Friday, July 24, 2009

PHILOSOPHY: PART 7

Part 7 may be the most important principle of my philosophy. Support and believe in your teammates.

We believe in and support our teammates unconditionally.
As a member of our team you are accepted with all your strengths and weaknesses. We understand that you'll have great performances and others that are less than perfect but you'll always be supported by your teammates.

We talk positively about our teammates
We defend them whenever needed.
We celebrate with them when they succeed.
We pick them up when they fail and remind them of our support for them and that we believe they'll improve.
No player is alone in success or failure.

Monday, July 20, 2009

PHILOSOPHY: PART 6

The next bullet in my philosophy is about keeping a positive turnover ratio.

Turnovers are the biggest factor that can swing a game. That's not to say that if you recover a ball you can rest easy but the numbers are in your favor if you stay in a positive ratio. We want to have a plan to stay on the winning side of the turnover battle.

Turnovers are going to happen. If you play enough games the law of averages says someone's going to fumble and interceptions will be thrown. We want to make the other team pay for turning the ball over and we want to do everything we can to avoid turning the ball over ourselves.

Statistics show that if we can keep a positive turnover ratio when we'll be scoring more than the other team and that means we'll be more successful.

Monday, July 13, 2009

PHILOSOPHY: PART 5

The 5th part of my philosophy is to execute with exactness, confidence, and passion.

If there's one thing that I believe will make an immediate difference in our competitiveness, this may be it. This is the indicator we can use to see if everything else is working. The unspoken theme behind this point is effort. It takes hard work to learn how to play football correctly.

It's not enough to just be at practice. It's not enough to play in the games. It's not enough to participate in the season. You have to make a difference. You have to be the kind of athlete that inspires others. You can do that no matter your physical talent or mental ability. Everyone respects hard work and passion.

I can always find a place for an athlete that wants to win really, really bad because that athlete will do what it takes. We have some great examples of this on our team right now.

I'm committed to helping our athletes learn how to enjoy playing the game so they will look forward to every practice and give great effort on every play of every game during every season.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

PHILOSOPHY: PART 4

The fourth bullet in my philosophy is: “We will fear nothing.”

All of these points are important but this one may be my favorite. I think facing your fear is critical in becoming a well balanced human being. When I describe fear I’m talking about the paralytic, crippling effect of self-doubt.

One of my favorite analogies that describe fear is walking on the plank. If I put a plank on the ground and ask you to walk across it you’d do it with no problem. You might run. You could probably even skip. If I place that same plank 20 feet off the ground there are very few people that will choose to cross it. What’s changed?

You’ll notice that the task is the same. Cross the plank. The result of missing the board is still the same. You will fall off. The risk has increased! You may die if you fail!

The brain is an amazing tool! It can’t tell the difference between imagination and the real thing. So, when you start imagining yourself falling, when you introduce doubt of your ability to cross the plank, your brain does a miraculous thing. It acts to preserve itself and introduces a built in protective mechanism and shuts down. Your body will literally freeze because your brain will stop your muscles from moving. In sports psychology the term is “choking”.

My goal as a coach is to teach our athletes to deal with self-doubt and as a result become their own master. This blog post isn’t long enough to give a lot of details on how we plan on doing that but here’s some important points in overcoming fear.

1. Imagine yourself being successful.
Watch others be successful and then mimic them. Don’t ever imagine failure.

2. Practice being successful.
This is critical. Confidence comes from success. Whatever you’re doing, do it right and do it right as many times as you can.

3. Keep the results of success and failure in perspective.
Don’t wrap your self-worth around your success. Winning is important but it’s not the end. Football tests you. Be happy to be tested, not afraid of it.

4. Remember, your coaches and teammates are there to support you.
We believe in you and will be there whether you succeed or fail. If you succeed we’ll celebrate with you. If you fail, we’ll all be disappointed together and then we’ll come back the next day and work to make you successful.

“We will fear nothing” is a tall order but something that is critical to becoming a championship football team.

Monday, July 6, 2009

PHILOSOPHY: PART 3

The third part of my philosophy is to respect your opponent.

My definition of respect is built around honoring the game. I believe honoring the game brings out the best in the athletes. I’ve included some of the major teaching points we use when we talk about respecting our opponents.

1. We will always respect those who play the game of football because it takes courage, hard work and determination to compete in a sport like this.
2. Our opponents are a reflection of our skill level. A good opponent brings out the best in us. We respect the synergy that happens when two great teams play.
3. Recognizing 0ur opponent’s strengths makes us stronger. We’ll train harder. We’ll be prepared tactically and emotionally to deal with their successes.
4. Respect is a sign of our confidence in our abilities.

There’s no place for anger or hatred on the field. We want to teach our athletes to execute with power but that execution can’t be motivated by anything other than a desire to perform at our highest level.