Coaching the Whole Person

When I think of mentoring — I think of Miss Val. Who’s Miss Val? Aside from being one of my personal heroes, Valerie Kondos Field is better known for coaching the UCLA Women’s Gymnastics Team for almost 30 years. Although her experience with gymnastics was limited, Miss Val led her team to 7 National Championship titles with a simple philosophy — coaching the whole person. When Katelyn Ohashi (another personal favorite) joined the UCLA Gymnastics team, she could no longer find joy in a sport that had now become a source of significant emotional pain from continuous body shaming and her skills suffered from a lack of practice. As her coach, Miss Val was faced with the daunting task of not only building trust but reigniting the flame of an underperforming athlete who had secured a scholarship spot on her team without alienating her any further. Her approach was to coach Katelyn both inside and outside of the gym. As part of this plan, she showed Katelyn that she was invested in her wellbeing and her interests, not just her ability to earn perfect 10’s. At Miss Val’s suggestion, they had a weekly lunch where Katelyn drove the topic of conversation and gymnastics was only discussed if she initiated it. Over the course of her UCLA Gymnastics career, Katelyn not only discovered a newfound love for gymnastics (don’t believe me — see for yourself here) but she found a lifelong mentor in Miss Val and has gone on to nurture her other passions of social justice and poetry.

“Coaching the whole person” does not just apply to college athletes, this philosophy applies to other types of mentoring. While mentoring in the workplace may have a business lens, this can’t be done in a vacuum. From my experience, formal mentoring programs often lose sight of that personal aspect and zero-in on helping an individual reach a goal (such as earning a promotion) without taking the time to learn who they are as a person. Professional goals are often motivated by personal interest, so it’s not possible to build on the first without understanding the latter. Not all coworkers can function effectively as a mentor, that’s not to say you can’t learn from those you work with, but a mentor/mentee relationship is not destined to develop in every situation. At the end of the day, I believe natural mentoring boils down to chemistry and that connection drives the interest in building a deeper relationship.

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