Harbaugh’s modeling toughness has Stanford rising in College Football
Resilience is a key component of mental toughness. Stanford football 
Coach Jim Harbaugh embodies it and his team is following his lead – all the way to their first National Ranking since 2001.
Harbaugh honed his resiliency during his tenure as an NFL Pro Bowl quarterback – a time when he studied with Dr. Jim Loehr.
“As an NFL quarterback, my job was to perform under pressure. During the heat of battle in a big game, I often only had seconds to make critical decisions — and those decisions could win or lose games. Loehr’s training system helped me mentally and emotionally to make more game-winning decisions than ever.”
Loehr defines emotional resiliency as “the ability to take a punch emotionally and bounce back quickly, to recover quickly from disappointments, mistakes, and missed opportunities and jump back into battle fully ready to resume the fight.”
Now as a Head Coach, Harbaugh has instilled a winning attitude and resilient culture in which players expect to win week in and week out. Here’s what Harbaugh had to say after the Cardinal bounced back from two road defeats to beat ASU and rock 7th ranked Oregon:
“Our guys don’t quit. They never give up. You cannot kill them. You can’t demoralize them; they won’t go away. Now we have to be relentless. We must be the hunter. Eventually, we want to kill you. We need to make that next step to get up there with teams like USC.”
Training Tip: Balance the ups and the downs. Bad losses, slumps and sassed opportunities are all potential sources of stress. Help your team handle the stress by encouraging them to keep fun in their lives. Remind them to go to the movies, hang out with friends, shop, etc. This means you too, coach! Planning for the emotional ups is a critical step to coping with the inevitable “emotional downs” of competitive sports!
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