Coach award winner uses empathy to reach his students

By Randy Capps

For many people, the word “coach” conjures up memories of playing a sport or maybe getting a nugget of wisdom that one carries forever.

Sometimes, that coach is someone who knows what you’re going through and tries to find ways to help you be successful.

Andy Borland is doing a little bit of both, and for that, he has earned the 2020 Johnston Now Honors Inspiring Coach award.

Borland, a Florida native who spent most of his formative years in New York, graduated from Clayton High School in 2013. And like many newly minted high school graduates, he was looking to earn a little extra money.

“I had a little bit of experience when I was younger, maybe 11 years old, doing taekwondo,” he said of his martial arts experience. “I didn’t stick with it all that long. But my passion for martial arts actually came after I got the job at Revolution (Modern Martial Arts), oddly enough. Most people in this industry, they start martial arts when they’re young kids, they stay with it and they eventually run a school or something like that. But it started as a typical 18-year-old looking for a job. I was recommended to go see Scot (Schwichow, the owner), went over there and ended up falling in love with it — working with the kids and martial arts in general. I trained just about every night I was there and just fell in love with it.”

As a former lacrosse player and martial arts student, he knew he had an affinity for athletics. Finding out he had an interest in coaching young people was unexpected.

“Honestly, it was kind of a surprise for me, too,” he said. “It’s one of those things where the passion finds you. Coming up as a teenager, I was the typical, ‘aw, kids are annoying.’ But then getting into Revolution and seeing the kids progress and having those moments of pride in what they’re doing. (Seeing them) achieving things that they didn’t think they could do before. It’s just such an awesome feeling, and to be a part of that is just really, really special. I guess it just hooked me in.”

It takes different approaches to reach the younger students than it does to get through to teenagers, and a good coach finds a way to do both.

“It all comes down to what motivates them, really,” he said. “With a three year old, pretty much everything is exciting. Everything is a lot of fun. So if you can make whatever you’re trying to teach them exciting and fun, they’ll usually stick with it. With that age group, we try to present things as a game. If you run over here and punch a target five times, you get five points.

“Now, with a 14 year old, their motivations are a little bit more social. That’s when they get to the age where they start to care more about what people think of them and things like that. So you have to kind of go at it at the angle of, ‘well, if you want to have a lot of friends, be successful, do well in school,’ things like that. That’s how we motivate them. Things like team games work well with them. If you can make it more social, they engage a lot better.”

There are plenty of ways for kids of all ages to participate in extra curricular activities, but Borland believes that studying martial arts has unique benefits.

“For one, unless you decide to go into the lane of competition martial arts, there’s really no winning or losing in it,” he said. “Some kids live for that. Some are extremely competitive. I’m extremely competitive myself, so I get that. But in a team sport, whether or not you do your best, if the team loses, it’s always a bad feeling. Where in martial arts, you come in, do your best and you leave at the end of the night feeling good about yourself.

“At Revolution, we really try to focus on the life skills most. Most parents, that’s what they’re looking for. Most parents aren’t coming in saying, ‘I want my kid to be an Olympic gold medalist.’ Most kids need discipline, focus or some kind of confidence boost and martial arts can be really good for that.

“It’s just cool to feel like a power ranger, too. You can do the awesome punches and kicks and all that.”

The most important thing to Borland, however, is his relationships with his students..

“To me, I’m not doing anything crazy,” he said of winning this award. “I think the only thing about it is that I try to think about things from a kid’s perspective. As an adult, with all of the stresses that come with adulthood, taxes and things like that, it’s really easy to forget what it was like to be eight years old. So I try my best to put myself in their shoes, so I can work with them and build a rapport with them.”