Lakes' Phelan chooses family in emotional tug-of-war

The end is hard to face in a normal year.

The abruptness of it all, the finality of it all, it's almost too much for Brian Phelan to take.

"I hate it when seasons end," said Phelan, the head boys basketball coach at Lakes High School. "I mean, you spend nearly all summer with your kids, you spend four months during the winter with them. You're teaching them every single day to be better players and better people. And then one day it's just all over.

"That's always so hard for me."

Imagine the angst and the hand wringing and the lumps in the throat that will happen at the end of this season.

Phelan will be saying goodbye not just to his players, and not just until the next round of workouts kick in. He'll be saying goodbye to his players, to his assistant coaches, to his team, and to basketball as he knows it. For good.

Well, at least for a good long while anyway.

Prior to the season, Phelan made the gut-wrenching decision to leave the game of basketball. Not because he doesn't still love it, or his players, or coaching in general.

Phelan, who is in his fifth year at Lakes and is the only head coach the program there has ever known, is leaving basketball because he loves his family more.

"When I was at home, I felt like I should be doing something more for the team and that wasn't really fair (to the family)," said Phelan, father to three children under the age of six - Tyler (6), Kendall (4) and Jordan (1). "And when I was at basketball, I felt like I should be home. It's a really tough struggle that just ends up making you feel guilty all the time."

Phelan's decision is the end result of a personal tug-of-war that similarly afflicts nearly every working parent, but particularly those, like coaches, who work above and beyond the typical "9-to-5."

The twist is that many coaches like Phelan love the above and beyond work. Absolutely adore it.

And that's what makes their internal tug-of-war between family and "work" even more stressful.

Coaches like Phelan don't log the extra hours on the basketball court because they are forced to by their bosses. Nor do they log the extra hours for the extra money. In truth, the stipend they get - usually between $8,000 and $12,000 per season in the suburbs - is small in relation to the hours served.

Rather, most coaches coach because they are so passionate about it that they can barely imagine their lives without it. Coaching and basketball, or whatever sport they coach, is simply a fundamental part of who they are.

"I just love talking basketball," Phelan said. "I can sit down and talk X's and O's all day. I just love it. I love basketball."

Yet, Phelan's love causes too many heartaches. And not just for him.

"Every year when we hit basketball season, I see a change in the kids," Phelan's wife Tricia said. "They miss him, and Brian is missing a lot of what they're doing. You miss a lot when you're not around. I noticed that right away with our youngest (Jordan). I've gotten to stay home with him and I didn't do that as much with my older two. I went back to work and they went to day care. It's amazing what you notice when you're around.

"I think Brian is really going to glad that he'll have those memories."

Of course, Phelan won't be around all the time. He's keeping his "9-to-5" job as a math teacher at Lakes. He can't afford not to.

Relunctantly, he has come to terms with the fact that he also can no longer afford to be away from his family any more than necessary.

A high school basketball head coach can spend anywhere from 30 to 50 hours a week on team-related responsibilities. That's in addition to the required hours logged in the classroom during the school day.

With three young children and a wife who is slated to go back to work as an elementary school teacher next fall after a two-year leave, Phelan knew that something had to give.

He knew that his wife would need more help. He knew that his guilt would only get worse as he continued to miss more and more of the milestones and activities in his children's lives.

"It's a lot of stress for him during basketball season, and you could feel it within the entire family dynamic," Tricia said.

"It's always been Brian's decision to make and I was a little surprised with the decision he actually did make, but I really think he thought it was time to step back."

Phelan told the administration at Lakes of his decision prior to the season. He told his team a couple of weeks ago. His decision hit the newspapers last week.

"That was hard. The kids went into a stunned silence," Phelan said of his meeting with the team. "Selfishly, I would love to keep coaching, and I know that some coaches can juggle all of this. I just feel that at the ages my kids are right now, I can't.

"The competitive person in me wants to keep going. But the Dad in me wants to step away."

Many of Phelan's colleagues can relate.

Basketball vs. family

"It's a mental and physical war," said Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose, whose two sons, Matthew (8) and Evan (7) have practically grown up on a bench. "To have a family and to do this job the way I want to do it, it's very tough. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bellyaching or complaining. I love basketball and coaching, and this is what I signed up for. But this is the hardest thing I've ever done."

And it's getting harder.

Now that Ambrose's sons are getting into more of their own activities, Ambrose is realizing just how much he misses, and just how strong the tug-of-war really is.

"My son Matthew plays indoor soccer on Friday nights and usually we're playing on Fridays so I never see him play, except for this Friday we're not playing and I'm going to his game for the first time," Ambrose said. "I'm really excited, but the other side of me knows that I could be out scouting. It's that feeling (of constantly feeling torn) that's just killing me."

Of course, it doesn't help any that basketball is the longest high school sports season and that it spans two major holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

It seems that there is always one tough choice after another for a basketball coach.

To compensate, some coaching families simply make team time their family time.

"What keeps us going is that our kids enjoy it, they love being around the gym and the team," said Traci Ambrose, Pat's wife. "I think Matthew got Pat's obsessive basketball gene and Evan really likes basketball, too. They go to the games, they're in the locker room.

"It was really tough when they were younger and they'd be asleep before Pat even got home. But now that they're older, they can be a part of the team. It helps, but I know it all still weighs on Pat a lot. He struggles with the fact that he still misses so much."

Grayslake Central coach Brian Moe just missed another of his son's activities. His oldest, 9-year-old Coby, participated in a musical at school on Thursday night.

Moe and the Rams had a late practice.

Moe's youngest son, Caden, swims on Friday afternoons. He's never been able to watch because of basketball practices and games.

"You coach because you love basketball and you love working with kids, but you end up spending more time with other people's kids than your own," Moe said. "That kind of gets to you after awhile.

"What you end up doing is getting really creative to find family time. Sometimes, we'll get up early on Sunday and I'll take the boys to breakfast at IHOP and then we'll go to Sam's Club and just walk around. It's a way for me to give my wife (Robin) a break, but it's also a way for just me and the boys to spend some time together."

Family time for the Moes is often just like family time for the Ambroses, spent in the gym.

Coby often rides the team bus to games with his dad. He sits on the bench and serves as ball boy and water boy, whatever the team needs. Meanwhile, Robin and Caden sit faithfully in the stands, sometimes reading books to pass the time.

"A lot of the time, we go to Brian (for family time)," Robin Moe said. "Actually, I kind of like the idea of my kids growing up in a gym. It's fun for our family, but it's also hard, too.

"This is a lot of time for Brian. Being the head coach, basketball never really goes away. Even when he's home it's like he's always thinking about it, always processing it. But we're willing to go along for the ride because for as long as I've known Brian, he's wanted to be a head coach. I can't imagine Brain without basketball."

A love not lost

Likewise, Brian Phelan can't imagine himself without basketball either. At least not forever.

That's why he's already plotting his return in five to six years when all of his kids are in school full time.

"That's my goal," Phelan said. "I want to coach again."

At age 34, he's still young and figures he has plenty of time to get back into the ring.

He points to Warren coach Chuck Ramsey, who spent many years as an assistant coach before becoming a head coach later in life.

Speaking of Ramsey, even though he has already retired from teaching, he is still in coaching, illustrating perfectly just how difficult it is for coaches to give up their love.

"I love coaching, I love competition, I love working with kids," Ramsey said. "It can be a juggle and it can be difficult at times but I just really enjoy it. I guess I just haven't had enough yet. I haven't had my fill."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com