FOR WIZARD KIM ONLY

Alexander Martineau

Profile Essay- The Class in my Campus Coach

Ever since the day I joined a Kentucky basketball team, one figure has stood out to me and I have always looked up to him especially for his inspirational advice. Being a person who loves and actively participates in the sport of basketball; I have had to regularly interact with Professor Mike Warren, our basketball coach who is also a sociology professor at my college. In this context, though Professor Mike Warren is a distinguished professor with exemplary academic capabilities, I have chosen to focus on his basketball coaching skills. This is the area I know of him best. I’m not as familiar with his teaching skills because I’ve not been part of his class. This paper will purpose to highlight his astute coaching skills that have seen in him. As a coach, he develops strong characters among students who play on his teams over the years. Moreover, this profile essay will seek to understand the magic behind his exemplarily capabilities to develop strong teams that fight for the championship year after year. In other words, for Coach Mike Warren, he has demonstrated that indeed success may be temporary but class will always remain and be permanent.

Discussion

In the last 21 years, Coach Mike Warren has dedicated most of his free time to imparting his knowledge and basketball skills to young college players with most of them graduating as polished basketball players who could compete in almost all the big leagues of the world. My first encounter with Coach Warren was during my freshman year. I took him to be a very serious guy particularly when he was at work. However, I have come to learn the real character of this man due to our regularly interactions on the basketball court. This has changed my initial perceptions about him and made me understand his qualities and values even better. It is now time to understand why his teams have done so well over the years and in the process produced skillful players and personalities into society. For this project, I booked for an interview with Coach Warren. He invited me to his office and took part in an interview. Combined with my personal observation of him, as well as, the comments from some of my teammates, that formed the basis for my profile essay about him.  

To begin with, Coach Warren first joined the Kentucky college basketball team from the moment joined the university as a junior professor. In his own words, the coach has always been passionate about the sport which he played during his student life starting from the junior levels during grade school up to high school and finally during his college years. So, when Coach Warren started working at the University as a basketball coach, he decided that he should pass some of his vast knowledge in the sport to talented students passing through our campus.

From my interview with him, I sought to understand how he was able to stay on as a coach for that long without getting bored and his ability to stay so motivated year after year. According to him, the moment a person is passionate about something; it becomes easy because they are no longer working but doing something that they enjoy and very often find great reward in doing so. In Warren’s case, passion has been the main driving force from him to remain as the Kentucky basketball coach for so long without ever losing interest and feeling energized and motivated for the job year after year. I concluded my interview with him by words of advice from him. He suggested that for one to achieve success on something for a very long period of time, then they must firsts learn how to derive joy it after which passion develops and to some extent it becomes a hobby. According to Warren, it is often difficult for an individual to succeed in something they are not passionate about because interest is likely to fade away very quickly. The conclusion made from this interview is that Coach Warren has been able to realize success with the basketball team for over two decades because he is very passionate about the sports and the fact that he enjoys all aspects of it has given him the resolve to keep coaching basketball.

From Warren’s experiences, the biggest assets to anyone becoming a successful coach in any sport is by loving the sport dearly, which is a virtue that Warren has demonstrated throughout his lengthy career as a basketball coach. Moreover, the fact that every year he has to prepare a new team after some of the senior players graduate and leave campus is also an exciting experience. Warren contends that he always finds it an adventurous and exciting challenge to start a new team all over again because every bunch of players is different from another and pushing them so as to get the best results from each team is always a challenge that he relishes in. In the process, some of his former players have managed to make it to big clubs locally and some have even played in the NBA. To Coach Warren, it is always a joy to watch some of his former players do so well later on life but more so in this particular sport.

Warren understands the need for his players to be able to strike a balance between their academic work and sports. For any new team members joining the team, Warren first make you understand that despite being good in basketball, education should not be ignored. For this reason, Warrens insists that no matter how good we are in a particular sport, the aim should be to pursue our academics and sports should be considered as just another leisure activity. However, having said that, Warren’s principal is that active participation in sports makes a better student and as such sports should be seen as a tool to facilitate the academic performance of any student. In other words, Warren believes that students should be able to do well in their academic work because of engaging in leisure activities such as undertaking the sport of basketball. Warren emphasizes that playing basketball on campus is a better way for students to avoid distractions that might result from being idle on campus.

To succeed in any sport, competitive sport or serous engagement, disciple is always considered to be an important asset to possess and this is one of the ingredients that CoachWarren has been able to pass on to all his teams. Warren has always emphasized the need for all team members to exercise personal discipline both on the basketball court and in our daily lives. He argues that team discipline starts from the personal discipline of every member which then spreads out to the rest of the team. This discipline entails simple tasks such as ensuring that each team members do their push-ups properly and diligently without cheating because nobody else sees them. When all members of the team are diligent in their exercise, then the team stands to benefit and success is easier to achieve. He believes in teaching his players to adopt self-discipline. Warren can instill these virtues into their lives because they adopt a lifestyle that embraces high self-discipline standards. This serves to show that not only does Warren train his players to become excellent sportsmen but also trains them on the need to adopt a disciplined behavior that also reflects directly on their lives and character.  

Other virtues worth noting about Coach Warren are that he is a very smart and orderly gentleman. He always makes sure that his schedules and activities are set up ahead of time and that they are conducted in a manner that is organized and neat. For instance, whenever he wants to introduce a new training technique that the team isn’t familiar with, he always makes sure that a demonstration has been made and to ensure that everybody understands what is going on. Moreover, his training sessions are always planned in a systematic manner such that we are all aware of what every player is required to do at various stages. I believe that these are some of the virtues that have made him to maintain the ambitious standards of success for the two decades that he has actively been involved as the campus basketball team coach. Warren believes that by being orderly, one can think through any situation quite efficiently and it is always a nice way to get things done quickly and efficiently.

Conclusion

Coach Warren has risen to become such a class act coach over the years. In Warren’s case, passion has been the main driving force for him to remain as the Kentucky basketball coach for such a long time without ever tiring of it and feeling energized and motivated for the job year after year. Secondly, the biggest assets to anyone becoming a successful coach in any sport is by loving the sport dearly, which is a virtue that Warren has demonstrated throughout his long career as a basketball coach. For instance, he always finds it joyous to watch some of his former players do so well later on in life but more so in his particular sport.  One virtue that Warren has been keen on impacting upon his students is to make them understand that active participation in sports makes a better student and as such sports should be seen as a tool to facilitate the academic performance of any student. Moreover, Warren teaches us that to succeed in any competitive sport or serous engagement, disciple is always considered to be an important asset to possess and this is one of the ingredients that Warren has been able to pass on to all his teams.

In conclusion, self-discipline, passion, and hard work are the three main principles demonstrated by Coach Warren and would be attributed to his class and successful coaching and teaching career.