Wild One-on-One with Don Nachbaur: Part Five
Don Nachbaur begins his first season with the Wenatchee Wild this fall – we asked the club’s newest head coach a few questions, and we’re introducing him one answer at a time…
Q5: What are the most important lessons & things you’ve learned in your career that you find yourself using every day?
A5: For me, it’s getting up early and going to work, and instilling that in your players. I think habits – daily habits – lead you to success. You can’t be lazy in life, and you certainly can’t have success after hockey with that recipe, so the habits that we teach our young guys on a daily basis will follow them the rest of their lives. The guys who went on after hockey to other walks of life, they had a good foundation when they left their junior program.
We’ll try to do that and emulate that in Wenatchee – it’s not just about developing hockey players, but it’s about developing good citizens. The expectation is, the guys have to get out in the community – that’s part of being a professional athlete, They’re not pros yet, but they learn that at an early age, that it’s going to be required when they get to the pro ranks, being part of the community. I think our guys did a decent job of that last year, and we’ll just continue to improve on that.
