Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. My name is Brian Penske. I'm the headwomen soccer coach at Florida State University. I grew up in Maryland and then went to Emory University in Atlanta, played soccer there. And then went back to my high school in Maryland and worked with my high school coach and English teacher and teaching and coaching with him for about six or seven years before getting my first college job at George Washington University. I think what makes a great coach is there's so many elements to it on the field and off the field. First of all, you need to understand your players. You need to understand them as people because then that helps you coach them as players. And then obviously, knowing the game that each of us coach and understanding the game and all sports evolve. And so we must evolve and being able to give our players consistent, steady information that they believe, most importantly, that they believe will continue to make them better because we want to be credible individuals when we give our players information. When players leave and you have to start over some coaches probably deal with it better than others. I don't like it. I'm not a fan of change in general and I do get attached to people. They all sit in the same seats every day. And so I stared at about seven or eight empty chairs or new humans sitting in those chairs. And the thing that makes it OK is knowing that they're going on to that next dream of theirs. The great question is it harder to get good or is it harder to stay good and our challenge moving forward, right? The greatest challenge of my life, professional life, is to continue to stay good. I'm Brian Penske, head soccer coach, Florida State University. You're listening to voices that inspire.