Sunday night, March 28th, 2010 was a great night! Several SportsLeader coaches and their wives met for dinner to celebrate a hard-fought season. But the purpose was greater than that……it was to celebrate the wives; celebrate the devotion and support coaches’ wives give to their men during long and difficult seasons. Thus the program consisted of more than dinner and dessert, it included a talk on marriage, a personal public thank you to our wives and a renewal of wedding vows. It was just what the doctor ordered! Every coach needs to do this, to celebrate their marriage and their wife….for our own sake but more importantly, for our beautiful and often times neglected wives.
Tuesday night, March 30th, 2010 was a terrible night! The happiest couple in the world (me and my wife!) had just had a tremendous fight. (Me) “Why do you want me around all the time but then we start fights when we are together?” (Her) “You really don’t want to be here, you would rather be with your athletes or with other coaches!” Back and forth we went, both of us convinced we were right, convinced that our significant other didn’t care about anybody else but themselves. We were not one in marriage, in fact, we couldn’t get as far away as possible from each other, fast enough!
Does this story sound familiar? Things are going great, you and your wife are connecting, you’re working together, you are so in love with your wife. Then……WHAM!.......you’re wondering why you got married in the first place. Your life would be so much easier if you had just stayed single, plenty of money, plenty of freedom and plenty of time to coach: 24/7/365 days a year. As I sat in a quiet place, I asked God to help me. How does this happen? Why does my wife not understand? God had an answer for me, but it wasn’t why my wife doesn’t understand, it was why I don’t understand my wife.
Men, many of your wives married you because you were a stud. (I hope you still are, and I am sure you still are…..I am…at least I think I am. HA!) You were a stud and you swept her off her feet. As Father Matthew said in his talk Sunday night, we were our wives’ heroes, the knight in shining armor. I remember when courting my wife, I left a football clinic, having a great time with other coaches at the after-clinic social, drove 2 hours to see HER. Football was not my life, and if it was, it paled in comparison to her. She is what I thought about constantly, not drawing up plays. I spent all my spare time with her, not watching game film. I talked to her about us and not about what next season was going to be like. My life was about her…..and I loved every second of it.
So many of our wives are dying, men. Just look at the latest divorce statistics among coaches. Coaches’ wives are neglected. Coaches’ wives are abandoned. Coaches’ wives are taken for granted. Coaches’ wives are wounded. Coaches’ wives are bitter. And this is because we care more about winning than about them. We care more about somebody else’s kids than about them. We love a game played by teenage boys more than we love them.
I want my wrestlers to win, men. I want to have a championship wrestling team. And God be praised, we will have championship wrestlers and a championship team. But I also want my boys to become championship men. And championship men do the right thing. Championship husbands love their wives. They cherish them in private and in public. They include them in all their hopes and dreams. They put them first. Thank God, my wife reminded me of that because celebrating your wife should not be regulated to one day of the year in March after a hard season, it should be a daily celebration that you practice every day of the year. I’m going to start working on THAT championship today. I encourage you to do the same.
God Bless and Enjoy the Fight!
Chris Willertz
Winton Woods Wrestling-where we separate the men from the boys!
“Our mission is to train warrior boys into championship wrestlers and championship men!”
