A Coach's Diary

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....

What's Your Monster and How Do You Feed It? When you start winning games as a coach, the feeling of success can create a monster where you allow winning to become your benchmark or measurement of success.  Whenever you tie your satisfaction solely to wins and losses, it's dangerous because it's really easy to start basing all of your decisions on how if affects your winning instead of doing what's best for the kids you lead and their overall growth and development as people. It's important for a coach to make sure winning isn't the main measurement for success in your program, and that you have your own definition of success that drives your work everyday.  Below, OU women's head coach Sherri Coale talks about what she uses as her measurement of success. John Wooden has famoulsy coined his own definition of success.  Below are two quotes and a short poem from Coach Wooden: "Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfac...