A Coach's Diary

One of my good friends has a son who is a high-major athlete at a power 5 school. The advice he gives to parents of athletes going through the youth sports experience and recruitment process is, "Just make sure they are good enough. If they are good enough, they will have an opportunity to play on top teams and play in college, but the second they stop being good enough, the opportunities stop too." In his book, The Mamba Mentality, Kobe Bryant writes that he learned a lot from studying and watching Muhammad Ali. Here is what he wrote about Ali: One of the main takeaways was that you have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light. Meaning: It takes a lot of work to be successful, and people will celebrate that success, will celebrate that flash and hype. Behind that hyp, though, is dedication, focus, and seriousness - all of which outsiders will never see. If you stop being dedicated to the craft, the commercials and contracts will all fade away. Success comes down to ha...

My favorite part about coaching is watching my athletes grow because when we grow as people, the potential for the team grows. But we have to believe in ourselves, believe in each other and in our leaders and believe in the process. The good thing about belief is that it doesn’t have to be big or deep at first. Just believe enough to show up, keep showing up, and do the next right thing. If we do that, if we keep showing up, our confidence, belief, and our ability will grow together. We have to have faith. In Matthew 17, a crowd was waiting at the bottom of a mountain for Jesus and his disciples. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. (Matthew‬ ‭17:14-16‬) The boy had a demon inside of him, and after Jesus healed him by removing the demon, the disciples asked privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demo...

When I am going through long periods of stress, like a losing streak or a shooting slump, my body starts to shut down, fatigue starts to kick in, and all I want to do is sleep. It’s harder for me to get out of bed, I stop exercising and meditating, and I spend more time on social media than reading good books. In his book Do Hard Things , Steve Magness writes that these are signs of Give-Up-Itis, learned helplessness that is the clinical expression of mental defeat. When we don’t feel like we have control over our situation, we start to shut down mentally. What we think is a lack of grit, toughness, and motivation is actually a lack of sense of control over our lives, and apathy and hopelessness take over. So how do we overcome this? Magness wrote that psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl noted that when he was in Auschwitz, another prisoner told him that to increase his chances of survival he should do two simple things: shave and stand tall. In other words, control what ...

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti He's nervous, but on the surface, he looks calm and ready to drop bombs But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out He's choking how everybody's joking now The clock's run out, time's up, over, blaow! Eminem’s lyrics to Lose Yourself describe how I feel before big games when I let my nerves get the best of me. One thing that has helped me control my emotions and nerves is meditation. Kobe Bryant, one of the best basketball players and athletes of all time credited much of his success to meditation. Kobe said that he would meditate every morning for 10-15 minutes. Doing so would set him up for the rest of the day. It was like having an anchor, and when he didn’t do it, he felt like he was constantly chasing the day as opposed to being in control. When he meditated in the ...

When I was in college, I HATED pre-season conditioning. I am not a great runner, and the timed mile was the foundation of our conditioning program. We also did this thing called ‘Ladders.’ We would run 1 sprint, then we would jog back. Then we would run 3 sprints, and jog back. Next was 5 sprints, then 7, then 9, then 11, and finally, we would run 13 sprints and jog back. After that, we worked our way back down, running 11, then 9, then 7, then 5, then 3, and finally finishing with 1 last sprint. Before we did the ladder, we would do a timed, half-mile warm-up, and after the ladder, we would do a timed, half-mile cool-down. Those days were HARD. But halfway through my freshman year, I realized something: the conditioning was getting easier and easier, and I was starting to feel stronger and stronger physically and mentally. I then started to attack the workouts. My mantra became, “Beat the workouts; don’t let the workouts beat you.” I wasn’t the fastest, but I would push myself t...

Do you ever feel anxious or afraid that you are falling behind when you aren't working out? Author and runner Steve Magness writes that this anxiety and fear is common in all types of high performers. Buddy Edelmen was an American runner who became the first man to run a marathon faster than 2 hours and 15 minutes, and he represented the U.S. in the 1964 Summer Olympics. Magness writes that Buddy was so meticulous with his training, fitness, and diet that he would record his heart rate and how many hours he had slept every morning, he tracked his weight, his workouts, and how he felt after completing them. He would then send off all his data and notes to his coach who would give comments and suggestions on how he could improve. While his dedication and meticulousness helped him break records, it also might have held him back. Edelen's trainer told him that he need to take more time to rest, but Edelen told Sports Illustrated in 1964, "If I rest a day or two after doing thi...

