I had a big break up some months ago.
Thankfully, I learned a lot as a result, because it sent me on a deep dive into Love. That was primal instinct. I never wanted to “fail” in that way again, losing the relationship I thought I should and could have made it work with. The way I coped was to lean in, studying love and relationships through books, podcasts, essays, Ted Talks, dozens of conversations with friends and family, listening to breakup songs, and consistently seeing an individual therapist (for the first time, with a man). The results of my search called for a complete overhaul of the way I’ve understood and acted upon love, in all my relationships. Naturally, I related it to what’s on my mind most: coaching.
But first, fear. Or rather, giving into fear. The basis of all my shortcomings: What if “they” don’t love me back? When I was a basketball player, “they” referred to scouts, coaches, the “basketball gods.” I was afraid of what I might feel (inadequate?) if I truly shot my shot, and missed, because I thought that would mean I was, in my very essence, inadequate. So I held back, stayed safe, played it cool, pretended my abilities were all natural, deferred to others. I left some in my “potential” tank. I think a lot of us think like this: If we don’t try, we won’t fail, and we can still possess the alternative reality (heard in “could’ve” or “would’ve”) as something that belongs to us.
As a partner, I held back too. Through my love study I’ve become a devotee (though not an expert-practitioner) of nonviolent communication. But the part I feel ashamed about is that we had the book — Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life — collecting dust in our house for at least two years. I knew about it, but I recognize now that I always kept it in the back pocket, because I feared the devastation if I had read it and it wasn’t good enough. What if the text was too boring textbook-y, or I didn’t think it was logically sound or scientifically rigorous enough, or I just simply didn’t mesh with it. Or one step deeper, what if it was good and sound, and I did leverage its suggestions — many of which were aligned with messages I’d received from our couples counselor, such as “softened startup” and “leading with feelings” — but my partner didn’t respond in kind… that would be the most devastating. What if she didn’t love me back. Even after I put it all out there.1
It.
People talk in sports all the time about the It factor. No one defines it. But It must be love.
What is love.
When I was my most juvenile, I thought love was simply the state I’d find myself in after I’d discovered the most compelling partner I could attract: the best looking, smartest, most interesting (trauma-experienced) person who’d arrived at this moment in time, intact. Then everything would take care of itself. So I was defining love as just an extreme version of “like” (attraction).
More recently, I’d arrived at the assumption that love was really just devotion. That’s the “through thick and thin” part that we hear. In this recent relationship I was devoted to the potential of this person, and our partnership. What we could be. I thought my devotion, to not leave, was enough.
Now, I’ve found new definitions of love that feel more fulfilling, which I am more motivated to pursue. It’s more about how we can be. It feels too intimate to share that I got a new tattoo in an attempt to make my learning permanent. It reads, “love is as love does.” I found it in bell hooks’s, All About Love (hooks was referencing M. Scott Peck and his book, The Road Less Traveled, but Peck is said to have been paraphrasing Erich Fromm, who hooks also invokes). That is, love is what you do, how you are; it’s not just your thoughts, feelings, or hopes. I continued to follow hooks’s tracks, including the works of Fromm and Peck. Fromm proposed that true love could not be limited to a singular romantic relationship. Rather, to really love is to love all people, not a particular person: “If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to somebody else, ‘I love you,’ I must be able to say, ‘I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself.’” What a relief.
As intellectually sound as I’ve found this, still, it’s hard to practice.
The Nonviolent Communication book concurs — speaking in NVC is totally unnatural for most of us. BUT, Rosenberg assures us that we do know how to do it, pointing to the way almost all of us interact with little kids — we give them grace and don’t take things personally. Conjure up a child’s temper tantrum, in which they say, “I hate you.” Most of us adults trust that the child is not speaking truth. We search for reasonable explanations for why they might be acting that way. They are hungry, thirsty, tired, stressed… Rosenberg suggests we should treat adults like children, in that sense. I coach little kids and big kids, so I definitely recognized my gracious self in such moments.
Coaching, to me, therefore, is like a perfect container to carefully (imperfectly) practice love. But I’d argue NVC is directly countercultural to most sports cultures, where coaches tend to drive winning (and losing) by criticism and judgment, demands and coercion, inducing shame and guilt — in direct opposition to the NVC framework of communicating observations, feelings, human needs/values, and requests (and searching for those in others).
With this in mind, I just finished the most fulfilling season coaching I’ve ever had, and we finished with 3 wins. Now, my ego definitely kicked in at times, such as when we started out 0-10. I care what others think about me. I don’t want to be thought of as an 0-10 kind-of-a-coach. But I had to remind myself of the entire point. The point was not to be 10-0, the point is to live a meaningful life, and more than ever, that to me means practicing love, even in — especially in — a competitive environment that can be a microcosm of our society.
I’ve also noticed that in basketball, the decision points of being loving are more apparent to me, because I’m technically and tactically familiar with the domain. So when students missed practice unannounced, love called for suspending suspicion, expressing concern, not judgment or shame. And if it looks to me like they aren’t listening in the huddle, I’ll seek to tell them just that, and share that I feel confused by the meaning I’m making from my observation, and ask for help understanding what’s happening for them. And when they forget their practice (or even game) jerseys, even though I’ve reminded them many times, I move on quickly, because their practicing is more important than if they did what I told them to do. And when our co-captain doesn’t run back on defense, I’ll tell her I am frustrated when I see that because I believe being a captain is a big deal. And when they are goofing off in our dynamic warmup, I reiterate the reasons for its importance,2 rather than resorting to exercise as punishment. And when our only senior decides to step away from the team, I’ll tell them I respect their decision and the thought they clearly demonstrated in arriving at it, rather than try to convince them to stay for the benefit of our record and my reputation. And when I mess this all up, I’ll apologize, and tell them how I was feeling (anxious, usually) and why, not to justify, but to inform and share a part of who I am.
Imagine a team that truly loves one another and demonstrates that love through their play, with graciousness, generosity, care, truth, trust, responsibility, and commitment. We might go winless. But if we were to experience love, without restraint… Who CARES what the record is. In fact, real love seems like doing so even when doing so might not work out in our favor.
Zach Moo Young (Coach Moo)
📍 Washington, DC
Love List:
- (Book) The Art of Possibility by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander
- (Book) All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
- (Book) The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
- (Book) The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck
- (Book) Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg
- (Book) Awareness by Anthony De Mello
- (Book) Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller
- (Article) Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person by Alain de Botton
- (My favorite show) Ted Lasso
- (Podcast) TJ Power: Phone Addiction is Real & Here’s How We Beat It
- Stay for the dive into neurotransmitters
Ball Philosophy 
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