When I married into the coach’s wife life, I had not one single clue what I had gotten myself into. Not a clue, I tell ya’! Possibly and similarly to the fire fighter’s wife, the administrator’s wife, the cop’s wife, and so forth…
Let me give you a quick (emphasis on quick) summary:
Later into my teenage life, I knew that one of my ‘prerequisites’ in a husband was that he would be a coach. I didn’t know any other details. I really didn’t have any other items that were on my list. Of course, I wanted him to be handsome, but the coach thing was the only one item I really had my eye on. There’s always at least one thing that people have in mind for a spouse. What about, “I want my husband to have green eyes”, or, “I want him to be shorter”, or, “I want him to have good hands”. Same thought process. I had in my mind that my spouse was going to, one way or the other, be a coach. I tell young girls often, don’t ever give up on that one thing that you want. God has put it there for a reason; stick with it, don’t lower your expectations, and be on the lookout.
Enter: MY COACH. Oh man…I was smitten from the moment I met him! Now wait a minute, this is not a blog post on our wedded bliss+married life, BUT, I was taken by this young man that I met in college. I will never forget the day we talked about what we wanted to do after college, and he preceded to tell me that he wanted to coach. Oh LAWD. He had no idea what he had just done! Bells went a-ringin’ in my head! This. Was. It.
And IT, it was.
Fast forward. Let me just say, imagine that I was trying to sell something I had to offer in a wanted ad. It would simply say:
There is no way on God’s green Earth could we be co-dependent and make it. Nope! Our Coaches need us to be independent and we ARE. They married independent, self-sufficient women!
2. The Bond.
When we see each other, we immediately have a bond. There is a mutual understanding of what each other goes through, and you feel it upon meeting. We have a common goal, a unity, and an understanding of how our life can be during season, and we love each other for it.
3. We Hear and Don’t Talk.
We listen and we don’t repeat. Period. We listen to our coach, empathize with them, hear all the ins and outs, and we keep it right there. As I like to say before conversations: “This is Vegas…”. We understand we are there for support, we will stand up and fight for our Coach, and we help navigate tricky waters through the thick of it. There’s more to this coach’s wife life than meets the eye.
4. The “My Children are Your Children” Mentality
When we see each other chasing after our small children, we immediately help and run after them too. You know why? Because our husbands are on the field. We have to help because we are family, and we know what it feels like.
5. We Love the Team.
We love them JUST as much as our Coach does. After all, they are like our sons and daughters. We watch them every weekend, every Friday night, every tournament. We know their numbers. We want every single one of them to succeed. Little do fans know how it isn’t only the coach, but it’s the wife too that prays for success for every single player. Not for the win, but for the individual to see his/her hard work pay off. And when it does, it’s just as exciting for us as it is to anyone else.
6. We Rise and Fall with Our Coach
With a win we celebrate. With a loss we analyze. We talk it out. All with our coach. Never could I ever see my coach lose and keep going on my merry way. No, we are right there with them. With every loss and every win. We feel it too.
Ashley & Company 
Ashley, how right you are on all points. My coach and I retired from the school business in 1998. Over the years before his death six years ago we enjoyed so much watching game films together at our retirement home. He'd start out slowly sharing with me the challenges of particular games, and before long we'd both be fully engulfed in reliving the great moments of wins and reflections on losses. I would watch him become more and more animated as we shared this important part of our lives which would include the participation of our sons in his program. Coaches wives usually sat in a specific spot in the stands and our toddlers could run the stands between the leg barriers. It was indeed a great life of watching all of our children grow in a healthy environment and then move into their adult years. I still rummage through old and tattered memorabilia occasionally and remember some great times in my life.
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This made me cry! How much I can visualize all of that. Bless you and your family. Thank you for being 'standing in the gap' for your coach. I'm sure you know, but I can feel that you were such an important part of his ability to coach and make the difference in players' lives. Thank you for sharing!
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