Brett Ledbetter is an author and speaker who works with some of the best athletes, coaches, and programs in the country developing character and championship cultures. He works regularly with the Gonzaga men's basketball team on what they call PGMs - Personal Growth Meetings. The goal of these meetings is to use engaging quotes and videos to lead discussions about goals, standards, and adversity, discussions on how to develop championship character, and discussions on how to develop championship cultures. In one meeting, he told the Gonzaga team a story about how when he worked with the 2016 Florida Gator softball team, their senior leaders wanted their mantra for the year to be 'Brick by Brick,'  When the athletes at Florida told him that, Brett showed the team an outstanding Ted Talk by Margaret Heffernan. The quote that stood out to him the most was: "What motivates people are the bonds and loyalty and trust they develop between each other. What matters is the morta...

Author Daniel Coyle the author of The Culture Code, one of the best coaching books I have ever read, says, “ The world we live in is a learning contest. The world we live in is not an execution contest, and it’s not a confident contest. The world we live in is a learning contest. What helps you with learning? Continually ask, who else can help us, what else is coming around the corner, and how can we get a little bit better today.” Kobe Bryant was known for being very curious and he tried to learn from everybody. In the middle of a game, he asked Michael Jordan how he shot his fadeaway. Before an all-star game, he asked defensive legend Gary Payton how to play better defense. In the off-season, he asked post player Hakeem Olajuwon to help him with his footwork in the post. If you could help him get better. Kobe would work with you, and he wasn’t afraid or embarrassed to ask for help. In his book, The Mamba Mentality, Kobe wrote: “I asked a ton of questions. I  was curious. I wanted...

The best athletes, the best teammates, and the best leaders are the best communicators. Communication, or the lack of communication, can make or break a team or success. A great communicator can inspire others to work hard and stay focused. Great communication keeps everybody connected and focused through the good times and through adversity. It’s easy being a positive, happy, and connected teammate when things are going good, but a true test of character and leadership is what you say when things get tough. When adversity hits, weak teams separate and strong teams come together and fight together. When times get tough, every team needs one person to step up and provide a strong, positive voice. But how do you communicate positively when everything around you is negative? The answer to that question is a major key to leadership and being a great communicator. In Matthew 15, Jesus was being questioned by some Pharisees and other religious teachers, when a crowd came. Among other things,...

Martha Burns is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. She says, "Our goal as teachers is to get our students addicted to learning." Learning something new releases a chemical in our brain called dopamine that activates the same brain reward areas as drugs and gambling. While drugs and gambling are artificial triggers and lead to severe consequences, the dopamine that comes from learning something new and exciting is a much healthier and more rewarding way to feel good. Dopamine also helps us retain new information. When dopamine is present, we remember things better, and when it's not, nothing seems to stick. Help your students and athletes release the dopamine needed to learn and retain information by bringing energy and enthusiasm to everything you do, and making new information exciting. You can hook your students and athletes in by teaching them something new they can use quickly. Remember - dopamine can be addictive, and our goal as teachers and coaches is...

One of the most common types of questions that I get from athletes and their parents are, “What should do for training?” Everyone wants to know what kind of workouts they should do to get better. My first and second questions are usually, “What do you do in the games?” and, “What part of your game do you need to work on?” In his book, “The Mamba Mentality,” Kobe Bryant talked about his workout routine: “I would start off short and work on my touch. Always. Always. Always. Get my muscle memory firing. Then, I’d move back, work for a bit, move back again, and repeat the same process. After that, I’d start working on situational looks that I was going to get that night. I’d walk my body through the scouting report, and remind it of things it had done thousands and thousands of times before. I never had a set routine, an ironclad formula that I practiced night after night. I listened to my body and let it inform my warmup, because there are always variables. If I felt the need to shoot ext...

Steve Magness, a performance coach who was once the fastest distance runner in the country, says that athletes, coaches, and parents think that the way to develop discipline and toughness is to take what they think is the Navy SEALS approach, which is, 'Put people in some really difficult situations and then they'll get really tough,' but that's not really what the Navy SEALS do. Before they go out and do all the crazy stuff like survival training, Navy SEALS recruits sit in a classroom and have lecture after lecture and Powerpoint after Powerpoint learning how to mentally and physically handle every situation they will face. They even have to study a 600-page book that teaches mental toughness skills. After they are taught the skills that they need to survive, they then practice those skills by being put in a place that simulates what they will feel like and experience so they can try those skills out to see if they are able to access those skills under pressure and du...

Greatness doesn’t require great conditions, but it does require a great mindset and great belief in yourself.  The sports world is full of people who have had to overcome a lot of fears, doubts, and anxiety to become successful, and the  most important things we can give our students and athletes is a positive self-image and the confidence to try, fail and try again. Author and sports psychologist Gary Mack wrote, "Limits begin where vision ends, and humans are the only species that get in the way of their own growth." He also said most of the work he does is to "stretch," not "shrink" the athletes he works with. We need to help our athletes stretch and expand their comfort zones by encouraging them to take risks and giving them the tools and support they need to be successful.  We also need to help them see themselves as success stories waiting to happen. If you can't see yourself succeeding, or if you don't feel like you deserve to win, you proba...