness...even when Coach’s contract is not renewed.
Great is thy faithfulness...even when there is no heartbeat.
Great is thy faithfulness...even when your closest friend is unfaithful.
Great is thy faithfulness...even when they curse your name from the sidelines.
But as I begin to break down and cry out to my God, I’m reminded of this truth: I am not alone.
And then the games started, and everything intensified. Hours got even longer, game film, practice film, coaches meetings, etc.
It was all so much. I realized my naivety. I really had no idea what went into the sport.
The field house is home. I don’t know why we pay utility bills during the fall, because we are hardly home to use water and electricity. My husband puts more hours in at the field house than I see him in our own home.
