The Least of These

The oft quoted phrase "walk in another person's shoes" both haunted and motivated me throughout my coaching career. Making an effort to see and understand both sides of issues was a fundamental principle I pursued daily. But only after being challenged to explain how I thought my life would have been different if I had been born into a different family have I uncovered more layers into what that could mean. Trying to feel another’s pain is easy to talk about but hard to do. Yet, relationship building depends on exactly that. Christ-like decision making demands that we make that effort to understand, not judge, the behavior of others. Only by honestly caring about the reasons players behaved as they did, and taking into account those reasons before I reacted, could I effectively influence and encourage them to move to a better place. I learned quickly that players don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Peeling back those layers may be difficult but I am convinced that lasting impact depends on it!

Maybe, just maybe, many of those I worked with everyday were some of those Jesus meant when he said "the least of these." Aren’t we coaches offering the hungry something to eat, the thirsty something to drink, the stranger something to belong to, the naked, clothing, the sick, comfort, and those in prison, a visit? And, certainly, there are many other people who fit that description more literally and hence deserve our attention also, but my suspicion is that coaches may be in the middle of that story more than we realize every day.