Sjarif Goldstein: Coaches can be some of best teachers, role models

When the news came across the wires a couple of weeks ago that legendary tennis coach Nick Bollettieri had died, the first emotion I felt — before the sadness struck even — was an odd combination. It could perhaps best be described as a mixture of revelation and disbelief — not disbelief that he had died but that I had forgotten about him.

Bollettieri was perhaps the most famous tennis coach in the world when I was a young tennis player in the late 1980s. He was known for training Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Monica Seles, among many and would go on to work with the Williams sisters and many others.

I never felt any kind of special connection to Bollettieri, but seeing his name did take me back to a special time in my life. And then I read the quotes about him and how he impacted the sport and so many of his students, and it prompted me to think back to some of the coaches I’ve had through the years.

I think anyone who plays organized athletics across several years will be blessed with some exceptional humans as their coaches, especially in youth sports, but I’ve been especially fortunate, I think. From my sensei at Leeward Judo Club (Tsuruo Fukushima) to my Pearl City High School tennis coach (Glen Miyasato) to my kids’ swim coaches at Pearl City Aquatics, I’ve had many great coaches in my life, ones who cared more about the kids than the winning.

Since I started writing a column about a year and a half ago, one of the subjects on my mind has been the great coaches I’ve had and the impact they’ve had on my life, and Bollettieri’s death made me realize there’s no time like the present. No more waiting while I forget to look up when National Coaches Day is (Oct. 6, it turns out) so I can write a timely column.

Youth coaches get paid little to nothing for hundreds of hours of time invested and are often rewarded with knucklehead kids and second-guessing parents. So it’s time for this former knucklehead kid (who was careful not to turn into a second-guessing parent) to pay it back a little bit.

One of my truly impactful coaches was my first. Like so many kids, my first foray into organized sports was Little League baseball, when I was 9. I grew up in Pacific Palisades, and we had our own league of six or seven teams back then, separate from Pearl City’s. My coach was Frank Dalere, whose daughter, Kimberly, was also on our team, one of only three or four girls in the league.

We were the Giants and we won the championship that year. I was the worst player on the team, but Coach Dalere always made me feel like my breakthrough was right around the corner. He held optional practices on Sundays, which I always attended because most of my teammates had been playing organized ball for years, and it was at one of these that he left me with an indelible lesson.

The day before was our first game, an exhibition against the Pearl City Giants, and it turned out to be my most memorable game for reasons good and bad.

The worst of it was I took a pitch off my face. That’s no fun at any age, but for a young kid, it was especially painful — perhaps even scarring, it turns out. Twenty-plus years later then-Star-Bulletin/now-Star-Advertiser columnist Dave Reardon did the work of a good therapist and pointed out that that beanball probably had something to do with my not playing well in games. I was always decent in practice but struggled against live pitching, when that threat of getting hit in the face again was very real.

Two good things did happen that day, though: I received my only ovation as a baseball player when I re-entered the game a few innings later. Also, I made a nice running catch in the left-center gap.

Which brings me back to the lesson I learned at the next day’s optional practice. My dad and I walk up and the first thing Coach Dalere says to my dad is “Your son doesn’t know how to catch.”

Coach was not a mean man. He always treated every player fairly and with respect. And because of that, everyone on the team treated each other with respect — no small accomplishment for a bunch of 9- to 11-year-olds.

It took me well into the season to even hit a ball in fair territory in a game, even though I hit just fine in practice, but no one ever got down on me, and when I finally put one in play, my teammates were as excited and relieved as I was.

The cherry on top was that once it was pretty clear how good our team was, Coach Dalere would often kick off the first practice after a win by treating the whole team to Icees at the Fastop across the street. Back in the days before boba drinks, when milk tea and cheese foam just sounded like random word combinations, Icees were the ultimate treat for a kid.

So when Coach said I couldn’t catch just a day after I’d made a great catch, we knew it was time to listen. Coach Dalere proceeded to show us the technical mistakes I was making on routine catches. Choosing the day after I made a nice catch as the time to teach this lesson may seem unorthodox, but it was perfect. Had it come after I dropped an easy fly, costing my team a game, it might’ve shaken me. Instead, I learned some valuable fundamentals.

I also learned that results are not always an indicator of skill, and that even when you think you’re good, you can always get better.

I’m still friends with some guys from that team, and we remember fondly what a special season that was — even for guys who went on to long careers that reached high school and college — thanks to Coach Dalere.

There are bad coaches out there, sure. I’ve seen coaches going a little too hard after little kids, swearing at them even. My son had a baseball coach who smoked upwind from the team. Secondhand smoke is not supposed to be on the menu at the postgame potluck.

But remember that even the ones who don’t treat the team to Icees are almost all out there giving their time for little or no money, using supplies and equipment that they paid for themselves. If they’re starting to sound a bit like teachers, well, it’s no coincidence that many of them are teachers.

This is the point in the column where I should be writing something like “so let’s show them the same respect we show teachers,” but frankly we as a society don’t show teachers enough respect either. So I’ll just say don’t forget to appreciate your coaches.