Interesting word… Coach. You can use it many ways.  As describing a mode of transportation – like riding in a coach or flying in coach. Better yet, as an action word, as in to coach someone. My favorite is to see Coach as a title, one given with respect.  

It’s a title that belonged to a friend of mine, Mike Warren. Technically, I was his boss for a few years, but it didn’t feel like that. It was more like a partnership that turned into a friendship.

Twenty years ago, I was president of the Elings Park Foundation, a non-profit that operates America’s largest community supported park. The Park operates without any tax dollars or ongoing City or County financial support. That’s not an easy task. 

Parks are not designed to make money. Non-profit parks are particularly good at not making money. Yet, to be financially sustainable, they must become so. To take on the job as Executive Director of a non-profit park, it helps to have the mindset of a football player, in particular a linebacker.

Mike Warren, in his college football days, was a linebacker. That gritty, smiling guy behind the defensive line, just daring the opposing team’s players to try and get through him. To be a successful linebacker, you’ve got to play with tenacity, smarts, vision, determination, and joy. 

Mike was a very successful linebacker. He went on to become an extraordinary football coach. Coaching both at the high school and college levels, his career overall win-loss ratio was 75%. 

Mike was a legendary leader and strategist. He identified strengths and weaknesses of his team. He saw the needs of a team in order to make it whole. He was a master at recruiting people to join his teams, whether it be for football, business, community service, or just plain fun. 

Not only a coach, but Mike was a lifelong student and teacher of history. He read constantly, made observations, took notes, identified what worked, and what could be better. He brought all that to the organizations he led. 

He recruited top talent and set clear expectations. Yet, he also gave his top performers autonomy and the freedom to perform. He was not a micro-manager, but you absolutely knew when you hadn’t delivered what he believed what you were capable of. You got direct and honest feedback.

Known to kick a clipboard in front of the team a time or two, he was passionate about working towards excellence. He also loved to celebrate with others, not only his team’s wins, but their personal wins as well, whether it was in the arenas of sports, business, or life. 

Mike acknowledged his losses, learned from them, applied those lessons to the next practice, the next game or the next organization. 

When Mike came to Elings Park nearly 20 years ago, he told me he wanted to have a weekly coffee with me. I asked him why. He asked, “Don’t you think it would be a good idea if the two of us had a good sense of what each other was thinking?” 

It was hard to argue with that. So for three years we had coffee together every Monday. Sometimes others would join us, sometimes it was just us. However, since Mike was so well known in the community as a coach, we were frequently interrupted by friends greeting him. He was always gracious and kind.

From Mike, I learned the value of giving and receiving weekly feedback with my team members. Effective coaching isn’t a one time, annual session. It requires regular, ongoing, direct communication. It requires an investment of personal time, energy, and commitment. 

Back then, I was an ambitious, driven 46 year old building contractor. I wanted things to “be-right” and right now! The ongoing coaching that’s required to truly build a winning organization… well, that was a lesson that Mike taught me, through example. However, it was one that still took me another decade to fully absorb. I guess I’m a slow learner.

While Mike could have gone in any direction professionally as a young man, he chose to be a teacher and a coach. He wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids. And he did.

As he told me, “Kids want to be part of a team. You can make it inviting for them to join your team. Or those other recruiters, the ones from the local street gang, will work to get them to join theirs. Let’s make it easy for them to join ours.” 

Yes, Mike would fight for what he believed was right. Especially when it came to kids. 

At Elings Park, we have a BMX track for little kids on BMX bikes. It’s always been run by parent volunteers. Interest in the facility wanes and waxes depending upon the kids and the parents that are involved with the sport. It takes up a lot of space, sometimes has very little usage, and produces minimal revenues. As such, sometimes it’s a bit of a step-child at the Park.

It would be the perfect spot for a multi-use athletic field… soccer, lacrosse, football. There’s a shortage of fields in town. There would be a huge demand for it. So we proposed relocating the BMX track in order to accommodate the new athletic field. 

We were pretty far along in our planning process when Dale, the lead parent volunteer for the BMX community requested a meeting with Mike and myself. Dale is landscaping contractor. He works with dirt and plants. He’s a straight talker and, like Mike, he’s passionate about supporting kids, especially kids who like to ride BMX.

“I’ve studied those plans you have for relocating BMX,” Dale said.

“What do you think of them?” I asked, because I thought we had done a pretty good job of tucking the BMX track into its new location.

“Not much.”

Taken aback, I asked, “Why is that?”

“What you’re proposing is a typical Santa Barbara thing to do.”

“What do you mean? I asked.

“Santa Barbara always gives lip service to taking care of kids,” he said. “But they don’t really deliver.”

“Okay, I guess I’m not following you,” I said with a question in my voice.

Dale sighed. Then he said, “Look, to put the BMX track in that spot, you have to shrink it some. Around the country, BMX tracks are a regulation size. You have kids competing here on your track who are future Olympic contenders. If you build this track, you’re going to shortchange them because when they go to compete elsewhere, they won’t be used to the longer tracks.”

We let that soak in for a moment. Then I said, “Well, Dale, there’s no other place to put it. And quite frankly, there’s a bigger need for a multi-use athletic field than for BMX.”

“You mean to tell me in a 230 acre park there’s not another acre somewhere to put in a regulation BMX track?” Dale asked. “What about Elings Park South?”

“Well, Dale, you know that the County has said there can be no active use over there. That they want it to be undeveloped parkland.”

“That just doesn’t seem right,” he replied, standing up. “I don’t know what the answer is, but this one doesn’t seem right.” With that, he left the room.

Mike and I sat there quietly for a minute, taking it all in. Then Mike said, “Why not Elings Park South?”

“Mike, you and I both know the battle we’ll face in trying to convince the County Supervisors and the neighbors to allow us to move the BMX over there.”

I’ll never forget Mike’s reply. 

He looked me right in the eye and said, “But wouldn’t that be a battle worth having?”

Again, Mike Warren, always for the kids. That was the side he chose to be on. 

I wish I could tell you that we were successful. We weren’t. 

It turned into a two year battle. Multiple neighbors opposed us. The County Supervisors opposed us. 

It probably didn’t help that a meeting between our Country Supervisor and the two of us somehow became a “bike-in” protest in the County Supervisors’ fourth floor reception area with 50 avid cyclists and theirs bikes.

We didn’t win that one. We were bloodied and bruised. Our County Supervisor “took us out behind the wood shed” and gave us what for. 

But we had fought. We had fought to make Elings Park a better place for kids. For kids on the athletic fields and kids on the BMX track. 

While we didn’t win that one, Mike Warren gave me yet another coaching lesson. “Keep your eye on the prize and never, ever give up.”

For Mike, the prize was always doing the right thing for the kids, even if it cost us something in the short run.

This past January, Mike Warren suddenly passed away. His legacy lives on. He made a difference in the lives of many. His family, friends, colleagues, hundreds of students and athletes all carry on the positive coaching lessons that he gave through his life in service to others.

It is not the critic who counts; 
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, 
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. 
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, 
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; 
who strives valiantly; 
who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; 
who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; 
who spends himself in a worthy cause; 
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, 
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, 
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
                                    …Teddy Roosevelt