Knowledge VS Wisdom

Imagine you’re a young girl named Alice.  you’ve just fallen down a rabbit hole and don’t know where to go.  You come to a door that you’re too large to get through.  Even if you could fit through the door, you don’t know where the key is.  Then you find the key sitting on a table in the middle of the room. You grab the key, but you still can’t fit through the door. Then you find a potion that shrinks you.  Now you’re able to use the key on the door and walk-through.  I believe this is a perfect description of how you need both wisdom and knowledge to be successful.  Knowledge is the collection of information.  Wisdom means being able to correctly use that knowledge.  Think of the Key as Knowledge, the Potion as Wisdom, and the Locked  Door as Success. You see you can have all the knowledge in the world and it’s absolutely useless, unless you have the wisdom allowing you to use it.  Everyone knows the quote from Uncle Ben in Spider-Man, “with great power comes great responsibility”.  This quote though widely used in jest, is incredibly powerful.  Knowledge is indeed power.  In today’s day and age knowledge is everywhere.  Anyone can go online and find any information they want.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  It’s incredibly powerful to have this much knowledge at our fingertips, and yet so dangerous since most people don’t know how to use it.  I’d like to focus on the impact this has had on youth sports and coaching.  Using the Internet, kids can gain years of knowledge in just a few days. Unfortunately, this means that some players have in fact gained as much or more knowledge than their coach.  Some players become arrogant because of this. They have more free time than their coaches, and therefore are able to stay more up to date with new information. When their coaches don’t know something they just learned, it makes them feel superior.  Some players even become so arrogant, they feel they don’t need a coach. These players will fail.  Some will be humbled through failure.  Others will make excuses,”well if I had a coach that actually knew what they were doing”…. What if you did, but you never actually respected them enough to really listen.  In this day and age players may have more knowledge than their coach, but they rarely have more wisdom.  However, every issue has two sides.  Some coaches allow their pride to keep them from success.  They are so arrogant that they don’t actively listen to suggestions from their players.  Not every suggestion from a player is a good one, but they aren’t all junk either.  As a player, you want to feel heard, as though your opinion is valued. As a coach you want to feel respected, as though they trust you, and believe you know what you’re doing.  Why can’t we have both? It’s a new age, and the balance of power is shifting. However, neither player nor coach can find success on their own.  Coaches need to become a sponge, absorbing as much information as possible regardless of the source.  There is valuable knowledge to be gained when a coach humbles themself and actively listens to those around them. I’m not suggesting coaches let players run their team. Without the coaches wisdom gained through years of experience,  even the most knowledgeable player would be lost.  However, i would be remiss to ignore how much a player can learn in this day and age.  Coaches need to actively listen to their players. Then use their wisdom to differentiate between good suggestions and bad ones. Players need to respect their coach’s opinion even when it differs from their own. it’s about humility, trust, and balance.  On your own you’ll be stuck staring at a door without a clue where to go. Together, nothing can stand in your way.