By the time I arrived at Harbor Point Beach Volleyball Club, everyone already had an opinion.
“The parents are impossible.”
“The coaches don’t communicate.”
“The director plays favorites.”
“The older athletes don’t welcome the younger ones.”
“The younger athletes don’t appreciate what came before.”
Every conversation seemed to begin with someone explaining who the problem was.
Nobody ever began with themselves.
I had accepted the position of club mentor after nearly thirty years around beach volleyball. I wasn’t the director. I wasn’t a coach. I wasn’t there to evaluate anyone. My job was simple on paper and impossible in practice: help the people inside the club work together again.
On my first afternoon, I watched practice from the far edge of the beach.
The volleyball was beautiful.
The relationships were not.
A coach corrected an athlete without making eye contact.
A parent questioned another coach before practice instead of after.
Two assistant coaches taught the same skill in completely different ways and quietly criticized one another once the athletes walked away.
None of the disagreements were loud.
They didn’t need to be.
Distance rarely announces itself.
It simply grows.
The following week I invited every coach to breakfast before practice.
No agenda.
No meeting room.
Just coffee, breakfast burritos, and a picnic table facing the ocean.
The first fifteen minutes were uncomfortable.
People talked about traffic.
The weather.
Upcoming tournaments.
Anything except what actually mattered.
Finally, Coach Melissa broke the silence.
“I don’t think we’ve had breakfast together in three years.”
Coach Aaron looked surprised.
“Has it really been that long?”
She nodded.
“We’re together every day.”
“We’re together,” she said. “We’re almost never with each other.”
That sentence changed the conversation.
The coaches started telling stories.
Not about work.
About how they found volleyball.
Who taught them.
The tournaments that changed their lives.
The mentors who believed in them before they believed in themselves.
One coach admitted he almost quit coaching after his first season because he thought he wasn’t good enough.
Another confessed she still gets nervous before every practice.
Someone else laughed and admitted they still forget athletes’ names during the first month of every season.
By the time breakfast ended, nobody had solved a single club problem.
They had simply become more human to one another.
Practice looked different that afternoon.
Not dramatically.
Just noticeably.
Coaches lingered between courts.
They asked each other questions instead of making assumptions.
One borrowed a drill from another.
Another asked for feedback instead of pretending to have every answer.
The athletes noticed long before the adults did.
A twelve-year-old walked over to Coach Aaron.
“You guys are smiling more.”
He laughed.
“Are we?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s easier to ask questions now.”
Children often describe culture more accurately than adults because they haven’t learned how to hide behind complicated language.
A few weeks later, the club hosted its annual coaches’ clinic.
Normally, each coach presented alone.
This year I suggested something different.
“What if nobody teaches alone?”
The room looked confused.
“Every presentation has two coaches.”
“What if we disagree?” someone asked.
I smiled.
“Perfect.”
One presentation paired the oldest coach in the club with the youngest.
Another paired a former indoor specialist with someone who had spent an entire career on the beach.
A defensive coach worked alongside an offensive coach.
Every session became less about proving who was right and more about exploring what each person could contribute.
Parents stayed afterward asking questions.
Not because they had received perfect answers.
Because they had watched adults model respectful disagreement.
The athletes were sitting in the bleachers during the final session.
I asked one of the older players what she thought.
“It makes me feel better.”
“Why?”
“Because if the coaches don’t know everything, I don’t have to know everything either.”
I wrote that sentence in my notebook.
The best teachers don’t make themselves look perfect.
They make learning feel safe.
Near the end of the season, the director called me into the office.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what’s changed.”
“What do you think?”
He looked out toward the courts.
“I thought leadership meant staying ahead of everyone.”
He paused.
“Now I think it means staying connected to everyone.”
I nodded.
“That’s closer.”
He smiled.
“I also answer fewer emails.”
“Congratulations.”
“I spend more time walking around practice.”
“Better.”
“I’ve started asking coaches one question every week.”
“What question?”
“‘How can I help you coach better this week?’”
“And?”
“They almost never ask for equipment.”
“What do they ask for?”
“A second opinion.”
“A listening ear.”
“A chance to collaborate.”
“A sounding board.”
He laughed softly.
“I spent years trying to solve problems people weren’t actually bringing me.”
The final tournament of the summer arrived with heavy winds.
Every court demanded constant adjustments.
Athletes changed serving strategies.
Partners communicated more often.
Coaches moved between courts helping wherever they were needed.
Nobody seemed concerned with whose athlete belonged to whom.
Success had become shared.
As the sun began to set, I watched several coaches helping rake courts after every family had already gone home.
Nobody had asked them to stay.
Nobody was taking pictures.
Coach Melissa looked over and smiled.
“You know what I realized today?”
“What?”
“We’ve stopped trying to win arguments.”
“And?”
“We’ve started trying to help each other succeed.”
I looked across the empty beach.
The nets were coming down one by one.
The tide was beginning to erase footprints left throughout the day.
Out beyond the break, the old lighthouse stood against the fading sky.
It had watched generations of athletes grow up on these beaches.
It had never chased a single boat.
It never shouted directions.
It never forced anyone to change course.
It simply stood where it belonged, offering light to anyone willing to look.
Leadership, I realized, is much the same.
The strongest leaders don’t spend their lives chasing people.
They build character sturdy enough that others can find their way when the water grows uncertain.
And the strongest clubs aren’t remembered because they never faced conflict.
They’re remembered because, when conflict arrived, the people inside chose one another over their pride, collaboration over isolation, and love over the need to be right.
Long after the final whistle, those are the stories that continue to guide people home.
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