A Coach's Wife During Summer Football Camps

Summer is officially here, and most people outside of this football world probably think my husband has some time off right now. Wrong!!! Summer camps are in full swing. What does that mean to a coach's wife.....

Bye bye husband. Days can literally go by without seeing each other for more than a few minutes. Why? Camp starts early in the morning with hundreds of players from all over coming to be coached up at the university. If it is a team camp, it also ends late at night because the college coaches hang out with the high school coaches at night so they have a good time, and want to keep bringing the team back to the camp year after year. This year my husband is working 19 days of camp in the month of June. We are currently in the middle of a streak of 15 straight days of camp!

Coaches wives literally run the entire show at home and with our families during the "camp season." Much like in the football season.....there is no "extra set of hands." The house, driving kids to summer activities, meals, bath time, books, tucking in, mowing the lawn, anything breaks (fix it), toddler meltdowns (she's on her own)....and the list goes on. I decided yesterday to get the tools out myself and teach our son to finally ride a bike with out training wheels. You name a household task......a coach's wife is probably handling it during camp.

There are also plenty of camps in the summer where our husbands have to travel to evaluate and coach players.....some usually right around Father's Day. This year we celebrated Daddy right around 10pm because he was away at 2 camps that weekend. We could not stay up that late either, because we had our team camp starting at our facilities that very next morning. We still made the most out of the time we got with him. Coaches' wives and kiddos learn to be very understanding and patient. 

Some nights during camp we make our way to the stadium to eat with the campers and our husbands....no matter what's on the menu. Tonight I loaded up four boys and a portable high chair....just to get an hour with him. Seeing those boys running and laughing on the field with their Daddy makes it all worth it.

When that small window of vacation time in the beginning of July rolls around (I am literally counting down the days), we try to make up for lost time-sometimes only being able to get away for a few days. This also may help you understand when that coaches wife you know is suddenly not available. Her husband is back....Daddy is around again....she is making the most of their time together. Because let's not forget.....fall camp is just weeks away, and somehow the players report on July 25th this year (but that's another blog entry in itself!)