More than a Title to be Influential
Old wisdom I have found to be true reads, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I knew Mr. Denton cared about us. I don't know how, but I just knew. If you want to be an effective teacher, coach, manager, or parent, you need more than a title to be influential. Whatever role you have in a person’s life, you can only impact a person as far as they let you.
John Wooden on Chasing Your Destiny
John Wooden, legendary former UCLA basketball coach, did a TEDtalk before he passed away about how to find success. Here is a summary of what he said…
A Role for Every Player
This is one way to create team culture. It doesn't happen on accident, but when a coach is intentional about creating a positive environment, great things happen.
It starts with you.
Losing Twice in one Game
You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
3 Reasons to Encourage Playing Multiple Sports
So take it from someone who wants nothing but success for your child – let them play other sports. Let them develop to their full athletic potential and let them experience trying a sport in which they are not a superstar. The lesson they learn from having that experience will benefit them long after they hang up the cleats and tackle being an adult.
Where is the sun?
We should always have high expectations for our athletes, but we should also create an environment that allows for those expectations to be met.
Simple Basketball
If my team without a playbook is confident enough to shoot and I spend time teaching how to aggressively rebound I will beat your team with a playbook.
The Simple Playbook
During warm ups, instead of running a lap or doing sprints, we see how fast we can run from the huddle to the line of scrimmage, run a play for 15 yards, then sprint back to the huddle. They are timed and they want to get faster. We have 8 plays so we do it 8 times. We celebrate shaving seconds off our time. Lining up fast during a game is intimidating to the other team, and parents love it.
If.
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
How to Create the Ultimate Teammate
The subject of "creating culture" has been buzzing as of late so I thought I would share a couple notes on ways I have found to create a fun and successful culture.
Getting the Parents Involved in Practice
Toward the end of every season, I schedule a "kids vs parents" game. A great time to do this is when the team is not doing so well and needs to have some fun, or at the end of the year party. There are many different ways to do this. Here are some tips to make it go smoothly:
Learning about your new team
Those simple, quiet moments you have with an athlete are the moments they will remember for the rest of their lives.
Playing in the Absence of Fear
As a youth coach I believe it is my job to model confident behavior for my athletes and coaches. It starts with intelligent preparation and ends not in winning (though that often is a by-product of great preparation) but in performing at the highest ability in which I am capable.
Dear Coach, I want to quit.
Hello Coach Leath, My dad says I can't quit my team, but I don't want to play football anymore. All I do is sit on the bench during the games. What should I do?
Intentional Growth
Learn the thing, then do the thing. It is not enough to know a thing; you must do the thing you know. Years ago I ran across a book called "How to Read a Book" (1940) by Mortimer J. Adler. If you are like me, you were never really taught how to drink deeply from a good book. I highly recommend it as a place to start on how to read a book. Not all books require the same amount of energy to read, and Adler's book gives you a frame of reference to use when selecting a book to read.
The Difference Between Winning and Losing
“You got it. Winning and losing is not in your control,” I explain. “Instead of concerning yourself with the score, be a competitor. Who is coming in first during the sprints? Beat them. Who stays after practice to catch a few more throws? Catch more. A competitor does not worry about the scoreboard or stats or social media fans. A competitor shows up to be the best they can be and their hunger for improvement is never satiated.
Not everyone gets a trophy
As for you, my fine friend, you are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger, you have no courage.
5 Ways to Increase Coach-to-Athlete Communication
What are some other communication tips I should include next time I write about communicating to athletes?