The thing I'd have been mortified by at 16

I'm a couple of days late on this one. I could give you a reason, but the honest version is that life got full and the letter got bumped, and I decided a slightly late letter beats a skipped one. So here we are.

It's worth the wait, though, because today is the first day of a season I've come to love more than I ever expected.

About three weeks ago I walked back onto the turf for a mini camp, and a bunch of the returning players saw me and yelled, "Coach Koral!"

My heart just about exploded.

If you'd told high school me that one day I'd feel that way about being called coach on a field hockey field, I'd have laughed at you. I didn't even know what field hockey was until a couple of years ago.

Here's how it happened.

My middle kid, Charlotte, decided to play her freshman year. She's a runner by nature, cross country and track, and she's genuinely great at track. But those are you-versus-you sports, and I was thrilled she wanted to try something with a team. We were also completely baffled, because what on earth is field hockey?

Funny enough, the morning of her very first day, I was on the exercise bike watching the Olympics and a field hockey match came on. I remember thinking, oh, this actually looks kind of awesome.

That first season, Andrea and I sat in the bleachers in a permanent state of confusion. Whistles constantly, play still happening, no idea what was a foul and what wasn't. We learned the sport one game at a time from those bleachers. And I also learned something about myself, which is that I cannot sit next to a row of dads complaining about the coaching. It drove me up a wall. By the end of the season I stopped sitting with Andrea altogether and just posted up against the fence. Better view, and more importantly, out of earshot of the venting. Huge win for me.

But standing at that fence, I kept thinking about the coach. It's a young program, only eight or nine years old, and he had 20-some girls and basically himself. I started wondering if he could use a hand. Not because I knew anything, I still barely did, but because he clearly had his hands full.

So the next summer I asked Charlotte first. "What would you think if I asked Coach about helping out as an assistant? Would you actually want me out there?" She said, "Of course. I'd love that."

I went to a couple of practices and told the coach I'd be glad to help run drills or just be an extra set of hands. He kind of didn't believe me. He said nobody ever volunteers for this. But he said sure, come on.

And I had the time of my life.

I've coached football for years, going back to playing it in high school. I love coaching football. I love the yelling, the intensity, occasionally making a young man cry (kidding, mostly). I did not expect to fall this hard for coaching a bunch of teenage girls in a sport I can't really play. But I did. One of my favorite moments all season was when our head coach had a conflict near the end of the year and I got to run practice completely on my own. I was grinning the whole time.

Here's the part that actually gets me, though.

My daughter wants me out there.

I think back to being 16 myself, and there is no version of that kid who wanted a parent anywhere near his field, his practice, his friends. It would have been my personal nightmare. And here's Charlotte, telling me she wants me on the turf with her and her teammates.

I don't hold that lightly. I know exactly what it's worth. I get to spend a season next to my 16-year-old, watching her grow into a leader and a scorer, hosting her whole team for dinners before game nights, being trusted in a space most teenagers guard with their lives. I'm humbled by it. My heart is completely full.

The whole thing I try to give those girls, practice after practice, is pretty simple, because I can't teach them technique I don't have. I just tell them to work hard, take care of each other, and leave nothing out there. Leave no regrets.

Which is the whole reason for the rest of this letter.

If "leave no regrets" is what I'm preaching on the field, I want to live it off the field too. So here's something I'm doing this week, and I'd love for you to consider joining me.

A few weeks ago I got on a Zoom and heard a woman named Chantelle Adams tell her story. I don't really know Chantelle. I heard her tell it once, and it wrecked me in the best way. Her young son Tate is facing a life-altering diagnosis and a long road of treatment ahead. By the time she finished, I knew I wanted to help.

Selena Soo is running a fundraising auction for their family, and I donated one of my Story Strategy Intensives to it.

Quick word on what that is, since I've been building this quietly and you may not know the details. Alongside Tell Studios, I've been developing something under my own name. Not production, not crews and cameras. Story strategy. It's for people who are excellent at what they do and nearly invisible online, which honestly describes about 80 percent of the best people I've ever pointed a camera at. The Story Strategy Intensive is 90 minutes, one on one, and you walk away with a custom blueprint: your core message, who it's actually for, and a content direction you can start running with on Monday. It normally goes for $1,500.

Right now you can't buy it from me at all. You can only bid on it. And every dollar goes to Chantelle and Tate, not to me, not to Tell Studios. I get nothing out of it except a really good 90 minutes with whoever wins.

Bidding starts at $400. The auction closes Friday, July 24 at 9pm ET.

Bid on the Story Strategy Intensive here: https://rich-relationships.betterworld.org/auctions/auction-fundraiser-chantelle/items/story-strategy-intensive-ryan-koral

And if something else in there speaks to you more, bid on that instead. There are retreats, coaching packages, and media training from people far more well known than me. The full auction is here: https://rich-relationships.betterworld.org/auctions/auction-fundraiser-chantelle

Thanks for reading something that turned out to be about a lot more than field hockey.

Grateful for you,
Ryan

P.S. The season starts today and the auction closes Friday. Two things I care about, both about the same thing in the end, which is showing up for people while you've got the chance. Go leave no regrets this week.