A Coach's Diary

The health of the team is reflected in the face of the coach.  We are the standard.  We have to reflect and model the standards that we communicate and expect from our athletes. When we teach and preach one thing - be on time, be prepared, be accountable, and when we DO something different - show up late, show up unprepared, make excuses, we are sending mixed signals.  When we send mixed signals, we are causing confusion and we lose credibility. Tim Corbin, head baseball coach at Vanderbilt, says "modeling is what you do and what people see from you."   What would your athletes say about you?  What would they say that you value?  How would they rate you as a leader and a coach and a teacher?  If someone followed you around for 48 hours, what would they see and hear, and what would they say that you value, based on your actions? The hardest person to teach, lead, and coach is ourselves.  We have to make sure that we are living up to and abo...

In a recent meeting with our principal, he shared the three rules that legendary football coach, Lou Holtz, lives by. The three rules are simple, but when applied right, they can be life-changing.  The three rules are: 1 - Can I trust you? 2 - Are you committed to excellence? 3 - Do you care about me? COVID-19 has completely shaken up our world.  In education, it has been tough to provide grace and accountability for our students.  There has been a lot of unknowns, and I think a lot of us educators and coaches want to know if we are doing the right thing if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing and if we are doing enough .   He shared these three questions to put us and our minds at ease.  He told us all that he trusts us and the work that we do and that he trusts us as people as well.  He said that it is evident that we are committed to excellence by the way that we have taken on this challenge of educating our students online....

Writer Jackie MacMillan is a writer who has covered the NBA for years. She was a young reporter when Michael Jordan came into the league, and she got a courtside view of his growth into one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. One of Jordan's most famous moments was the shot that he hit against the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1989 in the 5th and deciding game of their playoff series. She said that before that game, she was able to talk to MJ. It was a big game for the Bulls and for his career. She remembers him talking about how nervous he was leading up to the game, and how he was handling the nerves: "He was nervous Don't think that Michael Jordan wasn't ever nervous. All the great ones are. Now, once the game starts, those nerves disappear immediately. But in the days leading up to it, talk to all of the greats - Jerry West, Bird, Russell, Magic - all of them will tell you that nerves are normal and managing those nerves and transforming them into...

Jon Gordon recently interviewed Horst Schulze, a cofounder of The Ritz Carlton Hotel company.  Horst is a legendary leader and visionary who has helped reshape the concepts of excellence, service, and competitive advantage, transcending divisions of industry across the world.  Horst had a couple of very great quotes about excellence and how leadership differs from management. Horst says that excellence is a choice: Excellence is a choice.  If you do things with excellence, you are going to win.  Excellence is a decision.  It is not an accident.  It is the result of high intentions, sincere effort, and intelligent execution.  It's not by chance, its a choice, and it directs your destiny.  If you are excellent or not is a choice that you make.  Everything is a decision in life. When he was asked what he has learned about leadership, he said: There are very few leaders, but a lot of managers.  There is a difference between lead...

In "The Last Dance" documentary about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, they had some great footage and interviews about his time in college at North Carolina. Coaches Dean Smith and Roy Williams both talked about how competitive and hard working he was from day one. Coach Smith said that he was very inconsistent as a freshman, but he was one of the most competitive  ones that they had in their drills.  He  said that MJ WANTED to get better, and he had the abiity to get better. Its not about where you start, but how hard that you work, how willing you are to learn, and how much you are willing to compete. Coach Williams had a couple of great quotes about his work ethic.  Williams said, "When I think of Michael Jordan, I think of 3 years of watching that youngster get BETTER and BETTER and BETTER.  Michael Jordan was the only player who could ever turn it on and off.  And he NEVER turned it off." Coach Williams also told a story about ...

Brett Ledbetter is one of the leaders in character education.  He works with the best athletes and coaches in the world.  He recently spoke with leaders in our district about how to improve behaviors. We define appropriate behavior in our district as above the line behaviors, and we define inappropriate behaviors as below the line behaviors.  We talked for about an hour on how to get all of our kids above the line. One thing that he said was that NBA athletes generally ask these three questions when working with a new coach: - Are They Smart? - Is There a Conflict of Interest? - Do They Care? You have to have the knowledge, resources, and ability to grow your people.  If you can't or don't, they just won't believe in you, trust you, or follow you. You also have to make sure that you have common goals.  You have to be working with each other, and against each other.  Everybody wants to feel valued, heard, and appreciated.  Listen to you...

"Always seek to do your very best. It does not matter what the rest of the world thinks, but it is of prime importance, however, what you think." Sherri Coale, the women's basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma, has this quote hanging in her office. She says that it is important to find your voice and to measure  yourself by your own standard of excellence instead of waiting for the world to weigh in on whether or not you are measuring up to their standards. Everyone has an opinion on everything: - What we do - Where we go - How we look Thoughts and opinions of others can get noisy, but we have to learn how to keep the rest of the rest of the world out of our own heads and shield yourself from their opinions. It is part of our job as coaches and teachers to help our kids learn how to find their own voice, navigate through the ups and downs of life, and ultimately not need us as much as they get older and so that they can pass on those lessons to ...

