“Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Coach and for the
summer I’ll be home and playing the role of your husband.” Of course it doesn’t go exactly like that
but there have been times when a thought like that has crossed my mind as that
final bell rings for summer vacation. My
coach is home and now I need to adjust my weekly and daily routines to fit him
into the flow of daily life at our house. You see, the summer routine here
isn’t much different than the school year routine. I don’t teach school so
there’s no summer off for me. For my
coach, it’s like merging into a steady flow of traffic on a crazy highway.
Every morning I’m still getting up and headed out the door
to work. My coach is great and gets up with me. I think he knows it’s in his
best interest. I’m not what you’d call a good sport about the fact that he’s
home and I’m headed out the door to work. (I
understand that I choose not to go into education but trust me, that decision
was in the best interest of all students everywhere and in the best interest of
my sanity.) I’m at the office for eight hours a day and then still run my
errands, figure out what’s for dinner and continue on with my normal routine.
The only change for me is that I’m not stopping by the field to watch a game or
practice.
I love summer in that fact that I’ve stored up my “honey do”
list for months and have these few weeks to hand over my list and see if it all
magically gets done. I do understand however that there is still 7 on 7, there
are still camps to be run and yes, there’s still Coaching School in July but
between all of that there are a few moments when I actually have a husband at
home and have what people outside of coaching call “a normal life.” We have dinner together more than two nights
a week. The amount of laundry goes down immensely since he’s not changing four
times a day between athletics and teaching and back again. The neighbors figure
out my husband isn’t just a figment of my imagination. We are able to schedule
dinners with friends and family more than 24 hours in advance. It’s a whole new
world or should I say a whole different world. It’s different because it’s just
for a few weeks and then we go back to “our normal.”
What helps us ease into summer normal is the fact that we attend Coaches Outreach every year. We go the first full weekend he’s out of the summer. Coaches Outreach holds marriage retreats each summer for coaches and their spouses. It’s a great time to reconnect and remember that there is life outside of sports and there’s a life together. My coach put it really well when he once told a friend, “You go to clinics to work on your coaching skills and you should go to Coaches Outreach to work on your marriage skills.” So our first stop as he begins merging on to the highway of home is to stop and refuel and read the marriage roadmap. Ok – that’s a bit corny but it works for what I’m trying to say.
Summer is fabulous and time with my coach is awesome and watching
things get checked off that list is great, but check back with me in July. I’ll be ready for Coaching School and for him
to head back to practice and get back to “our normal.” After all in Texas it’s all about football and
for me, it’s all about being the wife of the coach.
Cheering you on!
Laurel
Laurel
