Future As A Learner: Capture The Dream
In reality, beyond attaining my Masters degree in May I have no real plans to continue my education academically. That being said, does not mean that I will not continue to learn and grow within my field of work. In the future I plan on rising through the ranks of the coaching world and becoming an offensive coordinator or head coach some day. With those goals in mind, I have to constantly be open and ready to learn and develop as a coach to new ways of thinking. I plan on using my strengths that I have learned through my time in this program to my advantage on the practice field and meting room.
Although, I do not plan on perusing any higher degrees in education I know I need to focus on other areas of learning to improve myself as a coach and make myself even more of an asset to a team with the constant reflection on how to get better. In the world of college football, most jobs only require a master’s degree, which is usually attained while you are a graduate assistant in your first two to three years of coaching. With that stipulation on the job, I have never had the desire to go beyond the initial Master’s degree. It sounds terrible to say that I plan on not furthering my education beyond this, but I honestly do not see a need to unless it is necessary for another step in the coaching world. I see my further academic growth on a need to basis in the sense of classroom style education, but even while I am coaching need to constantly be education in many different ways.
Football is an ever-changing sport and a major challenge coach’s face is how to adjust to new styles of the game. A lot of coaches find themselves stuck in their ways and find them getting left behind while the game evolves. With the game constantly evolving I find it necessary to continue a constant re-education of different offensive and defensive systems so that I can find new ways of running offense and figure out how to beat new types of defences. So in a sense my education in my profession needs to be constantly ready change, especially now since I am a somewhat new coach, and I have to learn the systems of each school I work for. So at this point in my career I find it helpful to be learning all these different schemes because I am able to find things that I like and keep them for future use. I use my time as a low level coach to find out how the older coaches develop their styles of coaching and how they react to changes in the game.
The biggest asset I have as a student of education and of coaching football is self-reflection. With self-reflection I believe I will be able to learn more from what I have done, so that I can improve in all areas of what I am doing. With self-reflection I will be able to make adjustment from what has not been working, and build off of successes with what I am running. I think it will become a huge asset to me in the future as I take on larger roles in coaching and hopefully achieving the roles of Offensive Coordinator or Head Coach. With those two jobs as ideal goals for me I really need to use the concepts of self-reflection and adaptive learning to contribute to putting myself in positions that would allow me to become trusted with those responsibilities.
When it comes to education, I find it extremely necessary to always be finding way to broaden my educational advancement, even though it may not be within the academic setting. I believe that if I am able to learn and adapt to the changes in the game of football, while also being able to take the time to reflect on major aspects of my job and the decisions I make, I can make myself a successful football coach, and give myself the opportunity to advance my career in the right direction. I have the goals of becoming a coach with more responsibility within a football program and its all going to be determined on how well I am able to educate myself by being around older coaches and self-reflecting on how I would have done things differently.