Everything Matters In Coaching

I was recently speaking at a clinic and had the opportunity to talk about advancing in your career as a coach. It was a great opportunity to share some things that can help young coaches to avoid some common mistakes that can hold them back. We had a great Q and A session, and coaches in attendance told me it was very valuable. I wanted to share three important components to being a better coach.

1. Every Job You Do Matters, Do Them With Great Pride

One of the first duties I had was to line the practice fields.The first time I lined the fields I was miserable. I had a bad attitude and didn't do a great job. I decided not to put hash marks and markings for the numbers. When we went out to practice our receivers didn't know where to line up. The safeties and corners didn't know where to line up. The head coach ripped me in front of the team. After practice he called me into his office and told me that no matter what the job was, do it with pride. He said the reason guys get stuck not advancing often is that they are lazy. He told me if the fields weren't fixed I wouldn't have a job. That was an invaluable lesson to learn as a very young coach.

I had great mentors who taught me that if you want to be given the big jobs you really want, you've got to excel at the jobs you don't want to do. Every time I painted the lines after that I painted them like I was preparing an NFL Field. I learned to be meticulous and make sure the details were taken care of fully.

Every job you get matters. If you are assigned laundry treat it like it is the difference between winning and losing a championship game. And it should be easy, because it just might be the difference. If you are cleaning out the refrigerator in the office, take pride in how clean you get it. Don't do it just to check the box. Clean the refrigerator like it was going to be the difference between getting fired or keeping your job. It matters. I you are inventorying equipment, do it the best it can be done.

If you aren't willing to do the laundry well, you will never be a great OC or DC. If you want to move into a coordinator or head coaching position where you will delegate some of those duties, then you must be good at the duties you will delegate. No one likes doing the laundry and cleaning out the refrigerator, but great coaches take pride in the jobs that no one wants to do.

2. The Weight Room Matters More Than You Could Ever Know

When I first started coaching I didn't love the weight room. It was at the end of a long school day. I was usually mentally and physically tired. David Diaz, one of the best mentors in this business said, "this is the place where our success is built." We will get bigger, faster, and stronger, but most importantly we will get mentally tougher in here. This is where we build our team. This is where we teach our players that details matter. If you don't coach hard in the weight room, you won't be able to coach hard on the field.

The weight room is so much more than just getting bigger, faster, and stronger. It is where team chemistry is built through hard work and accountability. It is where mental toughness is built through accountability. It is where players learn to sweat together in adverse conditions. It is where you get to coach the details to players. You get to have them focus on the little tiny details, which is vital when you get on the field in the fall.

The current head coach I work for, Joe Cluley, takes this a step further. Not only does he want us engaged, but he wants us to bring the juice everyday. When you come in our athletic period it is different. It has a different feel. Every coach greets every kid with enthusiasm as they come in. We all are excited, which in turn increases the excitement of the kids. If we were bored, the kids will be bored as well. We want this to be the most exciting part of their day. The athletic period should not be easy, but it must be electric. We bring the juice from the time the first kid enters our field house until the last kid leaves after practice. The more juice you bring, the more juice the kids will have. Bring the juice every single day. He also holds us accountable to holding our kids accountable.

3. Relationships Matter Most

Relationships are the most important component of what we do as coaches. Winning games is how we get to keep doing what we are doing, and it is important. We have to win to keep our jobs. But the most important thing we do is not win a game.  The biggest ting we do is impact young men through the game of football. We use football as a catalyst to teach accountability, teamwork, trust, and responsibility. We use the game of football to teach young men to put the interests of the team in front of their own self-interests. This all depends on the relationships we build with the men we coach.

The relationships start and end with unconditional love. We love our players as much on their worst day as we do on their best day. It is important as coaches that we never give up on a young man. We must see in them what they do not see in themselves. We must believe in them and find the greatness they have inside. We must take time to get to know them off the field. We are blessed to be in a situation where many of our kids need rides to and from football actives. This gives us a great opportunity to spend time with them talking about life, their goals, their dreams, and their fears. 

