I recently had the chance to spend an evening listening to legendary football coach, Lou Holtz.  Ok, so there were about 2,000 people in the room – I still felt like Lou was talking directly to me.

I’d never given much thought to the skinny, bespectacled coach before that night.  Yet Lou Holtz, the only coach in the history of college football to lead six different teams to bowl games, made a lasting impression on me that night.

Here are some of the insights that will stay with me:

• “Coaching is coaching.  You get to help other people be successful. That lasts a lifetime.”
• “Being a coach is a chance to be significant in life.”
• The title “coach” comes from above (the administration); the title “leader” comes from below (your players).
• A coach (in any sport) needs four things to be successful:
  1. A vision for the program.
  2. A plan to achieve the vision.
  3. To lead by example everyday.
  4. To hold people accountable.

• When his son Skip asked his dad about what to say to a new team for the first time, Coach responded, “You tell them that you come here to become us. We are not here to become you. And that’s based on five assumptions I make about every player I’ve ever coached:
  1. You want to graduate;
  2. You want to be a champion;
  3. You want to be a great performer;
  4. You want to have respect for your teammates;
  5. And you want to contribute positively as a member of our society.”

• He told an incredible story about the importance of trust on a team.  On his South Carolina team that went 0-11 in his first year, he quipped, “Records can be deceiving. We weren’t as good as our record indicated.” It was a difficult year, he admitted, one in which his wife had major cancer surgery for the second time, his son fell into a coma and his mother died.

The next year, Coach learned that two former players from that 0-11 team were arrested for selling drugs.

“I was so mad because I wanted to know why those players didn’t trust me,” Holtz said. “Nobody said anything. And then Jonathan Martin stood up and said, ‘Coach, I trust you. A lot of my teammates trust you. But I look around and see some people I don’t trust.’  And then Andre Dixon said, ‘I’ve got to lock my locker when I take a shower.’

He told them to go home, make three columns on a piece of paper and write down the following:

1.    Things I don’t like about myself that I can’t change,

2.    Things I don’t like about myself that I can change and

3.    Everything I did last year I regret.

Coach ordered a tombstone and met with the team the next day. The entire team buried those papers. “We made the commitment that we would trust our teammates, on the field and off the field”, Holtz recalled.

That South Carolina team would go on to post the third-best single-season turnaround in college football history, going 8-4 in Holtz’s second season and defeating vaunted Ohio State in the Outback Bowl.

Yes, looks can be deceiving.  I never thought I’d glean so much from a short, skinny man in glasses!

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We can get so consumed with our sport that we forget to have fun. Even before we reach high school, many of us are taught to repress fun as we go about the serious business of scholastic sports. Yet the physiology of fun is a close profile to the “zone.”

Laughter, humor, and play are powerful forms of recovery. They enable you to move almost effortlessly from negativity into a positive energy state.

Laughter is a natural breathing technique, and it has a cleansing and revitalizing effect as well. It originates in the solar plexus, the seat of bodily energy. Laughter alternatively relaxes and tightens your muscles and leaves them in a state of relaxation. It releases endorphins, which cause euphoria and reduce pain. Increasing evidence suggest that laughter is good medicine for both the body and the mind.

Here’s a great exercise for you and your athletes to kick off the New Year (& decade)

• Take a blank piece of paper and divide it into 4 columns
• Going left to right, name the columns as follows:

1. 1. 2-5 minutes
   2. 5-30 minutes
   3. 30 minutes to ½ day
   4. ½ a day or more

• Jot down the things that are fun for you. Put them into the columns below according to the amount of time they take.
• Time how long it takes you to run out of ideas.
• Draw a line when you find the ideas are no longer coming quickly and you have to stop and think a while between ideas.

How many activities did you come up with? You might be interested to know that most busy adults run out of ideas after they’ve thought of 10-15. Ten year olds have easily generated 55 ideas in the same amount of time. How many could you think of quickly before having to really search for ideas?

Count up how many ideas you have in the first two columns and how many you have in the last two columns. Which is the larger number? What does this tell you about the problems you are having finding time for fun on a daily basis.

The last two columns give you ideas for your summer break. Continue to brainstorm ideas in the first two columns so you’ll have plenty to choose from this season.

Smile!

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Teamwork is always a hot topic in sports.  Some coaches scour the land looking for the latest tips on team building while others feel team building games are a waste of time.  So the question remains, “Do team building activities lead to improved teamwork?  It depends. It depends on what stage your team is in.  Sport psychologists often refer to four stages that teams go through. These stages are typical of most teams and groups. Surprisingly one of the normal stages teams experience is fighting!

The four stages, “forming,” “storming,” “norming,” and “conforming” were first developed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965.  It is one of the best-known team development theories.  It’s useful to keep Tuckman’s stages in mind as you progress through the season.  They will help you select appropriate team building activities and/or they may explain many of the behaviors that drive you crazy!

The first stage, “forming” is also known as “testing.” In essence, team members size each other up. Players make judgments about the coach, the strengths and weaknesses of the other players and where they themselves fit in with the team.

The next stage is called “storming,” also known as the “infighting” stage. During this stage, there is often arguing, tension, conflict, and rebellion. Players are competing against one another and trying to establish their position on the team. They wonder:

• Will I make the team?
• Will I start?
• What does the coach think of me?
• What’s my role on the team?

The third stage is the “norming” stage. It’s the quiet period that follows the storming period.  Ideally everyone now knows their role on the team, and they have accepted there place on the team. If players continue to express dissatisfaction with their roles, the team will not be successful. The main focus now is TEAM not ME.

The last stage is the “performing” stage. At this point, each team member is genuinely concerned about the welfare and progress of teammates. When one player experiences success, other teammates are genuinely happy for them. In fact, teammates help each other to achieve success. In this stage, there is a high degree of trust.

Arriving at the “performing” stages means weathering the other stages. It means patience, persistence, hard work and constant re-commitment on the part of the coach and the team. A coach needs to know the stages of team development to reflect on honestly assess where a team stands in their progression, and in turn, what to work on to attain their next level. The good news is what might appear as discouraging, may actually be the team reaching an essential milestone in their cohesion toward their next level of evolution as a “performing” team.

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I love this time of year for a reflection on what passed and what’s to come.

Here are some questions to help you review 2009 and set goals for 2010. These are also great questions for your team to discuss when they return from break!

COMPLETING THE OLD YEAR:

1. What was your biggest triumph in 2009?

2. What was the smartest decision you made in 2009?

3. What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2009?

4. What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2009?

5. What are you most happy about completing in 2009?

6. Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2009?

7. What was the biggest risk you took in 2009?

8. What was the biggest surprise in 2009?

9. What important relationship improved the most in 2009?

10. What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2009?

CREATING THE NEW YEAR

1. What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2010?

2. What advice would you like to give yourself in 2010?

3. What is the major effort you are planning to improve your results in 2010?

4. What would you be most happy about completing in 2010?

5. What would you most like to change about yourself in 2010?

6. What are you looking forward to learning in 2010?

7. What compliment would you like to receive in 2010?

8. What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2010?

9. What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2010?

10. What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2010?

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