By Tiffany Weimer

Some of you that have known me or followed me for a long time now likely know that I haven’t written publicly since 2021. I don’t know that there is a direct correlation between that and the fact that my grandmother died that year - (my last blog post was about her) but it does seem connected nonetheless.

Since then, so much has happened. I’ve been coaching, playing, winning, losing, learning, loving, laughing, crying, and allowing everything to happen to me. I’m really good at documenting my life in journals, lists, calendars. And even so, most of what happens becomes a blur eventually. 

Actually it’s funny… My mom has often made comments about how the 90s were a blur and I don’t really think I fully understood until recently. If you’re living your life, the moments come and go so fast. Like Poe says “O God! Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp” You can’t hold onto things tight enough in this life. Things change. People grow. People change. Things grow. 

What we do have a grasp on is what remains. It’s who we become as a result. It’s who we are right now. What our life looks like. The people in it. 

Then, if we can take a moment here and there to slow down, reflect, evaluate… we can decide if we like who we are, what we’re doing, where we are, the people in our lives. 

I do this in microcycles here and there during the year. But I am lucky to do it once a year now after my coaching season from Nov-Aug. 

This past year was a lot. I felt the pull of playing more than ever and was able to play pickup 2x a week for almost the entire year. I know there are tons of arguments about how being a good player doesn’t mean you will be a good coach… but sometimes it’s hard to imagine not seeing the game through the lens of the players. I don’t think you have to be good to play for fun and get a feel for the game to better relate to players. I know not everyone can, and I don’t think you absolutely have to. I just feel it enhances what I do.

I played and coached this summer in a dual role as player/coach. Our Sporting CT Women’s Team won the WPSL National Championship. We had a style of play. It was very loose. If you ask some players what position they played, with a look of mischief will say “we don’t have positions”. If you ask them what we worked on all summer, they might say, simply “dummies”. 

This would be similar to the youth teams I worked with this year - 2007 and 2009 DPL teams. The 2007s won their Regional Showcase and had a good showing in our first DPL National Event. The 2009s result-wise didn’t fare as well, but have a stronger sense of a style of play.

Now as they go off to college teams and high school teams they miss the autonomy and freedom they have had in our environments. I’m not sure players will have that anywhere else to be honest. 

But it comes back to what I felt as a player and what I still feel. Coaches tell players to stay high or stay wide and they haven’t touched the ball in ten minutes. Hey guess what, that’s not fun. If players are isolated on the pitch, continually put in situations where they have to solve pressure on their own - it’s not fun. 

Just like real-life connections and relationships and a sense of community is important in life, being able to work with your teammates in games is important. It’s more fun. 

So, yeah, I was coaching, let’s call it, a more rigid system with more rules for a while and it’s easy to coach to be honest. Not easy to be great at (Pep) but easy to coach. There is a formula. Stay in your spots. If you leave your spot, someone else needs to be in your spot… etc etc. 

At some point it felt dull. Like developing bots. I felt like a bot in the system I was coaching. Then I realized it didn’t have to be that way. 

I’m sure some of you have read Jamie Hamilton’s blog posts about Relationism. And I’m sure so many of you have rolled your eyes at what could appear to be an extreme version of coaching/playing. When I read his blogs and tweets, and listened to his podcasts all of a sudden I realized what made me feel alive about the game. He just gave it a name and some trends. 

It felt different from what the game has become in so many ways. The coach is in charge. The players are bots. No dribbling. No creativity to solve. No freedom. It’s not the players' game. It’s all about the coach and control. 

This year I let go of almost everything you can let go of as a coach.. but mostly control. I embraced chaos and helped my players to do so as well. I continually told them it was their team, their environment. It’s their experience. It’s not about me. And for someone who was literally born to be the main character, I felt SO much better.

I felt less stressed. I did less work. I felt happier. The game flowed back into my soul like it did when I was younger. I have had the best time coaching this year and the game feels so beautiful again. The players enjoyed it. Even when they lost, it was still easy to find little wins and more importantly, be proud of the work we put in. To be fair, they were incredible this year. All of them. Women’s team, 2007s, 2009s. I felt like the luckiest coach in the world. 

I know there are a million philosophies on coaching and leadership. I don’t claim to be the best at anything. I am constantly trying to improve and I only do that by failing miserably over and over again. I am so big on f around and find out. And then reflect on it. (No shit I started a notebook company right?) 

But for now, I would like to share more about my process. It’s not always pretty and that's what is so beautiful about it all. Writing for myself is great and a huge part of my process, but writing publicly opens up doors that I need to keep developing and become the best version of myself.