Grace Dolot:  What ages did you coach? Boys or girls?

Jim Dolot: I coached both boys and girls from ages 4 all the way through to age 16

 

GD: Why did you decide to start coaching?

JD: I started coaching to be involved in my children’s lives and impact young people.

 

GD: What did you find most rewarding about coaching?

JD: Watching and helping young people develop and accomplish their goals, specifically physically and emotionally.

 

GD: What was the most difficult part about coaching?

JD: Two things:  (1) overbearing or completely uninvolved parents, and (2) watching players/kids fail, knowing they would learn more from their failures than their successes, but watching them go the pain of failure.

 

GD: Did you coach certain players differently than others? Why? How so?

JD: I tried to treat all my players fairly.  And I tried to get the most out of every player.  To do that, yes, I treated many differently (not unfairly, but differently) because people are different and they respond to different types of motivation and coaching/teaching.  Some get things right away, some take longer to absorb things.  Some respond well to words, others are visual learners, etc.

 

GD: Based on different ages you were coaching, did you change your style of coaching to

age?

JD: No, I did not change my style.  I always focused on developing players, teaching them, treating them respectfully, and being enthusiastic.  At different ages, you use different constructs to teach (less sophisticated at younger ages, etc.) but the concept of teaching, developing, and treating them respectfully, and being enthusiastic never changed.

 

GD: How was your coaching different based on boys vs. girls? Why?

JD: It wasn’t different. I enjoyed coaching the girls more than the boys.  But my style was the same.

 

GD: What was your coaching style?

JD: Coaching style (in order of priority) —(1) safety, (2) have fun so you want to keep playing, (3) get better and develop your skills, and (4) learn to compete and win.  

 

GD: Some coaches tell their athletes that sports and athletics are their first priority. What emphasis did you place on athletics compared to other things students had going on in their lives, like school, family, social lives, etc.? Why?

JD:  School first.  Academics always first, because education is the biggest and best investment you can make in your life and help you have opportunities to be successful in the future and a good citizen of the world.

 

GD: Having coached teens, you had a large influence on their lives. Is this something that you took under consideration?

JD: I never assumed that I had a huge influence in my players lives, but I tried to behave and coach like I could and did.

 

GD: How did this affect your style of coaching, if at all?

JD: First and foremost, I tried to behave well and model good behavior, sportsmanship, and citizenship.  Second, I tried to instill what I believed to be the right priorities - safety, academics, personal development before winning.  Third, I tried to be supportive of each player in case they had things going on in their life.  Finally, I asked them questions on how they were doing, what was interesting in their lives, without being personally intrusive.

 

GD: What was your favorite thing about coaching?

JD: Two favorite things about coaching: (1) seeing when the players develop and that moment when it all comes together and kicks in (Seeing one of my baseball players succeed when he finally trusted me and started to swing earlier and had great success hitting), and (2) when teams develop enough chemistry that they coach themselves and they develop and great bond (Southfield wild, Fusion last year, etc.)

 

GD: What advice would you give to someone who plans on coaching younger ages, or coaching at all?

JD: Coach because you want to make a difference in young people's lives, not because you want to have winning teams.

 

GD: How do you think playing high school/middle school/ travel/ rec sports changes/impacts a student-athlete?

JD: With the right priorities, playing sports has an enormously positive impact:  teaches young people discipline, teaches young people how to work in teams, teaches young people about benefits of hard work. teaches young people about dealing with adversity and disappointment.

 

GD: Is there anything else you would like to add about coaching?

JD: One of the most rewarding and fun things I have done in my life.  Have created lifelong friendships, lifelong memories.  I would encourage everyone to try coaching one sport for at least one season in their life.