Another great relationship builder is having your position group to your house for a cookout. We do this a couple of times a year to spend time with your guys away from football. It also lets them get to know our families. It allows your players to see you away from the game. It is a vital component to building relationships.

To make this work, you must care about your players as people. If you only care what they can do in a jersey you aren't a coach. At that point you are just a spectator. I don't care how much you can draw on a board. If you don't truly care about your players you need to do something else. 

What you have to understand is that the relationship in itself is not the impact. The relationship is what allows us to make an impact. Through the relationship we earn trust, and that allows us to hold athletes accountable. Many people struggle with holding players accountable, but accountability is a key to making an impact. When you hold players accountable to meeting the standards of performance, you are setting them up for success later in life. If you don't hold kids accountable, you are setting them up for failure.

Winning games matters, but making an impact on your players matters more. But here is the deal, if you make an impact on your players, you will win more games. You will have a stronger team bond. If you impact your players, they will impact each other. 

If you want to move up in coaching, you have to be willing to do the jobs know one wants to do and do them well. You have to be a great teacher and coach in the weight room. And most importantly, you have to unconditionally love your players. You have to build strong relationships that will impact your players in the future.

 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

Game and Practice Planning Preparation Resources

As you prepare for the 2019 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.

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/

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! 

I hope you found something in this post you can use with your program! Good luck this season! 

Winning is a Process

A little over 18 years ago I had completed my first season as an offensive coordinator. We had just had our first playoff birth in school history. We improved tremendously in every offensive category. We averaged nearly 280 yards a game on the ground and another 140 through the air. We improved our points per game from 22 to 38. However, we struggled against quality opponents. We were blanked in the playoffs by the number one team in the state.

While we made great strides that season, we weren't there to be simply be competitive. We wanted to win. Many said we didn't have the athletes to compete. While this may have been true, we weren't going to use that as crutch. Our focus was on how we can make the most out of the talent we have. While searching for answers I had the opportunity to hear Nick Saban speak at a clinic. His clinic talk opened our eyes to what we were missing. We lacked a deliberate process on offense. We were not doing a good job of preparation. Don't get me wrong, we worked hard an put the time in. But at the end of the day, we were not very consistent when we played top-tier teams.

We realized we were basically shooting from the hip. We didn't have a specific plan. We were doing things as they came up, and realizing after the fact that we weren't prepared for certain situations. We had the, "I wish we covered that," moments. Also, we were focused on the big picture and not on the details. You see, if you focus on the seemingly insignificant details, you will give yourself a better chance to win regardless of talent. Our focus changed from solely being on the scoreboard, to the process. Our focus was not as much on our opponents as on ourselves. How could we maximize our talent? This was the question we asked each day. We needed to put a structure, or process in place for winning.

A process is often thought of as something mysterious. A process is simply a series of actions or steps taken deliberately in order to achieve a particular end. Whether you are coaching on the field, teaching in the classroom, or selling in the board room, you need to have a detailed process. You need to have a structure in place to get from point a to point b to point c.

Winning is more than simply an outcome. Winning is the result of following a detailed process the must be followed with grueling details. When I say this to some coaches they give me a blank stare. They think winning is simply the result of your players being better than your opponents. While good players are important, without a process in place to develop them into the BEST players they can be, they will be nothing more than talented players who lose games.

Recently Ron Roberts, head coach at Southeastern Louisiana, was interviewed for an article for X's and O's Labs. In the article Coach Roberts talked about how there are a lot of teams with good players that don't win consistently. We all have seen those teams. They are loaded with talent but lose football games. Why does this happen? How can teams loaded with talent lose football games? Often it is because there is no plan in place for them to become successful. With no plan in place, these teams lack discipline. They make silly mistakes at inopportune times. Their players will attack the wrong gap. And when things go bad, they will fold up like a tent.

On the other side of this coin you have teams that consistently win, year-in and year-out. Often they do so with less talent. When coaches see these teams get off the bus they ask, "how are these guys 11-1?" We have all seen these teams. They consistently beat teams with superior talent. How does this happen? The answer is simple, they have a process to prepare to be their best.

