The coach's foremost responsibility to the TEAM is...

In a world where professional and high profile sports dominate one might think guiding a team to wins is a coach's first priority.  In a bottom line economic sense this is probably true. However, I challenge this assumption in the context of the wider world of sports.  Here it is the coach's responsibility to properly prepare the team to put its collective best foot forward. 

Putting your best foot forward is not about winning every game.  It is not about playing mistake free soccer.  It is all about placing your team in position to give their best effort possible on a given day. Putting your best foot forward should be a steady march of improvement from day to day with recognition adversity will be encountered along the way. Positioning your team to put its best foot forward very much depends on how you teach them to react to adversity. Do you allow for excuses thereby empowering the adversity to determine your teams effort?  Or do you embrace adversity as an opportunity?

Properly identifying adversity is also an important aspect of allowing your team to put its best foot forward.  If your team will be facing a far superior opponent and you set the goal as upsetting them it will be difficult for your team to its best foot forward that day. If you identify obtainable in-game goals that could lead to an upset of a superior opponent chances of your team putting it's best foot forward increases against even the best of opponents.

In a sense, putting your best foot forward is about persevering along the road to success. Continuous Progress Improvement is a term that was used in schools when my sons were of that age. As coaches we are charged with preparing and positioning our team to constantly put their best foot forward and in doing so grow the program, the team and its individuals. 

Another way to look at this is to say we should never be satisfied.  Complacency is destructive to progress and greatly hinders the ability to put our best foot forward. Keeping a team hungry and focused can be a challenge and is a primary reason coaches work so hard to limit distractions, utilize team bonding exercises and preach "The TEAM!"  

Putting our best foot forward requires having a season-long plan for how to advance the team from it's starting point to a vision you have for them.  A firm hand on the rudder following a well charted course is paramount to helping your team put its best foot forward on a consistent basis. If you do not have a season-long plan but jump around from one topic to another attempting to fill each new leak in the dam your team is likely never to achieve full potential in any one area.  To put it another way, you are unlikely to establish a foundation strong enough to sustain real growth.