Peterson: Some reflective advice for the younger self

Embrace change.

That was my advice to a former player on the Creston AAU 12-and-under baseball team I coached with Paul Pals way back in the day. (Those “kids” graduated from high school in 2007.)

He told me he was contacting me about a personal initiative to learn from and reflect on perspectives from a diverse group of people. His question was this: “If you had to give your former self or a person in general one piece of advice, what would it be?”

I mulled the question for awhile. Then it dawned on me.

That very morning I got word that two key players on my basketball team were home sick, so everything I did the previous night in preparing for that day’s game against Glenwood was adjusted on the fly. You have to be able to adapt to change quickly, especially during a pandemic. There’s no time for wallowing in self-pity about how this is bad luck, and you can’t change your expectations for the day ahead.

Coaching during a time when people could be quarantined at any given time, along with the normal things like injuries and other illnesses, requires an open mind toward change. You learn to wear a mask when in close quarters, and to make sure things are sanitized. At the same time, you’re thankful to have that piece of normalcy in your day-to-day life. I think I’d go a little batty not having the chance to coach during the Iowa winter months.

Likewise, adapting to change was something I begrudgingly did to the best of my ability during a 41-year newspaper career. I’m a creature of habit, so I can concentrate on the work itself and not a new way of doing things.

Yet, every time Brian Hurley came out to our paper from the Illinois corporate office to train us on a new technological advance in our operation, I enjoyed the session and learned new tricks fairly quickly. (Not as fast as the digital age kids I sat next to in the conference room, but good enough to function.) Along the way, I learned to be less resistant to change.

You have to remember, when I started in the newspaper business in 1980 in Atlantic, I wrote my articles on a typewriter, and developed film in a darkroom.

But, technological advances were rapid as the business became computerized in the later 1980s. Everything from writing stories to page design and photo editing were eventually done digitally, allowing for instant changes on the screen. The darkroom was eliminated and converted into the conference room where those training sessions were held.

I survived 41 years in the business because I continued learning as each new phase of modernization hit the industry. Some colleagues I knew resisted the trend to post updates on social media as they covered an event, for example.

Timeouts used to be a chance to rest for 60 seconds. Now, you can follow the instant Twitter updates from our sports guys, Tyler Hetu and Brennen Normand. I did that during games for the last decade or so of my career. Sometimes, tapping those messages out on the cell phone wasn’t easy when your hands were stiff because it was 38 degrees with some falling precipitation at a spring track meet or late fall football playoff game.

I felt like if I was to stay relevant and valuable to the team, I had to resist the urge to hate change, but rather learn to handle it and stay current. I think I was able to do that, but I had to flip my mindset about change.

Just Wednesday, Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz was talking about coaching in a pandemic, during a period when both he and his wife contracted COVID-19.

“The year 2020 was unusual and unpredictable,” Ferentz said. “I was proud of how our players and staff adapted last season.”

Every coach, every school administrator and every business owner could say the same thing about 2020, and this early stage of 2021.

Be adaptable and be ready at all times for something new to affect your life.

That’s what I would tell my 22-year-old self.

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Contact the writer:

Email: malachy.lp@gmail.com

Twitter: @larrypeterson