In gymnastics, the outcome is based on the approval of judges, so it leads gymnasts to value the opinion of others.  They are taught to be perfectionists because there is a standard of a Perfect 10.  To get the Perfect 10, you have to get a 10 from two judges.  You are taught, from the time you start competing, to value the score that the judges give you. Hearing this was eye-opening to me.  I didn't realize that gymnasts are trained to seek perfection out of each routine and to look for the approval of others.  That approval isn't even fully based on the routine but based also in part on things that they can't control - like how somebody sees and values their body image, their appearance, and their technique. They are conditioned to put their value in the eyes and opinions of others.  They even have the term 'Land and Look' which means that soon as they land, they look immediately to their coach for validation and approval for their performance....

I am always thinking about 'what WE are BECOMING' because of sports. Who am i becoming as a coach and a sports dad. Who are my athletes becoming because of my coaching and leadershil. Who my kids are becoming because of sports. My goal as a coach and a parent is to max out on my potential and overachieve, and to enjoy every step of the way. My goal for my athletes and my kids are to max out, to overachieve, and to enjoy every step of the way. I try to do my best to do a great job of teaching and growing athletes, but i think its just as important for us to be able to look back on our experiences with joy and happiness. We only get one chance at this.  Lets mkar sure we have fun with it.

Every great team has trust. Sometimes we have to accelerate the process of trust.  Trust = relying on others.  To accelerare trust, put your players in the position where they have to rely on each other. Trust needs trustworthiness and trustwillingness.  Being trustworthy means allowing your hand to be taken, and trustwilling means not yanking your hand away. It helps to define and show what trust, trustworthiness, and trustwillingness looks like in action and on the field.  Its important to create a culture where the players are willing to go ALL-IN and they are willing to do it for each other because they trust each other and they love each other and because that is the expectationm

One issue that coaches, teachers, parents and any person in a leadership asks consistently is,  'How do I get ___________ to give me their full effort?" - How do I get my athletes to go hard everyday? - How do I get my students to work as hard as they can? - How do I get my kids to give their full effort? - How do I get my athletes to play with grit, heart, and toughness? Becky Burleigh is the women's soccer coach at University of Florida.  She recognized that her teams sometime create excuses for not going all-in.  One of the excuses is that if they don't go all-in and fail, they are able to justify it by saying that they didn't give it their all or that they didn't care. Intentness to succeed can lead to anxiety, and the excuses of not caring or not trying their hardest can be a coping mechanism. She said that they needed to identify and define what it looks like to go 'all in,' all of the time.   They wanted to create a visual of what goi...

Trevor Ariza has been in the NBA since 2004.  He has played on a few different teams - some great teams and on some struggling teams.   On a recent podcast he was discussing his journey and the journeys that some athletes have during their careers and how some athletes don't get or receive the fame or recognition that they deserve.  He said this about his journey: "No two journeys are the same and everybody has to take their own path.  Timing always plays a factor in where you are and what you do. For me, my path was to TOUCH AS MANY PEOPLE as I could.  And I enjoy that." I thought that was a beautiful way to look at the impact that we can have on the people that we coach and the players that we play with. We can't always control how much talent we have, and we sure can't control all of the recognition that we recieve. But we can definitely control how we treat people.  If we all made it a goal to emphasize how we treat the pe...

Oregon point guard Payton Pritchard was a guest on CJ McCollum's podcast, and they asked him some really good questions about his training, how it has changed from year to year, and what he is doing now during the shut down. The biggest takeaway that I had is the importance of finding ways to put in the work, especially during adversity and adverse times like this shut down that we are experiencing now.  Having a vision and a routine helps you stay on track. How Did Your Training Change In Terms of Your Approach From Your Freshman Year to Senior Year? "I have always been a hard worker and got in the gym a bunch, but with each year I've gotten smarter, with my training and what I needed to improve on, and got more consistent with the work. A lot of guys can go work hard for a day or two, but you have to be consistent at working hard each and everyday. I got better at improving my weaknesses and making them become strengths.  From my junior to senior y...

Buzz Williams, the head men's basketball coach at Texas A&M, was recently a guest on Jon Gordon's podcast, and he left some very good gems. Coach Williams talked about how he got his start in coaching, and there are lessons in his climb and how he became a Division 1 head coach.  He said that when he was first getting started as a team manager at the junior college and NAIA, anytime he met a person/coach with a business card, he would send them a handwritten letter once a week.  He also worked basketball camp every week of every summer.  By his senior year of college, he was writing 420 coaches a week.  He slowly worked his way up the coaching ranks.  He spent 13 years as an assistant coach, and he has spent 13 years as a head coach. God Gives Us What We Can Handle Coach Williams said that his focus throughout his career was to be the best that he could be for the job that he has, that he has been blessed way more than he deserves and that he k...

I was listening to Paul Biancardi speak about how to better communicate, connect with, and coach today's athletes.  Paul Biancardi is a former college basketball coach and is now the ESPN's National Recruiting director.  He has been around the game and its top athletes for years, so he has good insight on how to be an effective coach for athletes today. He starts off talking about how important it is for us coaches to understand that our athletes are different than they were when we were growing up and we have to communicate with them differently. COACHING TODAY'S PLAYER IN 2020  1 - HOW coaches deliver their message MUST change.  2 - Coach's core values, principles, and standards have NOT changed.  3 - Today's players are CONSUMED with the future. We have to make sure that we are communicating EFFECTIVELY. How we communicate and deliver our message has to be different.  The core values, principles and standards are the same, but how w...