Month: July 2017

July 28, 2017

Quit Worrying About You As A Coach & Start Focusing On Your Captains ?? Captains Part 2 of 4

The secret to winning is not what you think it is.
It’s not the coach. It’s not the star.
It’s not money. It’s not a strategy.
It’s something else entirely. – Sam Walker – The Captain Class

I just finished reading Sam Walker’s The Captain Class. He studied the most successful professional sports dynasties over the past 150 years and looked for common traits those teams had.

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If you’re like me, you assumed it would be one of these:

A legendary coach
A superior organization structure
A G.O.A.T. player

Spoiler alert – the common trait he found on the 16 teams he deemed as the ‘tier 1’ dynasties was none of these. Instead, it was a captain that possessed the following 7 characteristics:

Doggedness and its ancillary benefits
Playing to the edge of the rules
The hidden art of leading from the back
Practical communication
The power of nonverbal displays
The courage to stand apart
Regulating emotion

What is fascinating about his list is the contrast in what we currently think of as the best leaders/captains. Michael Jordan’s and Derek Jeter’s teams did not make the cut.

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The leaders of his 16 tier 1 teams were not interested in talking to the media or being great public communicators, in fact they were the opposite. They did not want the recognition of being the face of the franchise.

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As a Cavs fan I have constantly wondered about Lebron James’ self-declarations as being ‘the greatest player on the planet,’ and how that affects his relationships with his teammates. We’ve seen one answer to that recently with one of the other best players on the planet, his teammate Kyrie Irving, asking to be traded, citing not wanting to play with Lebron.

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Lebron’s characteristics, similar to Michael Jordan’s, do not fall in line with this list the best dynasties possess. It doesn’t mean they won’t win, Jordan and James have multiple championships. Walker argues that it just means their non-team-first attitudes make it hard to have sustained success.

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The biggest takeaway I had from this fascinating book was:

As a coach, I need to spend less time trying to become ‘the perfect coach,’ and much more time trying to develop my leaders and captains with the 7 characteristics on this list.

July 26, 2017

WYC 124 – College track athletes – Dr. Charles Infurna talks the Mundanity of Excellence

Dr. Charles Infurna has 10 years of coaching experience at the Division III level, he has had the great pleasure and privilege to have coached and mentored two Division III National Champion Weight Throwers, 10 All-Americans, multiple ECAC champions, and numerous SUNYAC and Empire 8 Conference Champions in the Hammer, Weight Throw, Discus, and Shot-Put. He writes a blog at forzathletics.com Before completing his dissertation he wrote a lot about programming, workouts, overviews of meets, and even included some vlogs. Since finishing his doctorate, he has focused more on how environment and support systems play roles in athlete successes.

Website and blog: forzathletics.com

Podcast: soundcloud.com/charles-infurna

Twitter: @CharlesInfurna; @forzathletics

Facebook: /forzathletics/

Thank you to our sponsors! – Lead ‘Em Up – Save 10% using discount code ‘wyccoaches’ at leademup.com

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Quote

‘You never know who is going to walk through the door’

First role model

Charles’ first coaching opportunity was when he was 22 years old. He didn’t really know what to do – so he reached out to a head coach at a local university (who happened to be a 4x Olympian) and asked if he could come watch a practice and hang out with his coaching staff for a day, which the coach willingly did

Cringe Moment

The players Charles was coaching talked to him and addressed concerns that he didn’t seem like he was as engaged – a very healthy sign that the players were comfortable enough to be honest with him

Teaching skills

Start with the basics like body awareness.
Don’t try to fix everything at once. Focus on one thing at a time. It’s like a puzzle – put together one piece at a time.

Long Term Athlete Development

Some of Charles’ best college athletes did not play that sport in high school

Peak performance

Kids often respond best to a coach that is calm and confident.
It’s usually best to not give coaching advice right before a competition – just pick up on the kid’s body language whether they need you to just be quiet, or tell a joke to lighten the mood.

Building Culture

You are always representing the program
Team building and trust activities are always great
Magnet awards – they recognize each other’s accomplishments on the bus ride home

Connecting with kids

Luis Rivera – Was given some bad information and was ineligible for the upcoming season. He could have easily quit and given up, but instead he worked hard and came back and went on to be one of the best track and field athletes in their college’s history. He had grit.

The one that got away

It wasn’t a tough loss – it was a team where Kate had let the culture get away from her

Best stolen/borrowed idea

‘You never know who is going to walk through the door’ – One of Charles’ mentors would take in any athlete that was willing, and if they would put in the work, you never know which one could turn out to be a national champion.

Favorite Resources

PDF – The mundanity of excellence – Developing Olympic Swimmers by Dan Chambliss

Parting Advice

Be in the moment. Put your cell phone away. Enjoy it.

