Who was that?

My wife and I were at a pancake breakfast this weekend when one of the volunteers approached us and "How are you Mr. and Mrs. Brown.  We made some small talk before she moved on to another table. I looked at my wife and asked "who was that?" My wife shrugged her shoulders and replied "I don't know." 

My wife was an attorney for many years and now works for The United Way. She did and still does come into contact with a LOT of people and she is generally very good about remembering them. So, we figured it was someone we knew from soccer. Well, I have coached for many a year and conduct summer camps, coaching clinics and have been a director of coaching and or goalkeeping to boot. I'm not always so good about remembering names of parents. So, we figured it was likely someone we knew from soccer?

We ended up asking one of the volunteers co-workers whom we did know for her name. Turns out she was the mother of two (now) young men who I coached a few years ago. And our eldest son had even dated her daughter once or twice. Oh my!  And to top it all off, the last time I remember "talking" with her was after a high school game about a decade ago.  Well, she was actually yelling at me most of that time.  And that is what really prompted this writing today.

It was the summer before Jordan's senior season of high school soccer. He was in-line to be the goalkeeper and was being looked upon to be a senior leader for what would be a fairly young team. As I look back now, I realize this is one of the first times I used the word "entitled" in relation to an athlete. Jordan rarely showed for off-season summer activities. When practice officially started he was woefully out of shape.  Yet, he fully expected to be the starting goalkeeper and acted that way. His effort level left something to be desired those first few days of practice.

Meanwhile, there was a sophomore and a freshman also interested in the position.  The sophomore, Alex, was in excellent shape and a natural athlete. He was also our best field player.  Brad, the freshman carried a lot of baby fat but it was evident once he grew into his body he was going to be a good athlete.

We played both Jordan and Alex in the first couple of scrimmages and it quickly became evident to everyone Alex was far and away the best goalkeeping candidate on the team. Eventually the decision was made to start Alex and the team went on to a very good season.

Throughout the season both Brad and Jordan worked as goalkeepers. Every team needs a back up goalkeeper, right?  Well, Brad lost quiet a bit of baby fat throughout the season and began to become a chiseled athlete. He was motivated in part by the looming basketball season. At 6'3"ish and now a svelte 210 pounds Brad was pretty imposing for a freshman.  Jordan, to his credit worked hard, lost weight and improved his conditioning throughout the season as well. It's just that he was so far behind when practices officially begun that he couldn't catch up to Alex, or even Brad. He was the third string goalkeeper in the coaches eyes.

The confrontation addressed in the beginning of this article occurred late in the season. It was a last gasp attempt by a parent on behalf of her son. It was difficult for her to understand that her son had squandered away his opportunity during the off-season. Like her son, her focus was on the fact that once the season officially began Jordan was in attendance and did everything asked of him. There was little appreciation that this was too little too late. He had been outworked during the off-season and began the start of official practices already behind.

Jordan devoted a lot of time to church, work and playing in a newly formed band. There might have been 4H and county fair in there as well. All of these are admirable and worthy endeavors. I find no fault with any of them.  Jordan had choices to make and he did. He prioritized these other activities over soccer and that is also perfectly fine. On the other hand he couldn't find 2 - 4 hours a week to attend open fields. He missed camp time.  All the while Alex and Brad were present at off-season soccer activities and working hard in his absence. They both received opportunities that had Jordan been present they likely would not have received.  Maybe, Jordan thought as a senior he had a big enough lead on the underclassmen that he couldn't or at least wouldn't be caught from behind in the race to be the teams goalkeeper?

The days before and after the confrontation with his mother Jordan was visibly upset. His senior soccer season not at all what he had expected it to be. I remember having a famous quote running through my mind during that time. I did not share it with Jordan because emotions were too raw. I sincerely hope he learned this through the experience.

If you don't fight for what you want, 

you forfeit your right to cry over what you have lost.

