Stress of Success

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Coaches of high profile sports can also find stress in dealing with the media. Coach Swaney is no rookie when it comes to dealing with the media and fans. Multiple games he has coached have been on massive media websites and even television, including last years PIAA championship. “I do not stress in that. I love having the media coverage and the gym packed with fans,” said Coach Swaney. “To be honest, once the game starts I could not tell you if there are 50 people in the gym or 500.”

Coach Conlon said the nature of any sport generates pressure.

“There is always stress with anything competitive because kids put a lot of pressure on themselves.” said Conlon.

With football being the biggest fall sport at B-A, everyone is watching. Football is already such a high intensity, high stress sport, with Coach Lovrich stepping in as a first-year head coach to replace 30-year legend John Hayes, people were judging his performance from the start.

“There are different types of stress from it though. There is the stress that you put on yourself first.  You want to do the best job you can, so you put a lot of demands on yourself,” said Coach Lovrich. “Then you have the stress where you are trying to do what is best for every kid on your team, but sometimes there are people who are just concerned about that one individual player, so you can get second guessed a lot.  Then I think there is the stress of just being a coach, where everyone knows who you are and people are watching to see what you are doing.”

“ I work really hard to do what is best for our team and feel confident that what we are doing is what is best for us as a team.”

Coach Swaney said that one of the biggest stressors is when one of his players are unhappy or disappointed with their playing time.

“Winning always helps take some of that stress away for both me and the player,” said Coach Swaney.