April 29th, 2021 | Josh Adelman
This April we honor Merle McLain as the STS Coach of the Month for his lifetime commitment to coaching mastery. Coach McLain has served as a head varsity and JV boys basketball coach at a small high school in eastern Washington State. He was also the head co-ed track and field coach at the same school. Merle also has experience as an assistant women’s basketball coach at a community college and an NAIA school. With over a decade of experience coaching sports, he has earned a prestigious job in sports administration currently serving as Recreation Specialist (Facility Manager) of a 60,000 square foot fitness facility at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Merle has reflected on his experiences as a young athlete to help him lead throughout his successful military career. Then, through deep reflection of his military leadership, he brought his experiential wisdom back to coaching sports.
Merle tells us his story:
“Growing up, even though basketball was and still is my first love, I enjoyed science and had a couple of great science teachers in junior high and high school. In high school, I was one of the first juniors ever to take Physics and was on the glide path to pursuing my career goal of being a chemical engineer. I was attracted to this career because it seemed as one that made a lot of money (I don’t remember what a lot was back then – I just remember it was a lot).”
“I participated in cross country, basketball, and track throughout high school and had some great coaches that I looked up to then and still do. Growing up in Indiana my passion was basketball, and I loved running. Well just before starting our first sectional game during my senior year, and eight days before I turned eighteen, my father had a heart attack in the gym. Before our game, he suddenly passed away. During the remainder of my senior year, both my cross country/track and basketball coaches became very instrumental in my life outside of sports. It was at this point I realized that coaching would be the only way that I could pay them back for what they did for me during this time and beyond.”
“My athletic career set me up for success for my military career. I had a farmer in our small town convince me that I could work in the factories and wait for someone to die to move up the seniority list. Or, I could join the military and pursue it the same way I did in athletics. I would get promoted and have a very successful career. This is exactly what happened early in my career as I was Soldier of the Month, Quarter and was runner up for junior Noncommissioned Officer of the Year in our Major Command.”
“I really think my passion for coaching influenced my military career. Despite being told it wouldn’t work, I used all the coaching techniques I had learned from experience and studying coaching to coach and mentor my squads, platoons, and companies into teams that worked to achieve excellence. I worked to build genuine relationships and leveraged them to achieve our objectives.”
Coach McLain getting his team ready to play during a timeout.
The leadership journey in the military and sports doesn’t always follow a straight smooth paved road. Especially when you realize that coaching sports is more than coaching the players. It is dealing with parents and the community of bystanders who think they have all of the answers. Merle remembers a couple of key lessons from past situations like these.
Lesson 1:
“During my first high school head coaching job, I wasn’t prepared to work with the parents of our players. Especially parents that wanted to know why their son wasn’t starting or wasn’t getting the playing time they felt their son’s deserved. I also didn’t work to build a relationship with most of my parents. I focused on the few I had been told would support the program no matter what. I learned from the experience that it is just as important to develop relationships with all the parents as it is our players.”
Lesson 2:
“There was also a chat room I followed as an assistant coach where fans would post about things going on in high school basketball across the state. I continued to follow it as a head coach. I got distracted from the noise about positive and negative (especially the negative) comments regarding me and our program. For example, one of the anonymous comments was “I was a great cheerleading coach, but a poor basketball coach.” I assumed later that the comment came from one of my parents as an anonymous letter was sent to my athletic director. The lesson learned was to block out the external noise and just focus on our program. During my second head coaching position, I didn’t look at the chat room once.”
Coach Merle McLain is the Soldiers To Sidelines April 2021 Coach of the Month because he always goes the extra mile to inspire and motivate everyone around him. Whether it be the staff at Joint Base Lewis-McChord or the young men and women on his basketball court, Merle finds a way to motivate each of them to be the best version themselves. As a result, Coach McLain will continue to experience great coaching success.
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