Tough words, those. You, as the reader, may even think they are a bit harsh.  What they are is true.  And sometimes the truth hurts.  We can rarely have everything we want. Choices must be made. And what we ultimately end up with is what we devote our energy towards getting. Quality matters as well. Spread yourself thin and you might get a little of many things but be unsatisfied with the lot of it.. Devote yourself to a select few things and you might just get what you most wanted but miss out on some other things. Either way you will get a quality of experience equitable with the amount of effort put into obtaining it.

For me, I often tell a story about how Alex ascended as a soccer player and a person.  He really blossomed. I saw Brad on a fairly regular basis for a few years and enjoyed a good relationship there. Jordan I have not seen since that soccer season. And obviously his mother had faded from memory as well. I am very grateful our brief meeting this weekend was cordial and even friendly.  It prompted this writing and came at a time when I have been contemplating how to make some of these points to my current team. Thank God. He always seems to deliver moments like these when needed. I am Blessed. Who was that?  I believe it was God speaking through Luann.  Thank you God.

Everyday is a Tryout

Everyday is a tryout is a mantra I repeat to my teams on an almost daily basis. My teams are a strange combination of dictatorship and meritocracy. I strive to give as much ownership of the team as possible to the players while retaining final say on certain matters to preserve order for the common good. Sometimes I wonder if the message being sent is the same as the message being received.

Everyday is a tryout. Four words that can define a process, a life even. They go to the very heart of what has become known as the daily grind. What you earned yesterday should be but a platform for what you will earn today. What you earn today is the starting point for tomorrow's growth.  This is what a meritocracy is.  This is what life is.

I have begun meeting with potential leaders of next years team. These are the players who have expressed interest in being captains. What I am seeking to determine is which of this group understand everyday is a tryout. Who among them understand that leadership is an action word, a verb, long before it becomes a noun?

(Hit the jump for the rest of the article)

It's part of coaching

We often speak of athletes learning life lessons through their participation in team sports.  Coaches learn life lessons through heir participation in team sports as well.  One of the most important lessons sports has taught me is the necessity to develop, establish and maintain healthy working relationships.
I put a lot of time and effort into developing working relationships with everyone remotely connected to the program.  My athletic director and his administrative assistant. The boosters organization. Surely our players and coaches. The parents as well.

Now, with parents I tend to keep them at arms length as it concerns team selection, positions, playing time and the like. On the other hand, I desire and need parental support for a healthy program. I rely on parents for everything from fundraising to furnishing team meals.

Players get suspended or cut from the team and coaches lose their jobs often due to poor relationships and ineffective communication.  Communication is a shared responsibility.  That is, it takes a minimum of two to hold a conversation unless one is talking to one's self. LOL. This is another lesson I have learned - if people choose not to respond to your efforts to include them in your program, repeating those efforts ad nauseum is simply a waste of time.

I have a three strike rule.  If I ask you three times for your input or help and you choose not to respond, I move on.  This happens mostly with parents of student athletes in my current position. A sad commentary on our society in general.  Please do not misunderstand, I do indeed enjoy tremendous support from many parents. The vast majority jump in and help in whatever way is needed and I am genuinely appreciative for their involvement. It is a small minority that decide not to respond, not to work on establishing, developing and maintaining a working relationship in teh best interests of their child.

Being a responsible decision maker is also something sports teach us. Not every decision we make is cut and dried. I often seek input from every source imaginable when faced with a tough decision. I also give difficult decisions a lot of  prayerful consideration.  In the end, as a head coach it's still my decision. I live with both the rewards and consequences of those decisions. I firmly believe it important everyone involved with the program knows I take making these decisions very seriously and own up to them regardless of how they turn out. It's a matter of trust and respect.

Trust is the glue of life, the single most essential ingredient in effective communication.  If I do not own my decisions, why should anyone trust me?  Trust is the foundational principle that holds all relationships together.  Disagreements are a part of life, its how we handle disagreements that matter more than the disagreement itself.  Adversity is a part of life and athletics. It is a given, individuals and the team will encounter adversity at times. The adversity is not as important as how the adversity is handled. Being able to trust those you face adversity with is critical to success in overcoming the obstacle. Successfully overcoming adversity or an obstacle with others is how respect is earned ... and given.  Without respectful working relationships not only is trust absent but the prospects of success are greatly diminished.

