1. Talent
2. Championship Mentality
3. Unconditional Love
Talent
Everyone agrees that talent is key to winning a championship. But talent is just a starting point. Talent is important, but what is more important is maximizing the talent you have. If you have a group of talented athletes but you don't develop them mentally and physically, you will underachieve. Too many coaches blame a lack of success on not having enough talent, and too many coaches who have a lot of talent don't work to develop that talent to the play at elite levels.
The one key factor, regardless of the talent on your roster, is to coach players to be their best. Are you coaching to the level of the talent on your roster, or are you coaching to make the most out of the talent on your roster? Our job as coaches is to make the very best out of what we have.
The weight room is a great equalizer. A great strength, speed, and conditioning program can help to develop the players you have. There is no substitute for strength, and no excuse for a lack of it.
Building a program goes far beyond talent.
Building a program goes far beyond talent.
Championship Mentality
A championship mentality does not just happen. It is something that must be developed on a daily basis. Everything you do either builds a championship mentality, or destroys a championship mentality. Building this mentality is a process, and it is a process that takes time. There is no such thing as waking up one day and all of a sudden you are mentally tough and focused.
The process starts with your expectations. Your expectations will give you a focal point for your standards. Bill Walsh said you have to act like a champion before you can be a champion. Your standards then drive your accountability. This is simply what you will allow and what you won't allow. What you permit is what you promote. If you permit people to be late, you are promoting lateness. If you allow people to loaf in practice, you are giving everyone permission to loaf.
When you hold people accountable to your standards and meeting high expectations, you are setting them up for success. When you allow them to perform below your standards you are setting them up for failure. Here is the key: you do not know when success will show on the scoreboard. But building success in the details of your process will lead to success on the scoreboard.
Accountability is something you must constantly be striving for. Accountability is not easy, because it requires difficult conversations. No one wants to hear that they are not doing something right or doing something well. No one wants to face consequences. But it is through these difficult conversations and consequences that success is developed.
The first thing you must do is define what you want your mentality to look like. Then you must train your people on how to live with that mentality. Our definition for mental toughness is simple.
Sometimes a kid has to fail to learn a lesson. Sometimes they have to face a consequence that is painful. David Diaz, who I worked for at Columbus High School, was a master at accountability. It didn't matter if you were the running back with 30 offers, or you were the 3rd string guard who rarely played. You were going to be held accountable. Every single guy was held to a high standard, and there is a reason so many guys who played for him went on to be successful.
Preparation Resources
As you prepare for the upcoming season, I wanted to make available our game planning resources for you! These helped us to have one of the most explosive offenses at every level I have coached. Coaches from some of the top high school programs in the country use these documents to prepare. Coaches at more than a dozen BCS programs have also downloaded these documents to help them in their preparation.
I hope you found something in this post you can use with your program! Good luck with your program.
The first thing you must do is define what you want your mentality to look like. Then you must train your people on how to live with that mentality. Our definition for mental toughness is simple.
Mental toughness is the ability to face adversity and failure with a positive attitude, and without a loss of enthusiasm, effort, and faith in the process.
You must teach mental toughness as part of your championship mentality. When things get difficult, you have a choice. You can blame, complain, and make excuses. Or you can stick to the process and fight for a solution. It is very easy to blame others. It is very easy to complain about how things aren't fair. It is easy to make excuses about why you aren't performing. Those are things that mediocre people are very good at. Mediocre teams are some of the best at justifying why they are mediocre.
Championship teams and organizations are willing to persevere through adversity. When things are not going their way they focus on doing things right. They don't blame others. They don't make excuses. They simply get better. A few years back we had a corner who was matched up with a big time receiver. The receiver ran by him on a vertical. Our corner came to the sideline and didn't make excuses. His position coach told him he was so worried about getting beat that he didn't move his feet. He walked through his speed turn on the sideline. The next possession the receiver tried to run by him, but the corner did the little things right with his feet, played the ball, and knocked the pass away. He found a way.
You can't wait to teach championship mentality during the season. You have to build your mentality from January through July. Every single day you are either building a championship mentality, or you're not. The weight room allows you to instill high standards, and hold athletes to those standards. Your speed and conditioning program allow you to push your athletes beyond what they think they can do.
A championship mentality doesn't guarantee you will win a championship, but it gives you an opportunity to play at the highest level possible.
Unconditional Love
Unconditional love is what bonds everything and everyone together. Many young people today never experience unconditional love. They don’t know how it feels to have someone love them without conditions. Unconditional love means we love you as much on your worst day as we do on your best day. We don’t love you because you are a good player, and don’t stop loving you when you get in trouble.
