How to Intentionally Create Leaders
“You’re fired!” The Major walked away from the most recent team leader and began looking for the next person to be put in charge. That was the third leader fired for not doing the task appropriately or efficiently enough. “Simmons!” Simmons made his way to the front of the pack.
How Getting Lost Helped Me to be a Better Coach
Teach your students the skill of the interruption. I promise you, when it happens, and you take your attention from that parent and fully give it to the student, you will light up your athlete.
Five Communication Tips for Coaches
These are strategies I have found help get the most out of my young students-athletes. The lesson here is that kids are in school all day and they come to you to play. Don’t lecture from high above. Instead, take your glasses off, find a shady area, take a knee, take a deep breath, and then talk a bit. Then, let them have some fun and play because that is the real reason they are playing sports.
The Secret Ingredient of Youth Sport Success
When the losses start piling up, it is easy to think a new play or formation will solve the problem. We forget that these are kids, playing a game, and if we could just get out of the way and let them play, we would more often see that beautiful moment of a child doing something they love.
Talent Gets You Noticed, Character Gets You Recruited
The recruiter is not there to see you tackle, throw, bump, spike, pitch, catch, hit, shoot, or pass for the thousandth time. He already knows your stats. He has already watched your highlight film and read all the press clippings. He has likely seen you play. What he is looking for are called intangibles, the things that cannot be easily measured, but make all the difference.
First Day of Practice
We get a team break, “Stallions, hu, hu, hu!” I tell them no one can leave until they shake my hand. Every, single, kid, shakes my hand, looks me in the eye, and says, “Thank you, sir.”
How catching a Pokemon can help you win more games.
Today, I caught a Pokémon. On a walk with one of my summer staff, I pulled out my phone and fired up the PokemonGo app. "What are you doing?" asked Will. "Connecting to my students," I answered." An hour later, after I had a 10-year-old explain to me what I just did, I used it as an example of Followership. I now had 15 uninterested 11-year-olds on the edge of their seats because their teacher understood a little about their world.
First Impression as a Coach
Running into a former student or athlete after 10 or so years is always exciting to me. More often than not, after the “bro-hug” or some version of it, they will offer their hand to their former coach, looking forward to that firm handshake they learned all those years ago.
What Are you Reading? My 2016 list
“You are the same today as you’ll be in five years except for two things: the books you read and the people you meet.” - Charlie Tremendous Jones I do not like to read. I find it difficult to quiet my mind long enough to give a page my complete attention. I read slow, and I sometimes have to read a paragraph a few times before I move on. Can you relate?
"The New Coach" - Sweep the Shed (5 of 5)
Your athletes are a reflection of what you teach and what you allow at practice. If you yell at the ref, they will yell at the ref. If you stomp your feet in disgust, they will emulate that behavior when something doesn't go their way. Speak to the ref with respect and with calmness in your voice. Be encouraging and be classy in victory and defeat. Be the coach you would want your child to have or the coach you would want as a child.
Learning Leadership at a Young Age
I learned how to be a leader by being put in a situation at an early age that required decision making and problem solving.
How to Build Confidence as an Athlete
Confidence does not happen without being intentional about your improvement. Use these strategies and other mental toughness tools to build up your confidence to perform at your best ability. Remember the commitment you made at the beginning of this article, "You are not competing with anyone else, ever again. Starting now your primary strategy is to make everyone else around you play at your level. You won’t make excuses; you’ll cause others to make them. You won’t play down to an opponent’s level, it’s up to them to play at yours. You won’t stop until the final whistle blows, you’ll go all out until the time runs out.” Now it’s your turn…GO!
The Difference Between Price and Cost
Working at a school with students from over 80 different countries brings forth interesting questions about language that often have nothing to do with leadership, the subject they are in my class to learn. A tennis player from Belgium was confused on the difference between the words price and cost. I pulled out a calculator.
The Art of the Post Game Conversation
As your athlete gets older, the competition becomes better, and the stakes get higher. Losing means close to nothing to most 5th and 6th graders, but as you move into middle school and high school the losses sting a little more. Some teams/coaches/parents put much more pressure on their athletes to win.
Fear and Faith
Choose faith. Choose to prepare yourself and believe in your training. It has been said many times and I believe it to be true, “Champions do not rise to the level of competition, instead they drop to their level of training.”