ORONO, Minn. — As a guy who has spent decades involved in youth sports, I have seen plenty of REALLY crappy coaches.
You've likely seen them too - grown adults who yell and tear down young athletes under the guise of "motivation," stack lineups and shorten the minutes of less talented athletes to win, and don't take the time to know their players beyond what they add to the stat sheet.
Sadly, those are the coaches who seem to get the most attention. There are times (especially early in my career before I figured some things out) when I could have been included in this group.
Fortunately, there are leaders tipping the scale back towards good - folks who realize that for most of their athletes, sports aren't a highway to the pros but instead a launching pad for something bigger, teaching lessons about hard work, fairness, resiliency and respect.
Orono High School girls varsity hockey coach Paul Antonenko is one of those coaches.
I met Paul more than 20 years ago when our girls were mites in the Armstrong Cooper Youth Hockey Association (ACYHA). He knew a LOT about hockey (way more than a former wrestler like me) but it was immediately apparent Paul also had a knack for reaching kids - knowing which key to turn to get the most out of them before sending them home with smiles on their faces.
As his five kids rose through the ranks, Paul coached at a bunch of different levels and eventually took on the roles of Hockey Development Director and Board Chair for ACYHA. He kept learning and growing, earning USA Hockey's highest coaching certification (Level 5), working with the Minnesota High-Performance Program, putting on the stripes to work as a Level 4 USA Hockey referee and using his eye for talent as a scout for the British Columbia Hockey League's Trail Smoke Eaters.
That's a LOT of lines on the ol' resume. But when I think of my friend Paul, I think of a guy who is happiest when he's on the ice teaching, reaching his skaters and helping them find the skills, self-knowledge and fortitude to succeed in a larger game.
"When people ask me what I do, even in my career, when they say, 'what do you do for a living?' I say, 'well... I'm a coach,'" Antonenko laughs. "I coach. I coach financial advisors, I coach hockey players, I coach my kids. So it's truly a life calling in my opinion."
The genesis for this blog was a post I saw on Coach Paul's X (Twitter) account a few weeks back, welcoming his Orono skaters - and their families - to the 2024-25 season. In a video message, he wished the girls good luck in their tryouts, told them to "leave it all on the ice" and encouraged their parents to come out and watch not only games, but the Spartans' practices to "get a sense of the level of intensity and work ethic that some of the best high school players in the state are bringing every day to make themselves better."
Putting in the work is an indelible part of Antonenko's philosophy - that talent alone doesn't guarantee success in any life endeavor. It is reflected in an acronym the Spartans began using last season as a program foundation, CHARACTER COUNTS. The phrase is on a sign near the locker room door for his Spartans to see every time they enter.
Here's how it breaks down.
CHARACTER COUNTS….
C-Courage: Don’t play scared and get out of your comfort zone
"This goes to life, this is not just hockey stuff - don't play scared," Antonenko explains. "Get out of your comfort zone. You never get better by staying inside your own comfort zone. So have the courage to get out of there, be OK with making mistakes."
H-Hard work: Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard
"It's so true. I mean, we can have the most talented group of kids on the ice and you see it at a high school level, you see Olympic teams, national teams that are out there, that have the greatest players in the world and they can't figure it out... but it's NOT working."
A-Accountable: Be accountable to yourself, your team, and your family
"You need to be accountable to yourself, your team and your family. I think there's a lack of accountability out there. People always say 'Hold me accountable,' and that's such a false statement because accountability is internal. You have to be the one that decides whether or not you're gonna hold yourself accountable to the culture that you're within, to your hard work, to play courageously, those sorts of things. We can give you discipline or we can give you rewards based on whether you're holding yourself accountable or not. But the reality is accountability is not external. And I think that's a, maybe a mistake that many, many people make."
