When I first started playing high school football, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought the coaches would be big, mean, and ornery. I thought they would drive me to hate the sport. I thoroughly believed that stereotype until I met Coach Steinbach, the specialists coach.
As a kicker, I didn’t expect to have a specialist coach. I thought I would have to teach myself for another four years like I did in the past.
My first practice with Coach Steinbach was freshman year. He worked the specialists as hard as a soldier in training. He had us doing hundreds and hundreds of phantom swings and drops. Initially, I thought Coach Steinbach was just coaching us hard because we were freshmen and I didn’t know he would have a lasting impact on my life.
Before I realized it, my senior year of football had started. Coach Steinbach had been critiquing and improving my technique for three years. You would have thought I would be sick of him by now, but I knew if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
One practice I was kicking very poorly, almost as if I didn’t know what I was doing. Kick after kick was wide right, wider right, and more wide right. I had a negative attitude towards everything because I couldn’t make good contact and keep my head down. He asked me, “Trevor, what are you thinking about? What is going on in your head?”
I replied, “I can’t make a kick! Every kick has gone off to the right.”
Coach Steinbach responded, “Don’t think about the last kick. It’s the next kick that matters.”
I took his advice and completely blocked out my previous kicks. None of my horrendous kicks mattered except for the next one. I took my conventional three steps back and two steps to the left. I inhaled and exhaled a huge breath of concentration. As I approached the ball, all I thought about was kicking this football. Not the last one, or the one five minutes ago, but this football.
My foot made contact with the ball. As I peeked my head up, I noticed that the football went straight. It didn’t push right! I repeated this process of blocking everything out over and over. The process helped me kick a clean, consistent ball.
Coach Steinbach not only helped me become a better kicker, but he also taught me how to have a positive mental attitude. That is why I am nominating Geoff Steinbach as Educator of the Year. I use the lessons he taught me in practice and applied them to the classroom. It’s the next kick that matters. Without a positive attitude, nothing will go right. That’s what I learned from Coach Steinbach.