Fueling the Feedback Loop:

How Inspiring Young Athletes Has Inspired Me

WRITTEN BY MACK WILZ

For as long as I can remember, I have always gone out of my way to coach or teach anything to anyone who would let me. My high school football coach referred to me as a “coach inside the huddle.” In college, I taught friends how to weight train and classmates how to do electromagnetic theory. During that time, I also started coaching youth sports.

My coaching career started off with football at Sacajawea Middle School in Bozeman. The position was brought to my attention by a friend of mine, and I took it for selfish reasons. It only took one day to find the inspiration that would change all the reasons I was coaching. During gear hand-out on our first day, a person who, based on size, I would have suspected was a parent, walked in. He handed me his physical card and introduced himself to me as Jack. I looked down at his physical card and then back up at him. Jack was a 6’1”, 205-pound seventh grader. I was instantly inspired to help make this kid the best football player he could possibly be. Kids like Jack with an extreme physical advantage will usually go one of two ways: They will either learn skills to complement their physical attributes, which will help carry them further into their athletic careers, or they will rely on only their physical abilities too much and then fall behind later because they have never learned proper technique. I did not want Jack to be the latter. He was kind, respectful and loved the game. Jack inspired me to coach not for myself but for others. To serve my athletes to the best of my ability to make them the best players they can be.

After a couple of years, I stopped coaching, and it wasn’t until my first child was ready to play sports that I found my way back. My oldest, who is now 10, is actively involved in sports. He inspired me to get back to coaching, and he continually inspires me to continue to be the best dad and coach I can be. The first sport he tried, as many kids do, was T-ball... which meant that my first time getting back into coaching was with 4-year-olds... and baseball bats. Two things that 4-year-olds can inspire you to do: have patience and have fun. It was a far stretch from coaching middle school football, but that season taught me to find joy in the little victories.

A few years later I was back on the football field coaching my second season of youth flag football. We had some outstanding players on our team; we also had a couple of kids who had never played before. One of my players was still figuring out his own bodily spatial awareness and his movement in space. He was a fun-loving kid who liked to goof around, but at practice he was ready to listen. He worked day in and day out to make himself and his teammates better. He had given his all to his team over the course of the season. On the final day, we had a double header and, because of his dedication, I wanted nothing more than for this kid to get a touchdown. All of his hard work came to a head on one play and he got himself that touchdown!

This kid broke through a couple of defenders and scored a touchdown. The whole team rallied around him in celebration. That specific instance with that specific kid inspired me to look for the wins beyond the column that reads W on the stats sheet.

Now, I sit here 15 years after my first coaching gig with two kids of my own, trying to start a youth sports company. So, how did I get here? That is an easy question to answer. I was inspired. I was inspired by those who I set out to inspire: The kids I was coaching. These stories are just a small fraction of many in which I have been inspired by my athletes. The summation of all those stories has led me to start For the Future Sports, a youth sports organization that looks to expand the offering of sports in Gallatin Valley and improve our athletes’ lives with a “person-before-player” coaching approach. Through it, I hope to continue to inspire and be inspired by coaches, players and parents in our community, so that looking back, the stories I have today are just a fraction of all the stories I have to look back upon.

Mack Wilz is a local youth coach with over a decade of experience. He recently started For the Future Sports, a youth sports organization, to inspire children to find individual wellness, personal growth and a sense of community through sports.