It is important to understand that unconditional love means we are going to hold you accountable. Because we love you we are going to make sure you are accountable to meeting our standard. This is where a lot of coaches fail. They don’t hold players accountable for not meeting the standard. Or, you won’t hold them fully accountable. This often happens with really good players, and I would guess we have all been there. We have to hold them accountable if we are going to be our best as a team, and if we truly care about the player. It hurts to hold someone accountable, I get it. But it hurts the kid more when we enable them.
Taking this a step further, everything you do as a coach is going to impact your athletes far beyond the football field. What skills are you giving them that will help them be more successful in life? Are you teaching them values they can use to be better leaders? Are you teaching them about accountability? Are you teaching them how to persevere? Regardless of your record on the field, the impact you make on their lives off the field is what will be lasting. No one can remember who won the third game of the season three years ago. But everyone will remember the impact you had on their lives as their coach.
Never sacrifice winning for making a positive impact. If you win games but enable kids, you did not do your job as a coach. If you won’t hold your best players accountable, you will do two things. First, you will make the kid think the rules don’t apply to him, and second, you will begin to erode your culture.
Sometimes a kid has to fail to learn a lesson. Sometimes they have to face a consequence that is painful. David Diaz, who I worked for at Columbus High School, was a master at accountability. It didn't matter if you were the running back with 30 offers, or you were the 3rd string guard who rarely played. You were going to be held accountable. Every single guy was held to a high standard, and there is a reason so many guys who played for him went on to be successful.
Does talent matter? We all know it does. But there are plenty of talented teams that don't do very well, and many less talented teams that exceed expectations. You can't always control the level of talent you have in your program. But you can control your development of that talent. You can control how you develop the mentality of your team. You can control the love you have for your players, and the love they have for each other.
I would challenge every single coach reading this to coach to make an impact. People always ask how the team is going to be. My good friend, Blake Sandford, used to say, "I will let you know in 20 years." The hard work we put in with our players will show when they are grown men and face adversity. Did we give them the tools they need to be great fathers and husbands? Did we set high standards and hold them accountable? Did we get them to see the greatness they have inside? Were we able to help them bring that greatness out?
Don't measure yourself as a coach solely by the scoreboard. Your value as a coach goes far beyond what you teach on the field. No player will thank you in 10 years for teaching them how to double team block, or to run a slant route. They will, however, remember the lessons you taught and the values you helped to instill in them.
Preparation Resources
Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/
It includes everything from a scouting report template, to practice plans, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today and start preparing for your first game right now!
Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/ These are what we used to post 6 shutouts when I was a defensive coordinator.
And finally, I put together a special teams resource. This has everything you need, included drill tape, practice tape, and game footage. It includes teaching presentations and scouting forms just for special teams! https://sellfy.com/p/tJwz/
Last year I got hooked up with CoachTube, and put together three courses for offensive football coaches. I put together two courses on RPO's, and a course on Building An Elite System of Communication. All of these courses will help you to score more points!
https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint
All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points.
The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season.
My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts.
https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint
If you want to learn more about installing RPO's, I wrote a book called Installing Explosive RPO Concepts Into Any Offense. I wrote it for iBooks, which includes cut-ups to reinforce the application of these concepts. In the book I give you a systematic process for installing 2nd and 3rd level RPO's. Coaches at all level of football tell me this is a game changer! The book can be found for iBooks here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959
The iBooks version can be viewed on any iPhone, Mac, or iPad. It is a game changer in book technology! This book will give you everything you need to build RPO's into your offense!
If you don't have an apple device, you can order the paperback version! It is available on Amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520447485
Follow me @coachvint on Twitter!
If you don't have an apple device, you can order the paperback version! It is available on Amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520447485
Over the last several months, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote a new book about faith and purpose. The book is available as a paperback on Amazon, and as an eBook for the Kindle App. The cool thing about the Kindle app is that you can read the book on any device. I invite you to read it, and discover the power you receive when you make a decision to walk with the Lord. Here is a link to the book: Finding Faith
Since publishing the book, I have received numerous texts, calls, and emails, from people who are going through similar trials and tribulations. They were feeling many of the same things I was feeling. The found comfort in the book. They also found they had a desire to change and to live better. They wanted more joy.
Follow me @coachvint on Twitter!
I hope you found something in this post you can use with your program! Good luck with your program.
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