This story initially appeared on Behind the Whistle, the official blog of the IWLCA, and is being republished with permission from the organization. Ashley Voccia is a graduate assistant at Lenoir-Rhyne.

Hello again. I wrote an entry for Behind the Whistle last October, where I discussed my struggle with my mental health throughout college and how one of my former coaches, Carlee Buck, had helped guide me through those times. I would be lying if I said everything was fine after I wrote the original post, as it was something that I held onto for a long time, and it ended up having more of an impact on me than I had anticipated. When it came out, I had a good amount of people reach out to me, whether it was friends or people in the community, giving both their support and their own experiences with their struggles. Even with all of the support, it’s not always easy sharing certain parts of your life with people, and I hope that this is something that will change with continued awareness. That was at least my goal when I decided to speak up about it.

While those next couple of months were filled with ups and downs, I was fortunate enough to have CB there supporting me in whatever way or capacity that she could. While things weren’t always perfect, I knew that she would be there. With this going on in my personal life, I still had a job to do in being a graduate assistant. I had to figure out how to best manage my time between being in the office, at practice, in class and my personal time. One of the great things about working for CB is that she is very conscious of life outside of lacrosse and ensuring that you’re in a good place mentally. This entailed taking some time in the morning if I had homework that I needed to do or leaving a little early on our off days. There were often times when I was able to have time during the day to get work done in the office, making it a lot easier for me to balance everything without becoming overwhelmed with work. With my first year down and starting the second in unknown territory, I wanted to share some experiences and lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

I found early on that one of my toughest struggles was shifting from a playing mindset to a teaching mindset and being confident in what I was saying. Playing and being confident on the field is a lot different than teaching others, and was — and still can be — a hard adjustment for me. From my playing days up to now, confidence has always been something that has kind of plagued me in thinking that I was never doing enough. I often found myself paying attention to coaching style and how CB would adapt and make adjustments when necessary. Thankfully, also from my playing days up until now, she has always had confidence in me and knows when I need that reassurance. There were times when I would have a plan for a drill and while it would be good in concept for honing specific aspects of the game, when we would run in at practice, it wouldn’t match the pace of play that we were aiming for. Being able to see those adjustments allowed me to get a better understanding of little things to add to a drill to pick up the pace to ensure that we were covering the concept in a game-like scenario.

One aspect of the fall that I really came to enjoy was recruiting. In the beginning, it was a bit intimidating being the one to evaluate players, with my first thoughts being, "What if I miss something and what if she had a different opinion than I did?" This was another aspect where I needed to be more confident in myself because this was far from a concern that I should’ve had, as CB had made it evident that she trusted my opinion from the beginning. Before leaving for my first recruiting trip, we sat down and went over various characteristics to look for and the need for taking detailed notes so that others could easily look over them and get an understanding of who the player was. At the end of the day, it was about being confident in myself.

I think it’s safe to say that people weren’t expecting the fallout that occurred as a result of COVID-19. It was hard to see everything coming to a halt as people throughout the athletic world watched as different sports organizations and conferences ended their seasons. Before we knew it, places were shutting down and social distancing along with quarantining were the new normal. In the beginning of the lockdown, I was eager to use this time to try and get things accomplished. Before the lockdown, we had discussed putting a five-year plan together so that I could map out what my goals were and what I need to do to accomplish them. After getting this together and breaking it down into smaller increments, I was off and running trying to cram as much as I could into my day so that I could be productive. This didn’t last very long, and I found myself lost. I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing much while having this crazy schedule of my day planned. I think for a lot of people, this has been a challenging and confusing time. With everything going on, it became extremely overwhelming and difficult to find a place to even start. I needed to find a way to take a step back and let myself breathe while trying to focus on breaking things down, so I wasn’t just becoming overwhelmed and shutting down.

Even though our season got cut short and there were a lot of ups and downs throughout the year, I wouldn’t change anything. No matter how much you plan for something, it rarely turns out how we expect. Throughout this past year, I’ve been able to not only learn more about coaching, but life in general. I have been fortunate enough to have this opportunity as it is something that not everyone is able to do, and I’m lucky to be able to work for and learn from CB. She is someone who has always been confident in my abilities and is always quick to give me reassurance when I need it. Even with mistakes made along the way, she is always forgiving and understanding. For me, one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned throughout the year (and was a fault on my part), is the importance of communication. It is something that is done every day; however, it isn’t always done in the right way. I often found myself listening to form a response rather than listening to hear and understand what was being said. By making the conscious decision to actively listen instead of trying to form a response in my head allowed for a more open a clear dialogue.

With the new school year beginning, one of my first grad school assignments was to pick my favorite TED Talk and explain its significance to me. I chose, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” given by Simon Sinek because his theme was, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do.” This was something that resonated well with me because of why I’m here. One of the first things that had been discussed in the presentation was that most people think in a way of, “What we do, how we do and why we do;” however, inspired leaders would flip this and put their why first because there is a bigger reason behind why they’re doing it. Going back to my last post, CB didn’t have to start that conversation and ask if everything was OK, or she could’ve just left it as it was after I brushed it off. That’s not who she is though; she is someone who truly cares about you.

This has led me to my why and how I hope I am able to be there for others like she was for me. Over my time away from school, it gave me the opportunity to really think about what I wanted to do after graduation. I have come to realize I want to be doing something where I’m not only passionate about it, but also have the ability to make a difference. When looking at what this past year taught me, it got me even more excited to be back and to have the opportunity to continue to learn and grow in these areas. In these first few weeks back, even though it hasn’t been what we’re used to, I have felt more confident and eager to be out on the field doing something that I’m passionate about. When I first thought about being a graduate assistant, I wasn’t sure if coaching was something that I wanted to pursue after I graduated. I saw this an opportunity to get experience, while also help me work toward an MBA if coaching wasn’t something that I saw myself ultimately pursuing. I have come to realize how fortunate I am to be able to do something that I’m passionate about that allows me to not only grow as a person, but also have an impact on and give back to others. This may not have been what I initially planned for; however, life rarely works that way. After hearing this talk, it reinforced my thoughts about my plans to continue coaching and why I’m doing what I am. With one year down, I’m looking forward to what this next one has to bring and continuing to learn and grow, not just within lacrosse, but life as well.

My takeaways from this past year:

• Communicate, even when the conversations are difficult — avoiding the situation will only allow the problem to grow

• Have confidence in myself

• Know that I have people who support me and ask for help when I need it

• Find your why and use it to motivate you — on both the good and bad days

• Don’t let your “plan” for what you think you want deter you from following your passion and allowing it to open new doors