Coaches’ Wives Are the Real MVPs

As we get closer to basketball season, I’ve been thinking about everything my wife does that allows me to coach. The calendar starts filling up, our family plans start working around games, and a lot of the responsibilities I can’t be there for end up falling on her.

I love coaching. Jess knows that, and she loves it too. But her enjoying basketball doesn’t make the sacrifices she makes any smaller. I probably don’t stop and acknowledge that enough.

Last season, she attended every single game. Literally didn’t miss one. And with three young kids, attending a basketball game takes a little more effort than getting in the car and finding a seat.

What It Takes Just to Get to the Game

While I’m getting our team ready, she’s getting our kids ready. She handles school pickups, dinners, and getting all three of them to the gym. Once they’re there, she’s trying to watch the game while managing requests for snacks, trips to the concession stand, and everything else that comes with having three kids in the stands.

Afterward, she’s handling bedtime while I’m still finishing my responsibilities with the team.

I get to put most of my attention toward coaching the game because she’s taking care of so much around it. That’s easy to overlook when you’re caught up in your own preparation and responsibilities.

And her involvement goes well beyond showing up on game nights. She prepares meals, helps with laundry, and organizes gear for our players. She builds our family’s life around the schedule, which means her own time, plans, and weekends have to work around it too.

Fortunately, she genuinely enjoys being part of this. But I don’t want to confuse her willingness to do it with it being easy, or assume that because she loves it, she doesn’t need to hear how much I appreciate it.

She Cares About the Players, Too

One of my favorite things about Jess is how much she loves our players.

She plans senior gifts. She goes with me to their AAU games. She wants them to babysit our kids. They’ve become people our whole family cares about, and she’s invested in who they are and what happens to them.

I remember looking over at her on senior night last season and seeing her bawling her eyes out. That moment has stayed with me because it showed how much those relationships mean to her.

We talk a lot as coaches about the relationships we build with our players. Our wives build relationships with them too. They get attached. They want to see them succeed. They feel it when those seniors play their final game.

Jess is 110% invested, and I’m grateful our players get to have someone like her in their corner.

That also means she carries some of the difficult parts of the season.

She sees the stress, the second-guessing, and the frustration. She listens when I need to vent. She gets to share in the excitement when things go well, but she feels the losses and the angst that come with them too.

That has to be a difficult position sometimes. You care about the team, and you care about your husband, but you can’t do much about the thing causing him stress. You can listen and support him, but you can’t go fix the next possession or change the result.

As coaches, we have practices to plan and adjustments to make. Our wives often have to sit with those same emotions while continuing to take care of everything else.

We Owe Them a Thank You

Of course, Jess also gets to see a version of me that probably makes her wonder how I’m qualified to organize any of this.

I can plan an entire season and take responsibility for 30 other people, then come home and need help finding my keys and wallet. I’m sure she’d appreciate some of that same organizational ability making its way into our house.

I do try to be present when I’m home, and I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of that. But even when we’re intentional about being present, the time commitment still exists. Someone has to handle the things happening while we’re at practice, at games, or doing everything else the job requires.

For our family, Jess carries a lot of that.

I think plenty of coaches recognize how much their wives do. The part we could probably get better at is actually saying it, specifically and often.

Thank you for taking care of things at home. Thank you for getting the kids to the games. Thank you for caring about our players. Thank you for listening when I need to talk through something you’ve probably already heard three times.

Thank you for helping make it possible for me to do something I love.

As this season approaches, I want to make sure Jess hears those things from me. And if you’re a coach reading this, take a minute to think about what your wife carries during your season and tell her you appreciate it.

Jess, thank you for being so invested in our family and our team. I love getting to share this with you, and I know how much you do to make that possible.