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By LAUREN SEXTON | Sports Reporter

In the well over a decade that I played sports, I never had a good coach. It’s true, by the time I was in my senior season of swimming the team had finally got a coach that actually cared about how the team and swimmers did. But by then I had come to the conclusion that I was not going to continue my athletic career at a collegiate level from the well over a decade of bad coaches.

I played several sports growing up, but swimming was my main sport because it was a big sport up north and to be honest I was really good at my best. I had been a competitive swimmer and a synchronized swimmer since the time I was six years old and I had not once had a good experience with a coach at any serious level. When I began to take swimming much more seriously, I still can remember my swim coach sitting on the starting block above us yelling and saying we were terrible swimmers while she ate Taco Bell. However, I somehow still stuck with it.

At one point, I was one of the select synchronized swimmers in the state of Michigan who could compete at the state level, but yet again another coach’s impact had altered my love of the sport. After having a coach tear down a 16-year-old girl, she was surprised that I would quit just weeks before the state championship. The verbal abuse this woman put me through pushed me way past my breaking point, I was thankful to have parents that backed me up and supported me through this difficult time. A sport that I had been doing for a decade and had done longer than the coach who was verbally abusive to her swimmers, had ended and I never looked back.

Over the course of my time as a swimmer, I had several coaches. Soon after the swim coach of my high school passed away after coaching there for decades there was a revolving door of coaches throughout my high school team. You had the screamers, the yellers, the ones who ate Taco Bell at the starting block, the ones who would start drama, but by the time they actually found a coach who cared it was too late. I no longer cared and was ready for my career to come to an end. But the saddest thing above all else was that the parents of the swimmers after I left forced the coach to leave. It’s a sad and bitter cycle.

Yet with all the time I had with bad coaches, I became a coach myself and learned from coaches who cared. I think the most I learned from my time as a swimmer was how to be a better coach and I think it helped me in the long run by overcoming all the bad experiences I had growing up. There was nothing more rewarding than seeing the kids you coach to overcome obstacles. It helped me resolve most of the negative perspectives I had gained from being an athlete myself.

I guess there was some kind of athlete to coach to sports writer pipeline because here I am today a sports reporter. In the six months, I have covered Shelby County sports programs, I have come in contact with many coaches. Being a recent college grad and my previous experiences, I was hesitant of working with coaches. However, almost every single coach I have come in contact with and worked with has been some of the nicest people I have had the opportunity to work with.

Although I am not their starting quarterback, point guard or libero, I have seen from the sidelines their interaction with their players and the pride that they take in their school. That they always want their teams to be highlighted and showcased because of the talent kids have in the program and how hard the kids work to get to where their season ends. 

I have a lot of friends who have shared similar experiences I have had growing up with bad coaches, but I like to believe that we have learned from their mistakes and become better people from them. One of my closest friends became a softball coach because they wanted to be the coach that they never had and although they coach a rival team of Shelby County, I still cheer them on once in a while. A lot of people I have known find their love of the sport from coaching soccer to basketball at any age level.

There are so many wonderful coaches in Shelby County that coach from the high school level all the way down to little league baseball. The stories that I have heard and been able to tell about coaches caring for players and paving the way for the future of sports and programs make this job as being a sports reporter so rewarding. While I still have memories of the Taco Bell eating coach yelling at me from a starting block, being able to work with the coaches and programs here makes it a lot less reoccurring.