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...