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July 21, 2017

I found it. The best icebreaker & team builder ?? Captains Part 1 of 4

“Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t” – Jon Gordon

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I am huge on starting practices with energy builders that build team comradery.

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And recently I’ve been fascinated by diving into studying the concept of leadership and captains on teams.

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So what could be better than developing your leaders while playing games?

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When I first met Adam Bradley a few years ago, he was in the process of developing a curriculum that did just that. The cool thing is that he partnered with an expert company on games, Game On to ‘gamify’ the experience, because we know lecturing kids on leadership isn’t a sticky way for them to learn, getting them involved and participating in activities/games is.

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I don’t endorse many products, but the biggest no-brainer of a product I believe in is the curriculum Adam and his team have developed at Lead ‘Em Up. In talking with Adam, I wanted to help spread the word, so he offered a discount for Winning Youth Coaching followers – just enter discount code ‘wyccoaches’ and save 10% off at checkout at leademup.com.

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This post starts a 4 part series on captains & leadership, inspired by my friend James Leath’s post about the book The Captain Class. (read that post here).

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Here’s the plan for this series:

1 – Captain training – Lead Em UP

2 – The Captain Class

3 – Anatomy of a Teammate – leadership video by Coach Patrick Murphy

4 – Emerging leader groups

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I hope you don’t find this post ‘salesy’, I just wanted to share one of the best coaching tools I have found. I look forward to diving into the a-ha moments I have been having reading through The Captain Class.

July 19, 2017

WYC 123 – The Positivity Experiment – Kate Leavell talks culture, Jon Gordon, & Lacrosse

Kate Leavell: I have been an NCAA lacrosse coach, a high school varsity lacrosse and strength coach, a youth and travel coach of many different sports, swimming instructor, NASM certified personal trainer and senior fitness specialist, board member, a national coaches education trainer for US Lacrosse, an eternal college student, a parent of youth and high school athletes, speaker, teacher, and apparently now after four years of blogging and nationally featured articles and a book…a writer. I’m drawn to all things motivational and figuring out what makes people reach and discover what seems impossible. After a recent shoulder surgery led to staring a pulmonary embolism in the face (or staring at it in the lungs?!) i had time to reevaluate what is important. I came to the realization that it’s not an interest after all that I spread motivation around, it’s in fact, a necessity. So my mission begins, one kid, one coach at a time if need be.

Website (and book coming soon): kateleavell.com

Twitter: @kateleavell

Thank you to our sponsors! – Lead ‘Em Up – Save 10% using discount code wyccoaches at leademup.com

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Listen Now:

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Quote

‘Invite your team to get on the bus. Get the energy vampires off the bus. You are better off without them.’ – Jon Gordon

Coaching your own kids

Have assistant coaches coach teach your kid and vice versa
Stop coaching on the car ride home, leave it at the field

Cringe Moment

Putting your own self-worth based on a team’s performance
‘I know a lot about lacrosse, I don’t know anything about building a culture’
Big moment: meeting Jon Gordon in the airport, reading The Energy Bus – changed Kate’s perspective on building culture

Accelerate Deep Training

Make everything fun, make everything competitive, then quit talking and just let them do it. ‘Kids hear the first sentence and last sentence you say’, the middle usually just goes in one ear and out the other.

Good Icebreakers/games

The Hug game – Call out a number, then the kids have to form a group with that number of people and put arms around each other to form a circle. Whoever doesn’t end up in a circle is out.
Zombie Tag – First time tagged, you lose an arm. Then you have to go out of circle, run a lap, then you’re back in. Then you lose 2nd arm, then legs. So last time you have to roll out of circle b/c you have no legs.
Stop playing chess with your players, put away the ‘joystick’, and

Peak performance

‘I’m a believer in belief’ – The more the kids believe that you believe in them, the better their performance will be

Building Culture

It starts with expectations up front
3 different groups that feed into your culture:

1 – Coaches – Support one another. Do a mid-season survey to ask kids how they are doing

2 – Players – Positive self-talk

3 – Parents – Kate has an open door policy, the only restriction is that they will only talk about their kid, not other kids on the team

Communication – “Drama is heavier than bricks, it always breaks through”

Lessons from Jon Gordon

‘Invite your team to get on the bus. Get the energy vampires off the bus. You are better off without them.’
Urban Meyer 10-80-10 Principle – Quit spending energy on the energy vampires, put your energy towards your high energy people

The one that got away

It wasn’t a tough loss – it was a team where Kate had let the culture get away from her

The Positivity Experiment

Kate did an experiment where she committed to only talking about what it going well, never pointing out negatives. The things they needed to work on, she would just add them to the practice plan instead of pointing them out.
‘I let go of being focused on winning, which freed me up to enjoy coaching and took the pressure off the outcome of the game’

Parting Advice

Think about the end game. Picture the kid you are coaching at graduation, and ask him/her to describe their sports experience.

