Always Compete

This post is several notes that I have taken from the Always Compete chapter of the book, Win Forever, by Pete Carroll.

-  Competition to me is not about beating your opponent.  It is about doing your best; it is about striving to reach your potential; and it is about being in relentless pursuit of a competitive edge in everything you do.

-  Our stated goal would be to "do things better than they have ever been done before."

-  If you want to win forever, always compete.

-  Competition is a mentality, an outlook, and a way of approaching every day. The traditional definition of competition requires having an opponent.  For players, the real "opposition" is not necessarily the team they are matched up against in a given week - far from it.  The real opposition is the challenge to remain focused on maximizing their abilities in preparation for the game.


-  The essence of my message about competing has nothing to do with the opponent.  My competitive approach is that "it's all about us."  If we've really done the preparation to elevate ourselves to our full potential, it shouldn't matter whom we're playing.

-  Many people confuse 'opponent' with 'enemy,' but in my experience, that is extremely unproductive.  My opponents are not my enemies.  My opponents are the people who offer me the opportunity to succeed.  The tougher my opponents, the more they present me with an opportunity to live up to my full potential and play my best.  From an extreme perspective, that's a reason to love them, not to hate them. At the end of the day, that opponent is the person who makes you int the best competitor you can be.

-  In our practices, we always end each day with our best offensive players competing against our best defensive players to create the most competitive situations.  It is crucial to maximizing the development of the team.

-  We have no control over what our opponents do; we can only control what we do.  We want to maximize our potential, and to do that we must focus our energy and efforts on ourselves.

http://www.amazon.com/Win-Forever-Live-Work-Champion/dp/1591844169

Carroll, Pete.  (2011).  Win Forever.  New York: The Penguin Group.

Nick Saban - Focus On The Process , Not The Results

The following are some notes taken from an article on Brandenton.com, written by Gardner Sherrill,on NIck Saban's 'process' oriented approach to achieving sustainable success.

Nick Saban, love him or hate him, has been the most successful coach in all of sports over the past seven years, with the Alabama Crimson Tide holding three national titles and a 74 -14 record.


When asked about his success, he and his team largely attribute it to his process.

"Process guarantees success," says Saban. "A good process produces good results."

As we review the year's end and make our economic and market forecasts for 2014, what lessons can we learn from the success of Alabama football?

Process is about control and focusing your efforts where you have the most control. Consequentially Saban doesn't focus on or talk about winning. Winning is an outcome and not something he can control. Instead, the focus is on effort and activities that applied consistently tend to result in success.

Nick's Paradox: "The more one emphasizes winning, the less he or she is able to concentrate on what actually causes success."

Saban, his staff and the team focus on perfecting the process.

"Eliminate the clutter and all of the things that are going on outside and focus on the things that you can control with how you go about and take care of your business," Saban says. "Take the other team out of the game and make it all about you and what you do."

Gardner Sherrill, CFP, MBA, is an independent financial adviser with Sherrill Wealth Management. To learn more visit sherrillwealth.com.

My takeaway from the process is that you have to focus on what you need to do to get better.  You have to identify what you as a person needs to do to improve and be the best that you can be.  When you focus on you, you will improve, and your situation will improve along with it.  You can't worry about difficult athletic directors, boisterous parents, or the fact that you have to share your best athletes.  You have to make sure that you are growing and learning so that you are presenting the best product possible for your stakeholders.

From a team standpoint, you can't focus on wins and losses, because when you do that, you will lose focus on what really matters; improvement and growth.  When you focus on the win/loss column, you focus on 'quick success' strategies that might help you in individual games, but will not help you in the long run in trying to obtain sustainable success.  However, when you focus on the fundamentals, player growth and development, and building a quality culture, you will be creating a situation where your program can, in Pete Carroll's words, 'Win Forever.'





Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2013/12/31/4912555/coach-nick-saban-has-success-model.html#storylink=cpy

How Is Your Bench Chemistry

Post taken from MensBasketballHoopScoop.BlogSpot.Com

http://hoopthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/02/hows-your-bench-chemistry.html

Watch what Duke basketball does.  In specific, watch the end of Duke's bench...all game long.  Preseason, early season, midseason, it doesn't matter' you'd think they were playing in a world championship.  They're on the edge of their seats.  They're high-fiving and hollering.  And they look exactly like the players at the starters' end of the bench.  There's a no difference between #1 and #12 on the depth chart.  When a player comes off the court, every single guy stands up, claps the player off, and pats him on the back.  They're all totally engaged; they're all prepared to go in the game.  The best way to describe it: they love being there.


