Life is very fragile. Sometimes it takes a jolt of reality to awaken your soul to the fact that your life can change in a moment. As leaders, we have to ask ourselves, would we be prepared for such a situation? Over the weekend, my sister got into a major car accident in Clayton, New Mexico coming back from dropping off her youngest daughter at college. When we got the phone call from my niece early Sunday morning that the driver of their car had fallen asleep and rolled the SUV into oncoming traffic, my wife and I were in shock. I couldn’t quite get my head wrapped around the fact that they were in a very serious car accident, and that my sister was in critical condition. We were especially concerned because she has been battling stage 4 lung cancer for the last two years, and my wife and I have been taking care of her in our home. The tiny hospital in Clayton made the decision to fly her back to Denver where she is still in the ICU. The fact that she has cancer has made her treatment plan difficult and complicated. She has a long and painful road to recovery ahead.
So that’s a current situation in my family’s life. I know I’m not the only one who has gone through difficult situations like this. And when the news hits, everyone is looking to you, the coach, the leader, to see how you’ll respond. It’s very important to have a community of like-minded coaches who will be there to come alongside you during these painful times when you need support and help. I suspect we’ll all need, at some time in our coaching careers, to reach out to our coaching community for comfort and support. Today the coaching community reached out to support me, and I thank them for caring and being there during this tough time. We want every coach out there to know that we at OneCoach have your back. Join us as we build this community of coaches, one coach and a spouse at a time.
– Coach Joe Nu’u is a linebackers coach at Valor Christian High School. He is a speaker and author of the book, “Invisible Lines.”
OneCoach is now part of The Sports Spectrum Network. For more stories like this, visit OneCoach Facebook page.