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July 7, 2017

WYC 122 – The Science of Sports Mastery – DeShawn Fontleroy talks Youth Football & Performance Training

DeShawn Fontleroy is a sports performance coach working with athletes in the Portland, OR metro area. Currently, he works with the football team at Jefferson HS. Deshawn also hosts a podcast Sports Mastery- ‘A place where we observe, examine, experiment, and explain the physical, mental, and social dynamics of the world’s best athletes and coaches. My goal is to provide athletes, coaches, and parents with high level systems & strategies to achieve success.’

Website/Podcast: sportsmastery.com

Free Gifts for WYC listeners: Sportsmastery.com/winningyouth

Twitter: @sports_mastery

Facebook: /deshawn.fontleroy

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Listen Now:

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Listen on Stitcher: Stitcher link

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Quote

“Fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.” – 50 Cent in The 50th Law

Cringe Moment

Kids are different than adults – have progressions
Keep it simple, don’t have too many plays

Progressions

Using your own body weight is a better starting place than jumping straight into weightlifting
Focus on the process vs. the outcome

Overcoming Fear

Start by having the athlete list their fear on paper. Often when they put them down on paper, they realize many of them are not real.
Then list your hopes and dreams. Create a desire map where they list their challenges and limitations. Have the parents do the same thing.

Growth Mindset

Bouncing back from hardship is a key to teach athletes. It’s the only way to grow.
After a setback, go back and watch your performance, then use positive visualization to picture what doing it right looks like

Accelerate Deep Training

It’s a process – the key is the quality of your reps
Know where your athlete is at – if they are working on a strength – put them against higher level competition. If they are working on a weakness – put them against some weaker competition.

Building Culture

Communication between coaches and athletes is key. Assistant coaches need to be listened to and empowered
Immediate feedback, both good and bad – often works best

Rewards and Recognition

When athletes do something off the field – in the classroom, in the community – you can use social media to highlight their accomplishments

Connecting with and impacting kids

DeShawn is coaching a kid with ADHD, it has challenged him and made him a better coach by working with a kid who has different needs and challenges

The one that got away

DeShawn’s team lost to their rival last year because of some poor coaching, they have evaluated what went wrong and analyzed how to make sure that it won’t happen again

Best books

Good to Great – Jim Collins
The 50th Law – 50 Cent and Robert Green

Free gifts:

– PDF of The Desire Map

– PDF of How to Succeed

– Free 1/2 hour consulting

Go to Sportsmastery.com/winningyouth to take advantage of this great offer!

Parting Advice

Train and practice more – don’t overdo it with travel sports
Play multiple sports

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Reviews are the lifeblood of the podcast!- If you like the podcast- please take 2 minutes to write a review! Click here

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July 7, 2017

The 10-80-10 Principle: Growing your Superpower ??

“THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE IS TO MOVE AS MANY OF THE 80 PERCENTERS INTO THE NUCLEUS (10% core) AS YOU CAN”

I recently (finally!) read Urban Meyer’s Above the Line. Loaded with great coaching lessons, the one that jumped out to me was the concept of the 10–80–10 Principle.

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In a nutshell, any organization or team will be made up of:

10% – The nucleus – Your leaders who will do whatever it takes to make the team better
80% – The average – Good team members who do what it takes but don’t typically go above and beyond
10% – The naysayers and negative. Jon Gordon would call these the energy vampires.

The interesting concept here is that Meyer says he used to spend a lot of his energy trying to get the bottom 10%ers up to the middle. His realization is that this was not the best use of his time, as it rarely worked.

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The best use of your time as the leader is to recruit your top 10%ers to target high-end 80%ers to bring them up to the top 10%.

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He and Tim Tebow used to start their conversations with ‘What 80%er can we focus on today to move to the top 10%?’

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I was having a conversation with a high-school track athlete this week, and he was relating how he and one other sprinter on his team had committed themselves this summer to outworking all of their competition and preparing to compete for the state championship in the 4×400.

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His frustration was that the other members of the team were not committing themselves the same way.

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I relayed this 10–80–10 concept to him. We discussed a change in approach – instead of trying to get the whole team on board, instead could he and his other teammate that was equally committed target 1 athlete that was in the 80% to try to bring up to the top 10% with them?

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It is an interesting shift in paradigm. It reminds me of the Clifton Strengthfinders concept – instead of spending countless amounts of energy trying to bring your weaknesses up to a mediocre level, spend your energy taking your strengths to an even higher level. Your superpower.

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Do you know who your high 80%ers are? Who is the low-hanging fruit that you and your top 10%ers can target to join the nucleus? Spend your energy growing your nucleus – grow your Superpower.