“The more you do on the front end, the fewer problems you’ll have on the back end.”  This is one of my all time favorite Jack Clark quotes.

California defeated BYU, 19-7, Saturday night at Steuber Rugby Stadium to win the 25th national championship in program history. The Golden Bears finished the year at 26-0, their first perfect season since 2002, refusing to allow BYU to repeat as champs in the two teams’ fifth straight meeting in the title match.

“There is a lot of trust and a lot of commitment,” Clark said. “Those are words that are used by people every day. When you’re on a sports team, those words become real. And each one of these boys lived up to their commitment.”

The road to Clark’s 21st title as Cal’s head coach started last fall.   I had the pleasure of interviewing Coach Clark in September as the inaugural guest of Inside World Class Coaching. Here are a few of the highlights from the “front end” of championship number 21:

First team meeting

Our objective is to give the individuals within the team, and then the team collectively, a roadmap for their success. We set out what the team rules are and what our expectations are of them individually and collectively. We establish how we operate, how the machinery works, how we communicate, what our values are, and that they’ll be asked to add to the team.

Program Values

1. We expect everyone to put the team first and themselves second.
2. We believe in constant performance improvement. We’re not very neurotic about winning games, but we’re pretty neurotic about getting better. We have an expectation that we’re going to get better, and we’re pretty upset if we don’t. We may never get to be great, but we will get better.
3. We believe in merit. The currency the players have and exchange within the team is based on what they’re doing in the moment and not what their potential is going forward or what they did last year. That’s the merit.  We want to create a meritocracy.

Defining Leadership

We say leadership is the ability to make those around you better and more productive. We don’t say that leadership is being a senior or the star player.

We’re not interested in a team where the minority leads the majority. We’re interested in a team where everyone feels the responsibility of contributing back to the middle and back to the leadership of the team.

Cal Rugby Brand

We’re successful. We do it right. We’re sportsmen, and we’re fair sportsmen. We don’t cheat. We respect the game, and we respect our opposition.

We’re student athletes. Our players typically go on to very substantial careers and are known as very successful men. We have a team GPA of over 3.0.

We’re not that satisfied. It’s pretty hard to win year after year and to be at the top of the medal stand year after year. You get there by having an attitude of, “Whatever talent level we have, we’re going to try to overachieve it, be competitive and get better.”

It’s kind of a sobering responsibility for the team every year. You’re walking onto a team that is known for that. What is your choice? Are you going to add to that brand or detract from it? It’s zero sum, really. It’s a conscious choice.

“Teamship” > Team Building

We don’t sit around a campfire to talk about it. That’s not our technique. It’s this whole idea of teamship and team building. How is it that you’re a good teammate? What are we trying to build together? It’s at the core of athletics. Our players are experts in it.

We talk about teamship and team building, who we want to become, and how we want to be thought of. We talk about it on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 9, and the first day and the last day of the year and every day in between. It’s never too far from our consciousness.

Antennae Up

My antenna is always up around teamship. I listen to how they talk to each other and the tone they use. If a player is out of step with our idea of teamship, I talk to them about it. I earn my paycheck. I bring them in. It’s very personal to me. I don’t want to lose anybody. It’s a failure to me to lose somebody. It’s a reflection of my work. I’m going to try my damnedest to not let that happen.

Am I willing to remove somebody from the team who just doesn’t follow our values? Yes, of course. You have to.