I’ve been thinking about the Mildura trip most of the week.
First, how to safely reacquaint myself with my wash bag.
Seriously, how many cricket trips have I been on? Hotels, check-ins, check-outs, room sweeps, leaving with what you brought. In my defence, it was 4.30 am, and peg-cleaning is the last act before hitting the road.
As of Thursday, the wash bag is still in transit, the facial hair is getting messy—hopefully Aus Post comes through today.
And then there’s the generation gap.
As I get older, the pathway players seem to get younger—or more removed in mind, body and thinking. That’s the challenge as a coach: staying connected with your players without letting generational differences become generational frustrations.
I looked up the definition of a generation gap. It offered the usual stuff about cultural and social differences between older and younger people, driven by changing technology, economics and the world around us.
Not much help.
I’d define it more simply: the difference in values, beliefs, habits and behaviours between people separated by enough time to have grown up in different worlds.
Twenty years is probably enough. Which puts me two generations removed. Gen X to Gen Z—a decent gap to bridge.
But this is the point. It’s not making the gap disappear. It’s to understand it without letting it get in the way.
The players don’t need to think like me, communicate like me, or see the world as I do. My job is to understand their world well enough to help and coach them in it.
Age brings experience. It shouldn’t bring assumptions.
The years between us are real. But they shouldn’t cloud the coaching.
I had a great week. The cricket always gets you through.
Nick
I found this very interesting and close to home, albeit on a much smaller scale. I had 20 consecutive years of coaching 14-16 yo cricketers and then a gap of 15. Am I too old, to far removed. Will they understand me, will they like me. It’s the cricket that remains the conduit, because the basics haven’t changed.