If you look at at the most consistent programs at every level of football, you will find they share something in common. They all have a detailed process to develop their players. They have a vision and they can articulate that vision to everyone in the organization. They are passionate and enthusiastic about the vision. Enthusiasm is very contagious. When people are enthusiastic, others want to be a part of the excitement.

A big part of the process is building relationships with players. Great coaches about developing their student-athletes on and off the field. Because they care about their players, they are willing to set high standards for them on and off the field. They then hold them accountable to the standards. You see, great coaches understand the correlation between character off the field and winning on the field. If you allow your players to be undisciplined off the field, it will result in mistakes on the field. One coach once told me, "never let discipline get in the way of winning." What he meant was, let your best players do whatever they want. This is precisely the reason some talented teams do not consistently win. If your best athletes are above the law, you will lose the rest of the team. What this coach should have said was, "don't let a lack of discipline get in the way of winning." When players are not held accountable for their actions, they are not going to help your team be successful. They are going to fold up the tent when things get tough. If you hold them accountable early, you will not have big problems later.

The third factor great coaches understand is that our job is to push our players to reach heights they never thought possible. This requires two things. First, setting a very high standard of performance. Second, it requires holding players accountable to this standard without exception. That is the part that gets many coaches. It's the without exception part. You see, that is what great coaches do. They are able to maximize the talent of their players. This does not happen by accident. This happens because they have a detailed process for helping their players reach new heights.

Where does this process start? 

First, you have to begin with a goal. As Stephen Covey says, "begin with the end in mind." Where do you want to go? What is your desired outcome? Once you know what you want your outcome to be, you need to develop a plan to reach your goal. A goal without a plan is just a dream. It isn't going to happen.

From there we build our process. We are going to start with a road map to our ultimate goal. We are going to break the year down into 5 parts: Post-Season Evaluations, Winter Strength and Conditioning, Spring Football, Summer Strength and Conditioning, and Fall Camp. We want to map the year during the Post-Season Evaluation period. We will adjust the calendar as the year goes. To build the calendar we make a list of all of the most important priorities for each aspect of our program.

One example of this was on offense. We made a list of everything we wanted to install in the spring. From there, we broke down the list even further by priority. What was most important? What did we need to make sure we installed? What situations did we need to work? From here we built our install schedule, coordinating with the defensive staff. Once we had our install schedule built we would begin to script practice. This was done well in advance of spring football. It allowed us to tweak and adjust as needed. Everything we did was with specific intent. We didn't want to do anything that didn't directly help us to reach our end goal.

Why would we complete our spring football schedule three months in advance? When you are writing your practice schedule as you go, you are less able to make adjustments. I found we were much more efficient when we were better prepared. Each of our coaches were able to then build a drill menu based on the concepts we were teaching and the skills we needed to improve. We had three months to make adjustments and tweak our practice schedule. It is much easier to deal with adversity when we already had a plan in place.

As we went through spring practice we were able to make any daily changes or adjustments necessary. If we felt like we needed to review something we would make the change. We used this same principle for developing our process to help build strength and athleticism in our players. For example, we felt our players lacked in hip flexibility. We did some research and adjusted our strength and conditioning program to meet this need. We were able to build what we called a "pre-phase" into our training. This pre-phase focused on developing hip flexibility and our strength in the core. Again, we built our schedule in advance and spent six weeks on our pre-phase. We focused on the details that we previously overlooked. The results were noticeable and measurable.

We found the more we planned in advance, the better we were able to shift on the fly when we needed. In each area of our program we took the same approach. What do we want to achieve? What is most important? Where do we want to go? Once we have priorities and goals established, we would build our series of steps (process) to accomplish our goals.

Having a specific, detailed process allows you to be more prepared. Your players will be more consistent in their performance, which will translate into success on and off the field. If you don't have a process and structure in place, you are not going to be as well prepared. You are not going to have everyone rowing the boat in the same direction. However, if you take the time to prepare, and you focus on seemingly insignificant details, you will maximize your success. After all, if you focus on what you don't have you will never be successful. If you focus on maximizing the talent you do have, and you have a structure and a process, you will always get the most out of your kids.

