Playing Like a Coach

Let's start out with a piece of information that might seem kind of superfluous at first blush: On Saturdays in the fall, I get REAL southern. I am a University of Georgia football fan with all of the insane zeal of the newly converted.  Ask me to talk about Knowshon Moreno in the brilliant 2008 Sugar Bowl season and I'mma light up like a Christmas tree.  Oh, and if you're a masochist, say the name "Tebow" in my presence and just see what that gets you.   UGA and SEC football are my fall obsessions. I. AM. INVESTED.

So, why am I bringing this up now, other than the fact that it's football season and shit like this video makes me cry with my hand over my heart while singing "Glory, Glory to Old Georgia"? Why indeed...

Flash back to 2009, when Matt Stafford entered the NFL draft, leaving UGA's QB position open to Joe Cox.  It was...not a good season. Cox seemed uniquely good at throwing interceptions.  After the Sugarbowl season of 2008, I wasn't ready for my favorite team to suck so hard.  I was livid.  I went so far as to tell my Florida alumni friends that they had a better team that year.  It was THAT bad.  One day, after a dismal game full of interceptions, I listened to a post-game interview of Cox.  The interviewer asked Cox what his plans were after UGA -- was he going to choose to enter the NFL draft?  Cox replied that his ultimate career goal was to hopefully be a coach.  I believe I remember screaming at that point.  Screaming "THAT'S WHY YOU SUCK!  YOU'RE PLAYING LIKE A COACH! EVERY OTHER JERK OUT THERE IS PLAYING LIKE THEY'RE GONNA BE IN THE NFL! AND YOUR GREATEST CAREER GOAL IS TO HAVE A RECEDING HAIRLINE AND WEAR DOCKERS!"

After a recent Saturday game, my husband reminded me of the time in my household when we spit on the ground after saying Joe Cox's name. I laughed because, well, Aaron Murray and Todd Gurley.  But then I gasped in horror. I was the Joe Cox of my life.

I was playing like a coach.

I am an actor.  I love being an actor.  I am a teacher.  I love being a teacher.  I am, at the moment, auditioning for a lot of work for me as an actor.  I am also applying to a metric butt-ton of academic positions for me as a teacher.  Somewhere, though...  Somewhere along the line, I stopped being 100% an actor in auditions and 100% a teacher in my job applications.  I was teaching like an actor and acting like a teacher.  In no particular moment of my professional life was I 100% the person that was asked of me at that moment.  While sitting in the waiting room of an audition, I was thinking about the class I was going to teach that night or how I needed this job so much.  Consequently, when I went into that audition room, I wasn't doing my job as an actor, I was worried about a thousand other things.  I was concerned about GETTING the job, not DOING my job.  In applying for jobs at various universities around the country, I wasn't completely focused on submitting the best portfolio I possibly could. In every opportunity where I was called upon to step up and show what I've got, I hedged my bets.  I was thinking about my fallback options when I SHOULD have been thinking about being the best possible iteration of myself in that particular moment.  I was anticipating failure.

I was playing like a coach.

Not surprisingly, it hasn't worked out so good for me, either as an actor or as an academic. What encourages me is this:  the UGA team of 2009 is in the rearview and this year's team is exciting and wild and weird and winning.  It is never too late to stop being half who you were meant to be in any given situation.  I am not half a teacher and half an actor...  Half the time, I am 100% an actor and the other half, I am 100% a teacher. I will not be the Joe Cox of my own destiny.