From "Help The Helper" by Kevin Pritchard and John Eliot

What Is Your Role As A Leader

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a leader."

I met with a high school principal to talk about his role on his campus.  We had a great conversation about a million different topics, but what stood out to me the most is how he viewed his role as the campus leader.  He said that his most important role was to grow the assistant principals under him so that they could all one day be campus leaders.  He said that in everything that he does, he is looking at how he can help them grow as leaders.  In the process, he is getting the most out of the leadership on his campus, improving his organization.  

As a leader, it will always be my goal to figure out the goals, ambitions, and potential of everybody that I work with and help them to become the best version of themselves.  Whether its trying to teach my point guard leadership skills that will help them run an organization one day or its trying to help my assistant coaches develop into head coaches one day, a major responsibility for me as a leader will forever be to develop those under me to be leaders and to be the best version of ourselves.

Always Look For Your Competitive Edge

"As a great competitor, Jerry Rice understood that by staying in the mind-set of always competing, he could develop the awareness to capture the "opportunities within opportunities" that other people might miss.  In other words, he was constantly seeking a competitive edge.  It helps to always be searching for that tiny edge in whatever you're doing - even if it's small, silly stuff - because that's how you are going to catch things that someone else might not when it really matters.  It's an extremely powerful tool."

Pete Carroll on Jerry Rice being a competitor
Taken from Pete Carroll's book Win Forever


http://www.amazon.com/Win-Forever-Live-Work-Champion/dp/1591844169
Carroll, Pete.  (2011).  Win Forever.  New York: The Penguin Group

He Invented Something Everybody Loves

But You've Probably Never Heard of Him

The jump shot was invented by a kid who was just trying to figure out a way to beat his older brother.  His older brother was 6’5 and would block his shot all of the time, so he had to find a way to get his shot off against him.

It was created out of necessity, and now the jump shot is the norm. 

Its also a great story about faith and the strength and joy that comes from faith.

The Dos and Don'ts of Educational Leadership

The following post are notes I took from the video below titled 'The Dos and Don'ts of Educational Leadership.'  In the video, educational leader Pedrono Guera talks about effective school leadership.  I have changed some of the notes to apply to coaching.  I substituted 'school,' 'principal,' 'teacher,', and 'student' for 'team,' 'program,' 'coach,' and 'athlete.'

What’s an essential quality of leadership that you have found to be important in your own work or admired in someone else?

He was observing a school that had a principal who completely turned around an underperforming school.  You have to be focused on the quality of teaching.  You have to be focused on making sure that the athletes are on task and that the coaches are on task.  Makes sure that the program is an inviting and attractive place to be.  You have to transform the culture and be willing to get rid of people not needing to be there, while giving support to those who are there.

You have to understand exactly what the athletes.  You have to focus on student needs, both the learning need and the needs to allow them to perform athletically, but also, as important, you have to understand what there social needs are.  Kids who have basic needs not being met are not going to flourish.  You can’t worry about teaching a kid how to shoot if he is worried about what he is going to eat.  You have to have a broad view of what it is going to take to teach and coach kids.

What is your vision as a leader, and how does it guide you?

As a consultant, he gets leaders to create a vision that clear and compelling, and getting teachers inspired and excited.  He also works to get teachers to understand that the problem is not the kids, but in the teachers ability to teach the kids.  If you put the onus back on the coach so that they have a sense of pride in what they do, they will be more effective.  And, if they can’t, sometimes you have to let them know that they might need to find other work.

What aspect of leadership holds teachers back from being more effective, and how should they approach self-improvement?

You have to create an environment where your other coaches and your athletes are able and comfortable enough to come to you with questions without them worrying about being punished for not knowing how to do something.  You can’t be a punitive leader who penalizes coaches and athletes who need help.

Don’t be a lazy leader who is not willing to get sweaty with your team and is satisfied just watching from the side.

Don’t be afraid to delegate.  The best leaders know how to share their responsibility with others.  There is too much going on in a program for you to try to take care of everything.

The most important work being done is in practice, and you have to make sure that your players and coaches have all the support they need to be successful.