What did it do for us? We took a school that had never been to the playoffs, and in fact, had never had a winning season, and advanced to the quarterfinals four times in six years. We were able to improve each year continually increasing our offensive production. We were very consistent year in and year out, regardless of our talent level.

A few months back I published a couple of iBooks that can help your program with X's and O's. The first is on Installing RPO's into any offense. Here is a link to the iBooks version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959. The ibooks version includes explanations, diagrams, and video clips on multiple RPO Concepts. It will give you a simple process for implementing them into your offense. 

If you don't have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can order the Amazon version for the Kindle. It has everything except the embedded video. You can order it here: http://www.amazon.com/Installing-Explosive-Concepts-Into-Offense-ebook/dp/B01B12YSCG/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I also wrote a book on Tempo. It will greatly help you build a multiple tempo system with simple communication that will allow your kids to play with confidence. It also had over an hour of video clips! You can order the ibooks version here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1075902270.

Order the Amazon Kindle version here:

http://www.amazon.com/Using-Multiple-Tempos-Create-Explosive-ebook/dp/B01ATOL46A/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Outwork Your Talent

Imagine the possibilities. Imagine breaking through barriers and reaching heights you never thought you could reach... The greatest limitations we face are those we place on ourselves. Sometimes we do this consciously, sometimes we do this subconsciously. We allow ourselves to draw a line in the sand that we will not cross. We tell ourselves this is as far as I can go, so I will limit myself to this point. We draw this line subconsciously  through a sense of entitlement. We think we have arrived so we become stagnant or lazy. We are not willing to work for what we want... We may have all the desires in the world, but when our effort doesn't match our desire, we will certainly fail.

I recently ran into a friend of mine in the coaching world at the Austin Airport. I asked him about a quarterback he had that I recruited back in 2007. This kid had all the tools you could want. He was 6-3, 230 pounds, ran a consistent 4.65 40, and could throw a ball 60 yards. At worst he was going to make a great tight end or defensive end. His coach warned me the kid did not have a great work ethic. The kid was late for practice at least once a week and did not come to workouts in the summer. We decided to pass on recruiting him.

Fast forward six years to the Austin Airport. I asked coach where this young man ended up. The grocery store. Huh? The grocery store where he stocks shelves at night. Despite having all the talent to be a BCS football player, this kid's attitude and work ethic got in the way of his success. When he got to high school he was better than everyone else. Because of this, he thought he didn't have to work hard. His coaches thought they had a kid who would be a big-time football player who would lead them to a state championship. What they actually had was a young man who would lead his team to a 4-5 season as a senior. This sure fire prospect had turned into a suspect by his senior year. He went to a small NAIA school where he lasted three weeks. His attitude had not improved, and the coaching staff had seen enough. This is a kid who said he wanted to play in the NFL, but his work ethic and attitude did not match his desire.

"If your work ethic and attitude do not match your goals, you will find disappointment." 

This happens all too often in the world of athletics. Every coach at all levels has stories about kids that wasted their talent. Instead of working hard to develop their talent, they think they can get by on their talent. They think because they are a better athlete that they can be lazy and just get by. This works for a while... until the pond starts getting bigger. At some point your poor attitude and lack of work ethic will catch up to you. 

The goal of every athlete should be to outwork your talent. In fact, that should be the goal of everyone, regardless of the endeavor. Work ethic and attitude are choices. They are not given to you by someone else. They are not willed to you or passed along genetically. You have complete control over your attitude and work ethic. You can control whether you get the most out of your talent. If you fight to outwork your talent every single day, you will be the best that you are capable of being. And that will translate into success.

On the other side of the coin are the kids who have less talent, but they outwork their talent every single day. You have guys that work so hard that they improve and pass by more talented athletes. We all have numerous stories about these guys. They are the guys that are going to reach pinnacles in life because they know how to overcome obstacles. They are never satisfied where they are and they keep pushing themselves.