R-Resilient: Never quit on yourself or your team
"The greatest thing about sport is that the ups and downs - you know this Dana - the trials and tribulations that people go through in order to get to where they want to is LIFE. Hockey is one of the greatest teachers of life, life lessons when it comes to being resilient and it's not just the season, it's shift by shift. You come off the ice and you have a bad shift, you gotta get back to it. You don't have time to wallow in your guilt or wallow in your sorrow because you made a bad pass or you got scored on, you don't have that choice. And so being resilient and being resilient QUICKLY is really important."
A-Authentic: Be the best ‘you’ and don’t try to be who you are not
"I think authenticity about being who you are and engaging, and believing in who you are is really key. It just means be the best YOU and don't try to be who you're not. There's so many people out there that wanna be... I wanna be a 50-goal scorer. Well, maybe you don't, maybe that's not your skill set. Maybe you just have a ridiculous ability to read plays and move the puck. Maybe you're a great passer, maybe you're great on the wall. Maybe you're really strong in front of the net. Maybe you're just a power forward and that's who you want to be."
C-Culture: Culture trumps strategy every day. Live it. Breathe it
"Culture trumps strategy every day. We want people to live it and breathe it. We don't want people to get, you know, kind of outside of all walls with respect to culture. So we try and reiterate that on a regular basis when we're on the ice with the kids and when we're off the ice, when we're doing film or whatever it is."
T-Trust: Trust in each other and the process
"Trust in each other, but trust in the process. We have a lot of kids... they wanna strive to a higher level. You have to trust that the process is in place. It does work. I mean, it's more prevalent frankly, I think on the boys side than maybe on the girls side, when you see the kids that have to go play two, maybe one or two or three years of junior hockey in order to play Division 1. It's all about development.
"So, trust in the process but then trust in each other and that comes to communication. On ice, off ice, where are you gonna be and when are you gonna be there? That also goes for systems. If we do a specific zone entry, If we're doing a neutral zone regroup, we need people to trust the process and trust that their teammates are gonna be in the right spot. It just makes the game flow way better and ultimately you're gonna see better success."
E-Energy: Positive energy, always, everywhere, with everyone
"Positive energy, always everywhere with everyone. And that includes in school, that includes in the community, I mean, people are gonna go up and down, but you gotta find that internal positive energy and bring it out every single time. Because negativity breeds negativity and positivity breeds positivity.
"In fact, the leadership meeting I had with our captains they talked a little bit about what they want to do a little differently this year to make sure that the positive energy in the locker room is at a super high level, both between periods and then just before we're getting on ice for practices."
R-Respect: Earned, not given.
"One, respect is earned and not given, and so people have to be understanding of that. But second of all, there are so many people that make this game possible. I mean, respect to the officials - you and I are both officials - respect of teachers, respect of your parents, your community, et cetera. It's just a key tenant that we need to live by."
There is another C that is key to Paul's coaching philosophy - Communication. He believes forging relationships with his skaters and caring about them as people and not just players leads to trust, both on and off the rink. That pays dividends when it comes to having the hard conversations about things like ice time, team roles and disciplinary measures.
"When you have that, and then have the ability to have a harder conversation with them, it's actually easier because they know you care, they're not doing it just because they're yelling at you, or you've got a problem with what they did on a breakout or whatever it is. They're like, no.... the coaches genuinely care about making me a better hockey player, a better person. And that's why they're telling me this."
"I know this has probably been said a lot of times, but there are kids out there, all of a sudden you're halfway through the season, your coach stops talking to you, that's where I'd start getting worried, right? Because then they potentially have given up and you don't want that. So, always be open to hearing the feedback, whether it hurts or not."
Antonenko shared a message contained in a note sent to him by a player after last season, one he will remember and keep as a reminder of why he does what he does. A state title would be nice -and could be within reach for his 2024-25 Orono Spartans - but there really are bigger things.
"Her comment was 'you made the season fun, but more importantly, you treated us like one of your daughters...' and I was like, you can't have a better compliment than that. I mean, that's one of those things where I just sat back and... I still get chills when I talk about it. And so the impact that you can have on a young woman is kind of what this is all about."