I worked a basketball camp for extra money in while in college. I played for the college and our coaches put on the camp. It was easy work, and it was always fun to interact with the kids. It was all enjoyable, but day four of the five-day camp was always a special one for me.

He always set it up as we were about to break for lunch. The camp leader, one of my coaches, took the stage. He was great at capturing their attention with his energy. It was amazing to see fifty middle school boys with their eyes fixed on him, heads turning in unison as he paced back and forth along the baseline.

That’s when he started his game, and he was undefeated. He asked every camper who was completely self-motivated to raise his hand. Sure enough, almost every hand went up. Coach smiled, picked a camper out from the group, and had him stand up at the baseline.

Trey stood up. He had short black hair and a slight build. He was one of the smaller kids at the camp and had a chip on his shoulder as a result. He was a great kid, but you wouldn’t always know it on the court because he was so competitive. The coach’s instructions to Trey were simple: run from one baseline to the other and back as fast as he could.

Coach yelled “Go,” and Trey took off for the other end of the court, touched the line, and smiled as he ran back through the line where coach stood with his stopwatch. “13 seconds. Pretty fast.” coach said. “I told you to run as fast as you can, right?” “Right” Trey said confidently. “And you’re self-motivated so I don’t need to motivate you to run faster, right? Coach said. Trey responded with a much less confident, “right” this time. Coach followed up with, “Ok. If you’re honest with me, you could make some money today. I’ve got a $20 bill here that’s yours if you can beat 13 seconds.” The campers roared with excitement, bounced around, and hi-fived each other.

Trey stood back up and toed the baseline. Coach yelled “Go,” and Trey took off. No smiling on the way back this time. Trey stuck his chest out and cocked his head back. He made it in 11.7 seconds. As he crossed the line, coach held out the $20 bill as if to hand it to Trey. He pulled it back at the last second and said, “you know what, I think you can beat that.” Then he reached into his wallet and got out a $100 bill. Trey’s eyes lit up. He again lined up at the baseline – fists clenched. He took off, grunted all the way up and down the court, and almost fell as he crashed into the padded wall at the baseline upon finishing. “11 seconds flat,” Coach said.

The first time I saw him do it, I asked if he had scouted the kids during the camp to know who it would work on. He responded simply, “I don’t need to. It works on everyone. Everyone needs a coach.”

I enjoyed my time playing college basketball even though it was very apparent to me after the first week that I was never going to make a living playing the game. Sports taught me a lot of lessons, and that short conversation with my coach was one of my favorites.

We tend to be really good at picking out flaws in others but often miss them in ourselves. A coach gives us perspective that we wouldn’t have had otherwise and helps push us a little harder than we could push ourselves. It doesn’t make you a lesser person to need some help. It makes you human.