The final group is the group that is, unfortunately, very rare. This is the group of very talented athletes who have a great work ethic. These are guys everyone else feeds off of. They are the special players that make everyone else around them better. They are the guys that play a big part in the success of a program. These guys are game changers on the field and in the locker room. They are guys that never miss a workout. They are guys that never skip a rep. They are guys that are going to do more than what is expected. These guys embrace the grind of being the best. These are the players that get a chance to play on Sundays. 

This is what we as coaches are working to do each day. We are finding ways to inspire you to do more than you think you can. We are trying to get you out of your comfort zone so you can stretch yourself to reach new heights. We are creating adverse situations where you learn to overcome obstacles and deal with pain. We are trying to get you to realize that your talent doesn't matter if you aren't willing to be responsible to your teammates.

"Great Players Are Comfortable Being Uncomfortable"

Here are six specific things you can do to outwork your talent. 

1. Be There

2. Be On-Time

3. Do every rep with a great attitude

4. Embrace adversity

5. Help Your Teammates Be the Best They Can Be

6. Care About Your Teammates

1. You have to be there to be successful. While just showing up will not make you successful, not showing up will guarantee failure.

2. It takes zero talent to be on-time. Being on time is about self-discipline. It is about showing others you respect and value them. On a team it means you understand your are responsible to others and they can depend on you.

3. This is the toughest part for most young people. They get tired and they decide to cut one or two reps. Everyone gets tired. Mediocre people justify not completing the workout. Great players understand that growth takes place when you face stress and pressure. This is where mental toughness comes in. When you are fatigued and you have one more set, are you going to make a CHOICE to do every rep? Are you going to CHOOSE to do an extra rep? Are you going to CHOOSE to finish the drill?  

Champions are not made on Friday Nights. Champions are made in January, February and March. Champions are made in June and July. There is something very powerful about pushing through and completing a drill when you are exhausted. There is something very powerful of knowing your teammate is willing to do that for you. This is how you build confidence. You build confidence when you overcome obstacles that you didn't think you could overcome. 

4. Everyone does well when things are easy. How do you handle things when they aren't going your way? How do you handle your coach telling you we have five more sets? How do you handle your coach calling you out because you aren't putting forth your best effort? How do you handle your coach or teammate telling you your not getting deep enough on squat? Do you choose to improve or do you choose to give up?

5. Great players are willing to do whatever it takes to make those around them better. This is what separates good players from great players. Good players make themselves better. Great players intentionally make those around them better. You will never reach your full potential until you help your teammates reach theirs.

6. It is much easier to overcome adversity when you have a group of people with a common goal. You need to encourage your teammates to work hard and that you have their back. You will not let them fail. This is where great teams are made. They are made because guys cared about their teammate more than they cared about themselves.

Every single day you have to be willing to put forth the attitude, effort, and enthusiasm to reach your goals. You have to be willing to work harder to do more than what your talent says you can do. If you outwork your talent, you will break through barriers to reach new heights. At the end of the day, you will know you reached your full capabilities.

Shameless Plug...

 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

In January of 2016 I published a couple of iBooks that can help your program with X's and O's. The first is on Installing RPO's into any offense. Here is a link to the iBooks version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959. The ibooks version includes explanations, diagrams, and video clips on multiple RPO Concepts. It will give you a simple process for implementing them into your offense.

If you don't have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can order the Amazon version for the Kindle. It has everything except the embedded video. You can order it here: http://www.amazon.com/Installing-Explosive-Concepts-Into-Offense-ebook/dp/B01B12YSCG/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I also wrote a book on Tempo. It will greatly help you build a multiple tempo system with simple communication that will allow your kids to play with confidence. It also had over an hour of video clips! You can order the ibooks version here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1075902270.

Order the Amazon Kindle version here:

http://www.amazon.com/Using-Multiple-Tempos-Create-Explosive-ebook/dp/B01ATOL46A/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

One of the keys to our success was tremendous preparation!The key to  preparation was our outstanding group of documents we used for all three phases. If you are looking for fully editable and customizable documents that you can tailor to your program, I have made mine available. 

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 for under $15 and download them tonight!

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/

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/