A Coach's Diary

Here is a really cool article on the Mindfulness Movement that is starting to spread into sports.   Financial businessman Russ Rausch was looking for more meaning in life, despite his business and financial success, and discovered the power of mindfulness through reading and studying The Master Key System by Charles F. Hannel. He then went on to create Vision Pursue, a company focused on improving the way that people experience life by improving their mindset. He worked with now Dartmouth assistant athletic director Ian Cannole and former NFL player Jon McGraw to create the business and an app to help athletes improve their mindset through mindfulness and meditation. One of the pillars of this training gets at the reason Rausch started Vision Pursue in the first place. Most people, Rausch explains, don’t abide by an “expanding A” view of the world, meaning they derive their sense of self-worth from their accomplishments, leading to an existence in which they can never trul...

Care. Care. Care. The number 1 character trait necessary for an athlete to add value to his or her team is to care. To care about doing your best. To care about helping your teammates be their best. To care about helping your team be its best. The worst thing a player can do in a team sport is to not care. To not care enough to be their best. To not care enough to help their teammates be their best. To not care enough to help the team be its best. When you care, you grow, improve and you get better. When you don’t care, you don’t grow and you bring down the team as well. If you don’t care, don’t play. Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your teammate’s time, and don’t waste your coach’s time. Find another team, another coach, or something that you do care about and invest your time and energy into that. If you do care, work hard everyday to be a better player and a better teammate.

The article below comes from Mike Greenberg's podcast,  I'm Interested,  in which he interviews Shake Shack founder and restaurateur Danny Meyer. Failure is a part of success.  There is no better way to learn and grow than by trial and error.  Don’t be afraid to try.  Don’t be afraid to fail.  Don’t be afraid to strikeout, or miss the shot, or get knocked off the ball.  Each time you fail is another opportunity for you learn how to do better. When you fail, be humbled – not stubborn – and be willing to listen and learn.  Failing, listening and learning is how you grow and get better.  Sticking with it and being persistent and having grit is how you become the best. Learn how to ride out the storms and you will get there, as an athlete, as a coach, as a parent, and as a person.   This goes for the coaches you play for or the employees that you hire, or the players that you coach.  Patience and loyalty is i...

The article below comes from Mike Greenberg's podcast, I'm Interested, in which he interviews Shake Shack founder and restaurateur Danny Meyer. When you talk about what you look for in a great teammate, coach, teacher or employee, 51% is based on who you are as a person, and 49% is based how good you are at what you do. If you do everything right as a coach - great Xs and Os, timely timeouts, good scouting reports and sub rotations, etc, then you can only get a 49 on the test. If you are a great player, can shoot, pass dribble and defend, then you can only get a 49 on the test. Who you are when you aren’t on the field is just as important as your ability and make up the other 51%.  We can easily see and measure stats, but who are you in the dugout?  What are you doing to raise the performance of everyone else on the team?  What are you doing to make this team the type of team that the best players would want to work at?  That is just as imp...

Know, accept and master your role.  That is the mark of a good teammate in any sport and in any field.  We all have been given certain gifts, and when we use those gifts, no matter how big or small, popular or unseen, we make the team better. -  If you are a shooter - shoot with confidence. -  If you are a defender - defend with heart and toughness. -  If you bring energy off the bench, cheer loud and proud for your teammates. The best teams have the best teammates - teammates who know, believe in, accept, and master their roles. "Being a teammate means you only have one agenda: the team.  There can be no personal agendas on a championship team.  A teammate is someone who is over themself and into the team.  Being a teammate is immersing ourselves into doing everything we can to help the team and our teammates succeed. "Know and understand your role.  In order for the team to win, it has to use the strengths that it has in ...

College scholarships – and success in general in sports – can’t be the parent’s dream.  It HAS to be the kid’s dream. And the level of success or the level of college or professional that they are working for has to be the kid’s dream too. You can’t give a kid D1 dreams if they don’t have D1 talent, or D1 size, or D1 athleticism, or D1 work ethic or desire. They have to grind their own grind and dream their own dreams. Now, what we can do is instill in them the kind of character and the character traits that lead to success in any and all ventures in life.  The characteristics or hard work, persistence, grit, being humble, being a great teammate, toughness, finding their passion, putting in extra work to achieve goals, goal setting, etc, work for sports and they work for life. Instead of dreaming for your kid through sports, teach them through sports.  Teach them how to be a better person by teaching them the characteristics that it takes to ...

While they often get a bad 'rep,' and rightfully so, good trainers do a good job of pushing kids to work harder - often times more so than their school coach.  In talking with one trainer, he told me that us coaches just have to make sure that the kids know how much we believe in them and then they will give us all that they have. Kids have enough anxiety and pressure when it comes to performing in sports, and we coaches can sometimes add to that because we criticize - or coach - our kids, which includes correcting their mistakes.  If we spend more time on correcting than we do praising, it can be easy to see how kids might start to doubt themselves and our belief in their abilities. While corrective criticism, direction and honestly is absolutely necessary for growth in anything, and especially in sports, we have to make sure to couple that criticism with positive affirmation.  We have to make sure that our kids KNOW that we believe in their ability to succeed...