An Interview with Mitch

Here’s what Mitch had to say about:

How he confronts a student who’s been using…
During my coaching career there have been several students, unfortunately, that I’ve had suspicions of drug use and what’s interesting for me is to look back on the different ways I’ve approached it – from when I was [a] very young coach to now, where I am a not so young coach. I think probably the first incident was probably about 15 years ago. It was my second year coaching, and I actually saw one of my players at a bus station on the way home and as he lifted his arm to wave “hi” to me a bottle of beer dropped out of his coat. My approach was to give him a severe tongue-lashing, tell him not to do it again and suspend him from playing for two weeks, which was following all the rules, but that’s about where I left it. Years later now in the last couple of years, I’ve had some more severe incidents where kids’ academic performance or athletic performance was signaling me to the fact that there was a serious problem with substance abuse, and what I’ve tried to do in those situations, with some more experience under my belt, is sit down and speak with a kid at length in as non-threatening way as I can and express to them my concern – primarily for their well being and health and secondly for anything to do with their athletic performance. What that’s involved at some points has been referring them to treatment, referring them to some sort of community support groups, involving their guidance counselors and usually as well as involving the parents.

Why helping a child is a team effort…
The key is to really approach it as a team. We are the adults in this child’s life who are supposed to be helping him or her to be healthy and productive and make it through their school years in the best way they can. So if we can constantly keep that in mind, we’re all on the same team in this. We’re not working at odds with each other.

Helping kids whose parents have a problem with drugs or alcohol…
The most difficult situation I ever had to address as a coach was the alcohol abuse of a parent that was becoming problematic at games, where this parent was obviously intoxicated and out of control and embarrassing themselves and their kids, as well severely affecting their children’s academic performance, social life and athletic performance. That was the one time where the father involved, who was the abuser, was very, very upset that anyone would intervene, but the spouse, the mother, was very grateful that some[one] else had intervened. The nice point is, now it is 15 years later and the dad’s been sober for 15 years – and actually one of the sons, shortly after he got out of high school, got sober as well so it was a very difficult intervention at the time, but it had some real long-term benefits.

What kids need most from their parents…
In my experience in coaching over 20 years, the one thing that has come through to me very clearly from students is that the thing they want most from their parents…is for them to be parents. They don’t need their parents to be the second coach; they don’t need their parents to be their scout or game critique person. They need their parents, when they walk in the door, to say “I love you” rather than “How many points did you score?” And I know that many kids feel that the stress that parents’ expectations put on them really can almost put them over the edge at times. We do a goal setting every year with my team and one of the things we do is ask the kids to identify what do they need from each other to be successful, what do they need from their coaches to be successful and what they need from their parents to be successful and every year it comes out, “We need our parents to chill, just let us play the game.”

Why he thinks some athletes turn to drug use…
I think that sometimes kids will feel so much stress – athletics in and of itself is stressful – and then the additional stress that, in some way, they are not meeting parents’ expectations of their athletic performance is enough to make kids seek relief in substance use to really try to medicate themselves because they need a break from the stress and the anxiety in some way…and so for some kids, unfortunately, it’s the way they find it.

What coaches can do to help their students…
Any high school coach today and even coaches at lower levels need to be aware of the real danger that substance use poses to the health and well being of our kids. I don’t think it’s possible to be an effective, ethical coach today unless we address those issues on a regular basis with our kids day after day, week in and week out during the season and set very clear standards for them that we enforce, and just as importantly, let them know that if issues arise, coaches can be a resource to help them get the help that they need.