By Doug Brunk, San Diego Bureau
If you're a sports junkie who longs for a chance to coach youth sports teams at the community level, but you figure you just don't have the time to get involved, Fred Duboe, M.D., has some advice for you.
Just do it.
“When all is said and done, I don't think people are doing to count how much salary you took home or how many babies you delivered,” said Dr. Duboe, an ob.gyn. who practices in Hoffman Estates, Ill., northwest of Chicago. “People are going to count what you gave to society and how you helped kids grow up—how you helped people in the community and what difference you made in your community in the long run. Show kids that doctors aren't 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week scientists. Show them that that they are humans, with a real feel for life outside the hospital.”
For the last 11 years, Dr. Duboe has helped coach boys' baseball teams in the Buffalo Grove (Ill.) Recreational Association. He started coaching when his oldest son, Michael, turned 8. He then coached his middle son, Jason. Last year he served as an assistant coach for a traveling team featuring his youngest son, Eric.
Eric is 12, and Michael and Jason have moved on to college and high school, respectively. Dr. Duboe said he has gained personal fulfillment from watching his sons “learn how to play as part of a team and not simply be engulfed in individual accomplishments alone; having them learn the discipline,” he said. “They have a rigorous school schedule. For them to balance sports with their school schedule also helps them prepare for later years, when life is going to be not just a matter of A vs. B; it's a matter of integrating recreation and athletics, as well as working hard. If they play hard, they work hard. I think they learn to apportion their time more efficiently. They learn to be happy when they're active. Every kid deserves a little bit of time sitting around, but I think [sports] has helped them to gain confidence and interpersonal skills with their friends.”
He added that his role as assistant coach is a “tremendous stress outlet” from the pressures of increasing managed care, declining reimbursement, and rising malpractice insurance rates that obstetricians and other physicians face from day to day. “It allows you to go back to work a little bit more refreshed than you would otherwise,” said Dr. Duboe. “I'm very dedicated to my patients and my job, but it's a great source of recreation for me, of health. I hope it will keep my heart a little bit younger as I get into my decades coming up.”
Last winter, Neil Goldberg, M.D., served as head coach for a sixth-grade basketball team that his son Ross played on as part of the Scarsdale (N.Y.) Tri-County Basketball League. “The parents would come to almost every game, so I got to see kids star in front of their parents, brothers, and sisters,” said Dr. Goldberg, a dermatologist in private practice in Bronxville. “I got to see kids star and shine. With basketball, you could make just one good shot, and even if you played poorly for the rest of the game, that's enough to carry you for a whole week. It was just so rewarding to me to be in the middle of it all the time.”
It also provided him time to spend with his son. “Kids quickly get old enough that they don't want to hang out with their parents,” Dr. Goldberg noted. “And they quickly get old enough that they're coached by real coaches in school. There are only so many years that a dad can coach his kids playing sports, and they should just grab every minute.”
You don't have to look far to land a coaching opportunity on a youth sports team. Good places to start include your local YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, community recreation center, Little League, or American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), to name a few. Dr. Goldberg first volunteered to help train and coach basketball skills to youngsters when Ross was in kindergarten. “I started to be one of the people who did the organizing,” he recalled. “I finally got to be one of the people who did the coaching; then I worked my way up to being the head coach. It's a long process, because there are a lot of dads who would like to coach these teams.”