The Kent Reporter and Kent School District Coach of the Month is Northwood Middle School’s Eric Brill. He is in his 11th year as a coach at Northwood.
“To me, there is no greater joy in life than watching a young person’s eyes light up with pride, having achieved something they’d never done before. Those moments do happen rarely in the classroom, but they happen nearly every day as a coach,” Brill said.
As a middle school coach, Brill coaches four sports, one more than a high school coach even can. Brill coaches track and field, both boys and girls basketball, and girls soccer. Brill grew up playing sports and brings that passion he once played with into his coaching.
“I want everyone to have a chance to discover what they are capable of accomplishing physically. Many people will never push themselves hard enough to find out how fast they can run a mile, for example. We only get one body and a limited amount of time to find out what we can achieve with it, and I hope that I have helped some athletes find joy in seeking the limitations of their physical potential,” he said.
To show how much his teams mean to him, Brill came up with a pretty eye-opening analogy. In an event of a school fire, Brill wouldn’t be too concerned about the banners or the trophies that his teams have won at Northwood. But he’d go for the pictures.
“I’d save the binder where I keep all my team photos. I hope that when my athletes look through old yearbooks and see those pictures, they have the same memories of the brief but meaningful moments that make us feel like a part of something bigger than ourselves. I hope they had fun and feel like our time together was worthwhile. In addition to the athletes I’ve coached, I’ve been very lucky to have amazing assistant coaches, mentors, and teammates who have made me the person I am today. I hope that my former athletes feel the same way,” Brill said.
When Brill coaches track and field he takes a different approach than he does in other sports. Partly because track is as much a solo competition as a team sport.
“It’s easier to help kids understand that, first and foremost, we are competing against ourselves. If you set a big PR in the mile, it doesn’t matter if you get last place in the race, and that’s part of the beauty of track and field,” Brill said.
A couple books that Brill has leaned on through his coaching life is “Running and Being” by George Sheehan and “Wooden: A Lifetime Of Observations And Reflections On And Off The Court” by John Wooden.
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