That “Coach” is “My Dad”

Growing Up a Coach's Daughter

Coach. A title that my father has held for 33 years and will continue to hold as part

of his identity until his old age. My dad has been coaching Marine City Football since

before I was born, and some could say I was practically born on the sidelines.

However, one might note that during my upbringing I was entirely more favorable to

playing with my toy horses on the bleachers with my back turned to the football

field at the stadium. Hence, resulting in noting my little knowledge and

interest in the game itself. Though I may not have acquired the knowledge and

background of the game through so many years of attending Friday Night Lights in

our small hometown of Marine City, I do have to note the incredible lessons I have

learned growing up as a coach's daughter and how I carry them out in my daily life,

good and bad.

Strength of Building Community

My dad has a great approach finding alternative ways to connect to multiple

audience types within the Marine City program to establish a strong rapport and

community. This behavior truly showed me the importance of going the extra mile

and getting creative to connect and build individual relationships first that resulted

in better "buy in" and loyalty to the community as a whole.

A few examples I can think of includes bringing doughnuts consistently to his "Dawn

Patrol" athletes for incentive, taking his athletes to sports camps or college

campuses for games outside of his regular coaching time, opening up our home to

have athletes come over for film in the basement with pizza, having an open-door

policy in the classroom if a student athlete ever needed to talk no matter the

subject, and creating a "pat to play" fund for kids who could not afford the

equipment and expenses for the sport.

He made individual connections and catered his practice making sure each athlete

was taken care of and was connected to him on some sort of level, so he was able

to establish trust, a strong relationship, and foundation for years to come that

resulted in making his program so successful.

I carry that out in my daily life lessons with the understanding that each client in the

workplace along with each personal relationship I have in life, whether it be friends

or family, requires an individualized approach based on their personality, needs,

and preferences. By truly going that extra mile with writing

birthday/holiday cards for example to my clients, it helps to build that relationship

between therapist and client to help with the "buy in" in importance of carrying over

the home exercise programs into their daily routines.

Ever Evolving and Educating Oneself

I cannot tell you how many hours I heard film in the basement being played on the

television at home growing up and I did not understand why extensive hours and

commitment were required into this task at the time. In retrospect, I see now the

crucial importance of his studying habits and how the small details of each play

needed to be assessed to help correct and make players and plays better the

following game. I saw him travel for a few nights or weekends to attend workshops

to evolve and continue his mindset of educating himself. If you truly believe you

know everything and you are at your maximum point, then you are essentially

failing yourself. I bring this into my career as an Occupational Therapist researching

and finding ways, I can educate myself even further with continuing education along

with placing myself in challenging situations to improve my skills, such as taking a

level two student clinician this past fall. If you feel too comfortable where you are,

then you are stagnant and not evolving your expertise in your career.

Different Learning Styles

Seeing my dad also coach other sports at our high school including volleyball,

basketball, and baseball showed him the differences not only between gender

specific motivation, but how each individual athlete has a different preference to

criticism and learning styles to enhance their performance. Growing up as a coach's

daughter, I was able to provide him with feedback firsthand when I became old

enough to coach that I did not appreciate the harsher feedback style that he is

known for. If anyone knows my dad, you will know it is his voice by hearing his

anger and tough demeanor across the basketball court or football field when a

correction needs to be made in a huddle or time out.

Now, this may motivate some as I notice in particular the boys respond better to

this type of feedback. However, when it comes to me personally as a woman, I

prefer a gentler approach to hearing a coaches' feedback including modifying his

tone and order of critique. I require positive reinforcement first, then the provision

of critiques or corrections I need to make. Everyone is very different with their

preferences, so I believe when I was able to verbalize that to him, he was able to sit

back and reflect more on how it truly is about individualizing and getting to know

your athlete to create the best motivational outcomes and performance patterns for

them. I do the same thing with my clients in home care, assessing what type of

feedback motivates them to get better with their health conditions whether it be a

tough or more gentle approach.

Grappling with Identity

"Hey, you are Coach Glodich's daughter!" I never truly had a name growing up and I

will tell anyone that asks me my least favorite part about being within Marine City

was that I did not truly feel I had my own identity. I was tied to being Coaches

daughter or Gunnar's (my twin brother) sister when I met anyone new or came

across people from the town. This aspect was confusing for an adolescent already

trying to figure out who they were in some difficult years. Though this association

did have some benefits to it overall in connections to help me, there was always a

difficult standard placed on me where I felt like I had to live up to something.

Whether it would be in athletics or school performance there was always an eye on

me, never a private moment where I felt that I could truly be "Gabbi " and develop

my own story.

One thing I enjoy being out in the professional field now as a clinician is I am able to

introduce myself as Gabbi from the start with no prior associations or connections

related to me. The client and coworkers are able to formulate their own opinions

and relationships with me without the overwhelming sense of knowing who I was

related to. Because let's be honest, my dad was basically famous in our town. We

could not walk anywhere down the street without someone saying hello or catching

him into conversation. This is a wonderful aspect of him being well known

throughout the community, but sometimes I wished we were just a regular average

Joe.

Establishing Boundaries

For those who knew me in high school, you would be curious to inquire why I had

specifically selected sports that were outside of my dad's knowledge base. I can tell

you now that it was on purpose coming from a teenager that did not want her dad

to be coaching her. There was some difficulty in boundaries growing up between his

identity as a father and coach. I think my twin brother definitely got the brunt of it

within his sports of football, basketball, and baseball while I merely scraped the

surface. Though there are benefits to someone coaching you outside of practice and

within the home, I appreciated more of a separation between roles for a better

sport/home balance. Knowing my dad's natural tendencies, he still continued to

educate himself the best he could and become invested in what techniques he

could coach me on, especially in regard to swimming- one of my favorite sports in

high school. During my swim meets, he would be in the stands with his stopwatch to

record his own times on my swimming races and compare to the clock itself up on

the board.

It makes you realize that no matter your personality and duties involved with work,

that sometimes your multiple roles and identities can become confused and start to

tangle within themselves. I understand that was his way of showing me his love in

his own way, but I think it is truly important in life to establish boundaries based on

what your family needs from you to have that "off" button, whether it being

enforcing a time out with your checking emails after work, not attending to

messages or phone calls until the next working day, and truly focusing on your

family and your roles in the afterhours to just be "dad" or "daughter" together.

Value of Hard Work

In sports, there are a lot of hard things. From early mornings to multiple practices a

day, lifting, meetings, things do add up and become taxing on the mind and body.

Not everyone is made for a lifestyle of coaching or being an athlete. There are a lot

of physical and mental barriers one needs to fight through in order to succeed. He

taught us the value of hard work and the results you see from the effort put in day

in and day out. I was taught never to quit, even when things were tough. I think

that the mentality from my upbringing is very useful in any aspect of adulthood.

There are a lot of things that are hard, and his values of perseverance have assisted

me in staying the course and making it through challenges in life itself.

Conclusion

My dad may be Coach Glodich to others, but to me first and foremost he will always

be my dad. I look forward to welcoming my first son into my family this upcoming

summer with my husband Manny, where I know as Baby Luca continues to grow, my

dad will step in and start coaching him from a young age to pass on his legacy and

skills. His insight and example have led me to believe I can accomplish anything I

put my mind to as he raised me to be strong and independent. I love you dad. I

wouldn't change my experience for the world growing up as the coach's daughter. Happy Father’s Day!

Gabrielle Romero, MS, OTR/L