Admissions

Admissions (ad mish' uns): things confessed.  I've heard that confessions are good for the soul.  I'm releasing some of mine so that I can continue to heal and be the woman God wants me to be, the wife Joe deserves, the mother my children deserve, the friend my friends deserve, the daughter my parents deserve, and the sister my siblings deserve.  Only when I have achieved these things will I be the woman that I want to be.

Admission 1- Coaching can be a tiring profession and the Borich family is tired.  We have been tired for a while now.  We felt like we were just in a rough patch, though, and we hadn't earned the rite of passage to the ideal job yet.  The majority of coaching families experience rough patches-it's the nature of the beast.  The beast in control of the coaching life  is a nasty bitch, though, that had an unrelenting hold on our lives.

Admission 2- I was a poor coach's wife, and for once I don't make this reference monetarily.  My parents were at every game I danced or cheered at, every play or concert, every EVERYTHING!  I was resentful that Joe couldn't be at Mykah's soccer games or school functions.  I was also anticipating more heartache as the boys get older and involved in their own stuff.  I found myself already dreading being the only Borich parent on the sidelines or in the audience, and the boys are only 4 and 2.  What I was supposed to do was put on my fake happy face and convince everyone that it worked for our family.  Everyone reading this knows that's not one of my strengths!  I sucked at it and I can't say that I would change it if I could.

Admission 3- I'm a nerd.  I am!  I love school and I'm really good at it.  I believe that is a gift from God and I want to develop it.  It's hard to have any goals outside of football when football controls our lives, and I felt horribly selfish for wanting to have the opportunity to stay in school.  Most of the coach's wives that I know are (or at least seem) so selfless, not selfish.  However, I have talked to some who do what I've been doing, which is say the "right" thing about the unique characteristics of the coaching profession.  Meanwhile, her heart is breaking under the continuous sacrifices that coaching requires.

Admission 4- Joe has been struggling.  I knew when he told me he wanted to get his Master's degree that his faith in the coaching profession was wavering.  Joe is just traditional enough that he feels people should be rewarded and punished based on their own merit.  Coaching doesn't necessarily work that way.  A football coach can be fired just because he works for an unethical, morally corrupt person.  A football coach can be jobless based solely on another's poor decisions, including those of mentally deficient 18-22 year old boys.  The opposite is also true.  A piss-poor coach can be ridiculously successful on another's shoulder pads.

Admission 5- Coaching is a social network.  Joe has many friends and acquaintances throughout the profession.  But he never wanted to solicit those friends for jobs.  He believes that when it comes to a job like the one at TU, he shouldn't have to have everyone he knows flood the Athletic Director with recommendations.  We'll never know if that would have made a difference in the AD's decision, and it doesn't matter to us.  We accept the decision as God's will for our family.

Admission 6- We dreaded moving to Tiffin.  We passed up the opportunity in 2009, then resisted all thoughts of Tiffin until Joe accepted the job as a last resort in February.  We know now that God allowed us a second chance to come here, and we almost blew it again!  As we pulled into town close to midnight on April 24th, 2010, I was completely void of optimism.

Then we fell in love in a very short amount of time!  We fell in love with the university, the YMCA, our church, our babysitter (and her family), my part-time job... we fell in love with the ENTIRE community and all it offers.  We truly believe that God wants us here, and we were absolutely devastated when Joe didn't get the job we wanted.  At the time, that was the only way we could be here, so now what?!!

Admission7- It's time for a change.  Joe was offered a job as an Admissions Counselor for TU.  Yesterday, he accepted it.  We will be staying in Tiffin and both continuing our educations.  Instead of recruiting players, he'll recruit students.  He'll work Monday through Friday, with the occasional Saturday for a college function.

Turns out that Joe was also silently struggling with the kind of dad he wants to be.  His parents were like mine.  They came to all of his games and he has not been able to handle being absent.  How can he be like his wonderful father if his lifestyle prevents doing so? 

Another struggle Joe had was being tied to another person-good, bad, or indifferent.  It's almost impossible to let your light shine when someone's shadow completely covers it!  Now, Joe will be held accountable for Joe's performance.  Period. 

We have decided to be a "normal" family since the opportunity presented itself.  We feel that this job shares some characteristics with coaching and will provide some balance to Joe's life, to my life, and to the lives of our children.  We feel this opportunity is God showing His will for us and we are excited to see where it leads and the doors and windows it opens.  We still believe the coaching door had to be slammed in our faces to make us turn this direction.  For now, that helps take some of the sting out of the rejection we can't help but feel from the coaching job.

Coaching is a family decision and the Borich family is choosing to take a break.  Thanks to our families for your constant and unwavering support.  You deserve a break from the craziness, too!  We don't know if this Admissions job is the best decision, but we feel it's the right one for our family at this moment in our lives, which seem to be sailing by too quickly.  Ultimately there is no way to know if the decisions we make are the perfect ones, so we do the best we can through prayer and faith.

This will be my last post to "The Coaching Life...by a Coach's Wife."  When I post next, I will change the title to "Team Borich" because our family is the team that matters most.  The Bengals, Big Red, and Dragons will just be teams we cheered for along the way.  All of our stops will be part of our unique story that I will continue to share as it unfolds.

God Bless You, for He has surely blessed us!  Thanks for stopping by...