How to be stupid

Anyone who is quick to illustrate the mental lapses of others ought to be responsible for reporting one's own mental lapses. I have no hesitation in calling you an idiot, if the situation demands it, so I have no hesitation in calling myself an idiot in situations where such is obviously the case.

I am an idiot.

I spend a lot of time organizing The Calendar, in capital letters. I put together the MHLs, I barter and trade with folks on the invitationals and track what it makes sense to track for the region, and O’C tells me that my team calendar has a life far beyond my team (so if I say something nasty about Bronx, I am quick to hear about it from him, and, therefore, I go back and put it in boldface). Additionally, I organize the work calendar for my Day Job department, to the degree that I make all the work assignments for everyone, working off a set of linked personalized Excel spreadsheets that I created that would bring tears to the eyes of any network administrator (and tears to my eyes when the network is down). I am a marvel of planning. And, of course, I plan my own life. Because I can, I like to take my vacation in May, when school is still in session and weather is nice and we have Vacationland to ourselves. And to keep my hand in where it belongs, I take care to make sure that, even though I’m away two weeks in May, I am available for both TOC and CatNats, just in case.

Which is exactly how I planned this coming May. I picked my two weeks right where they belonged, booked all the arrangements, scheduled all the work at the Day Job for everyone else, badda bing, badda boom, done. And when we qualified for CatNats on Saturday, I was ecstatic. Thrilled that a sophomore who works hard had made it. She deserves it. And surprisingly enough, looking forward to Wisconsin. That night I even decided that, all things considered, it made sense for me to judge rather than work with CP. I was going to feed myself to the lions, and as I say, I was goofily looking forward to it.

And then on Sunday morning I went to write in the trip to Wisconsin on my kitchen calendar, and saw that I will be in Spain during CatNats. I had misread the calendar. There was no gap long enough between TOC and CatNats. And, of course, it is too late to do anything about it. All the money is spent, the Day Job colleagues lined up, the tickets purchased, you name it. After telling my student that I was taking her, I had to tell her I wasn’t taking her. I felt like the biggest heel on the planet. You would too. And it was entirely my fault, because I was inattentive to detail in the first place.

I write this now not to expiate but simply to explain. Realistically, if we had qualified more than one team, it wouldn’t have been my burden alone to judge or chaperone, so perhaps my biggest mistake was my blissful ignorance of my unavailability and my promises of doing a job I was unable to do. But this is not a mistake a coach should make.

I am a firm believer in the idea that all people make mistakes—that's life—and must move on. But they must also learn from them. We must never make the same mistake twice. We must move on and make new mistakes. In other words, I will never make this mistake again, and I will insure it by coordinating my multiple calendars better and, the way I see it, foregoing that two weeks off in May.

But still, I feel like an idiot, and a heel. It’s going to take a while to get back on an even keel. This stuff is important. It really is. It behooves us, as coaches, to never to forget that.