Despite time strain, coaching helps teachers reap benefits

 

For the majority of her waking hours, chances are PE teacher and JV tennis coach Yuko Aoki is either in the weight room or on the tennis courts.

When Aoki first came to the school 14 years ago, she taught Japanese and coached the girls’ JV tennis team. She was not coaching the boys’ team at the time, unlike now, because she herself was competing in tennis during the boys’ season in the spring.

“It was busy,” Aoki said. “It’s still the same way. The day is quite long. For first period I come in at 7:30 a.m. and tennis is usually until 5:30 p.m. or so.”

Now, she coaches both boys’ and girls’ JV teams and finds it increasingly difficult to allot time for everything, attributing time management as a decidedly important aspect of being a teacher coach.

“Coaching two seasons is quite hard and at the same time, I have an 8-year-old son who has after-school classes,” Aoki said.

Currently, Aoki only teaches PE, since the Japanese program at the school ended with the last school year. She considers teaching PE and coaching tennis very similar.

“We care for the fitness,” Aoki said. “So, to me, it’s working on the students’ health aspect and fitness aspect that is very fun.”

Aoki remarked that she has always loved tennis and played for her high school team.

“I know it was a very important part of my high school life, and I would like to let students have a great athletic experience here,” Aoki said.

When contrasting the two roles she plays at the school, Aoki shared that her relations with her students varied in comparison to her interactions with her players.

Despite the limited two-month season, she quickly forms a  strong connection with her tennis players, both on and off the court.

“You spend time not just coaching, but off the court, too,” Aoki said, “so you get to know each other.”

According to Aoki, bonding with her Japanese students was different since all her interactions with them were during school.

“But when I [was] teaching Japanese,” Aoki said, “I had some of the students for four years, so I developed a very nice relationship [with them], too.”

Despite the long hours and the sacrifices she had to make to allow her to be a teacher-coach, Aoki  said that the opportunity has been “very fun and very exciting.”

“My favorite part [of teaching and coaching],” Aoki said, “is sharing wonderful time with the students.”