Taking the Long View as Teacher and Coach

Reprinted from Traditions, Summer 2018 - by Dan Willaert, Math Teacher and Head Wrestling Coach
November 2, 2018

Faculty Focus:  Dan Willaert

Following yet another successful season of championship football, a reporter approached Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg and exclaimed, “Coach, you did a great job this year! Is this your best team ever?” Stagg replied, “I won’t know how good a job I did for twenty years. That’s when I’ll see how my boys turned out.”

This brief exchange epitomizes my approach to coaching. While earning titles and championships can be fun and will motivate people in the short term, I strive to take the long view and focus on the life lessons that sports can teach us all.

One model of leadership separates coaching into three different levels: Transactional, Transformational, and Transcendental. A transactional coach can perform the basic duties needed to keep a team afloat throughout the season, such as setting the schedule,
issuing equipment, and supervising practices. A transformational coach can generate positive changes among the team members, both in the physical skills required by the sport and in the work ethic required to be successful. A transcendental coach is one who
can go above and beyond the sport to teach life lessons that are more important than any athletic skills. Coach Stagg was focused on helping his athletes value the fact that the life lessons they experience through sports can make them better people in their everyday lives.

When I picture an outstanding coach, I’m thinking about someone who handles all the logistics and rarely misses those opportunities to challenge and guide the student-athlete to become a better person, in addition to a better athlete.

Development of Student-Athletes Valued Over Win-Loss Records

In a one-on-one sport like wrestling, it can be tempting to get caught up in wins, losses, and rankings to evaluate one’s progress. When we set goals for our program and our student-athletes, we try to focus more on our own effort and preparation, rather than the end result. We believe that if we do everything we can possibly do to prepare for competition and give it our all on match day, then we can be proud of ourselves, regardless of the outcome. Of course, we are working towards all-conference, section championships and state championships, but that is not the focus.

I feel very fortunate to be able to work at Cretin-Derham Hall, because I am able to surround myself with a multitude of transcendental coaches. When I ask other CDH coaches about how their season is going, I am much more likely to hear about the development and growth of the student-athletes than about a certain competition that was won or lost.

This mentality was quite evident to me at the recent Cretin-Derham Hall Athletic Hall of Fame induction event that I attended this past May. To hear world-class athletes who have reached the pinnacle of their sport return to speak about what the CDH community did for their development was very inspiring. None of the athletes used the term transcendental, but when they shared stories about their coaches, it was clear that they had learned more than just the ‘Xs and Os’ of the sport.

The most rewarding part of coaching and teaching at this point in my career has been when former students and student-athletes return to visit after graduating. I love catching up with them and reliving stories of their time in high school. Hearing from their perspective about impactful events renews my spirit and lets me know that I did at least a few things right over the past several years.  

Growing Up in a Home that Valued Co-Curriculars

My parents encouraged my siblings and me to make the most of our high school experiences. The discussion wasn’t a matter of if we were signing up for something, but rather a matter of which activities we planned to sign up for. I participated in five different Varsity sports, played trumpet in the concert band, and was active in the service club during my time at Loyola High School.

This involvement and investment have carried over into each of our careers. My sister is the Director of Coaching for a youth soccer club, and my brother is the head wrestling coach at a college. Looking back at all the terrific mentors my siblings and I were able to learn from, I can see why my parents were so insistent that we were so active in co-curriculars. I know I can never directly repay those people who helped me, but I see my calling as an educator as a way to help pay it forward.

As a teacher, and as a coach, I hope that my students and student-athletes will have their own CDH experience that pushes them and transforms them in such a way that they can reach their full potential.

In twenty years, I would love to be able to celebrate a CDH Hall of Fame induction full of wrestlers and a state championship team or two, but as Coach Stagg said, I will consider it a success if there is a group of former wrestlers who return to share their own fond memories of their time growing, learning and competing for CDH, and are now out in the world helping to make it a better place.

This article and more are featured in the Summer 2018 issue of the CDH magazine, Traditions.