How My Middle School Basketball Coach Turned Me Into a Pro-Educator

by Sammy Anzer

Say what you want about the high school jock, but she is more likely to have graduated, attended more classes, and performed better on her statewide assessments. So, does picking up a ball raise your IQ? It does. But not in the way you think. The discipline required and learned through athletics makes a high school athlete a higher-performing academic student.

I remember that pressure, that good pressure while I attended public school in New York City, and tried my best to give off that ignorant vibe; I sucked my teeth and went, “Nah, I didn’t do my homework.” And my teammates let me know real quick that wasn’t cool.

“Ooooo. Coach isn’t gonna like that.”

“You’re trippin’. You’re gonna get us extra line drills.”

I knew I didn’t want to let my coach and my teammates down, they were my support system. But it goes further than that.

We play sports as part of a team and as we enter the workforce, we work in teams. More and more, studies like Dr. David McClell’s, a social psychologist at Harvard, are supporting what our mothers and grandmothers have always said, “The people you habitually associate with determine as much as 95% of your success or failure in life.”

As an educator and a part of a team of educators, I learned to understand that sometimes you have to carry your teammates and sometimes your teammates have to carry you. Because you all have the same goal of seeing students succeed. And I’m happy to be a part of a team where everyone works towards that goal in their own style.

Which is why, along with the educational benefits of being an athlete, employers look to hire former athletes after graduation because the skills that athletes learn on the field are highly transferable. Chris Smith, CEO of the Athlete Network, explains that athletes know what it is like to persist in the face of setbacks to reach a goal (pun intended). In addition, athletes have to learn what it means to be a part of a team and to manage the diverse personalities of their teammates. As a result, athletes are both highly coachable and natural leaders (Smith, 2019). These skills aren’t just athletic skills, academic skills or even workforce skills. These are human skills.

While most kids who pick up a ball dream of going pro, like I know I did, athletics as an avenue of employment is growing as much as the sports are. Professional snowboarders need both engineers and designers to build them the best boards, teams need a videographer to capture their exploits to share on social media, and athletic journalists have always had their field to shine on.

However, as a 32-year-old educator, I’ve gone undrafted by all 30 NBA teams.

This year.

But, I would be short-sighted if I said the things I learned on the court didn’t translate to my teaching.

I remember the respect I got from my basketball team when I dove to keep the ball in-bounds during a crucial game. I was not the fastest or strongest, but I learned something as a 12-year old that is still clear within me. I didn’t know how to articulate it then, but I do now. I learned that the one thing you are always in control of is your effort. With consistent effort, you become better.

There are studies that leverage the value of athletics just like the ones I mentioned, but there are some attributes that are not quantifiable (yet). Being an athlete means you practice. And understanding the value of practice will often make you realize the more effort you put in, the better you perform.

And you have to be a part of a team. Being a part of a team means you often have to work with people of different colors, different beliefs, and different motivations than you. You have to be civil with them and you have to learn to trust them and work towards the same goal. If I take that extra step to see the connection between all those things I learned on the court, I see how it applies to being a pro-educator and how my athletic performance gave me a leg up for workforce performance.

Suppose I were to get drafted into the NBA NEXT year — as a 33-year-old classroom English teacher. At the podium, I would absolutely thank my basketball coach, Buzz Matthews, in my acceptance speech.

Because I know now what it is like to take time away from your family after you’ve worked all day and do the community service of coaching knuckleheads like me and my teammates. It’s something that stayed with me because Buzz gave me a part of himself — his values and character.

And I know I have that same power. And the same responsibility to give the best pieces of myself to my community. Adding social purpose to our athletics lets our athletes know that the game they play has evolved beyond scoring the most points.

So I can skip the podium, this article will do just fine.

Thank you, Buzz. I’m out here sharing what I learned about being a teammate, a leader, and putting in that extra effort — from you. And using the research to back it up just like my 11th grade English teacher Mr. Jhun taught me. Shouts to you too. So, I’ll end on this.

A Gallup study spanning twenty years shows that college athletes fare better after college and reports, “they are “thriving” when it comes to health, relationships, community engagement, and job satisfaction” (2019). But it is not because of the competitive edge we mentioned before. Instead, the leading interpretation behind the athlete’s life satisfaction is the support system and mentorship provided by the athletic structure. So much so that the researchers have begun to consider how universities and academic institutions can bring the support system of the athletic model into non-athletic areas.

Everything you do on and off the field for your athletes is preparing them for the future. And while they may not know it now, they’ll absolutely be able to appreciate it when they are 32.