A coach can never make a great player of a youngster who isn’t potentially great. But a coach can make a great competitor out of any child.

And miraculously, coaches can make adults out of children.

For a coach, the final score doesn’t read so many points for my team; so many points for theirs. Instead it reads: So many men and women out of so many boys and girls.

And this is a score that is never published. And this is a score that coaches read to themselves, and in which they find real joy . . .

When the last game is over.