I doubt anyone doesn't like being appreciated. Showing appreciation is basic human 101. And there's nothing wrong with expecting it at times.

Jody this very much reminds me of a short conversation I had with my high school football coach.

It was only a junior varsity game, so losing it wasn't the end of the world. Hell, it wasn't even a total blowout but coach Kayes rode us hard, both during and after the game.

Of course as teammates we always enthusiastically supported each other during games as well as during practices. Football isn't a pleasant walk through the wildflowers. In fact it's damn hard, physically mentally and emotionally. If there weren't the rewards that the game brings to it's players, no one in their right mind would subject themselves to it.

But there were no rewards that day. What we experienced was dejection. We were making mistakes. It's different when you lose to a better team but beating ourselves with mental mistakes is hard to take and the coach only focused on the mistakes.

I had words with him as we walked off the field.

"Hey Coach, we lost but there were a lot of good plays made. You never said anything?" He looked at me with a dumbfounded expression and said, "You were doing what you were supposed to do”. He repeated it once more. I can’t remember what he added after but it was close to “What do you expect”.

Funny, that’s the only game I can remember him treating us that way. If it were that way all the time, the rewards wouldn’t be worth the price.