We ARE all in this together, correct?

216 Days Until the Start of the 2017 Season

The 2016 season ended 73 days ago and we have 216 days until the 2017 season officially begins. The transitioning from review to preparation is underway. I am moving on from "why" Team 29 failed to meet some of my expectations to what is necessary for Team 30 to fulfill its potential.

Program > Team > Student / Athlete

I believe we are all better when we are servants to a greater good.  In my personal life, I strive to serve God. As stated on the introductory page to this site, God is first, family and friends are second and I am third.  God > Others > Me.  Team 29 of our program made strides in establishing Program > Team > Student / Athlete as the basic tenet of the Lima Senior Soccer program but we still have a ways to go before we can say this truly defines who we are.

To begin with, I am not convinced every student athletes appreciates or understands Program > Team > Student / Athlete.  Allow me to provide an example of what I am talking about; we established new academic standards for eligibility in 2016. Each student/athlete was required to maintain a "C" grade or above in each class in order to be eligible to participate. Still, when weekly academic reports were issued we had a handful of student athletes who failed to meet this standard. In this regard, those student athletes failed themselves, their team and the program.

In a school system absolutely loaded with athletic talent this is an all too common occurrence.  And completely unacceptable to me. Maintaining a "C" in academic classes is about two simple things completely within our control - attitude and effort.  We are simply asking our student athletes to be average n the classroom.  Some are making a choice not to do so and are thereby lcultureetting down their team and, by extension, the program not to mention themselves.

So, here lies the first hurdle we must clear in pursuit of establishing a Program > Team 30 > Student / Athlete culture.

Being sure to have our shirts or jerseys tucked in at all times.

By the end of the 2016 season we had become very good concerning this simple task.  Many of the players rebelled at this rule when it was first instituted, but eventually became compliant with it if not overly enthusiastic about it. Simply put, compliant is not good enough. Too many of our student / athletes failed to recognize the reasons behind mandating shirts be tucked in and in fact, ignored the rule whenever out of sight of the coaching staff.  When allowed to wear their jerseys to school on game day the majority failed to tuck the into their pants. And it was of no surprise when I recently attended an indoor game to see not a single player have their t-shirt tucked into their shorts.

What's the big deal?

Behavior.

We have a cheer we break huddles with: Prepare like Champions! Play like Champions! Become Champions! A big part of this is to look the part. We look the part, we begin believing. We begin believing and we begin acting the part. We begin acting like champions and we begin playing like champions. eventually we become champions.

Character is all about doing the right thing even when no one is watching.  We are not there yet as witnessed by having our jersey's hanging out during school hours. There was a failure to comprehend and understand the importance of living the role of champion 24 / 7 / 365.  This has extended to the off season as was recently witnessed at the indoor game.  They won the league championship with an undefeated season and will believe this is an accomplishment that invalidates the need to look the part failing to realize how they look not only impacts  how they feel about themselves but how others perceive them to be. Being a rag-tag group is perfectly fine if your highest aspiration is to win your rec league indoor grouping.  It's not nearly enough if you aspire to be the champions of the toughest scholastic soccer league in northwest Ohio.

Personal preference before TEAM interests and program well-being.

No one player is bigger than the TEAM and no team is bigger than the program.

Last winter I led a Leadership Class for many of our student / athletes. A main theme of this class was the importance of being a Servant Leader. The general premise of this is for the individual player to serve the TEAM and by extension have the TEAM serve the program.  We have made strides in this. There is also still work to be done here.

So much of what is discussed here is either or propositions

We should always strive for perfection. It may never be attained by greatness can be. We all make mistakes. Each mistake made is a learning opportunity. That is, we have a choice when a mistake is made - accept it or correct it. Our decision on how to handle a mistake, adversity, sets the course for who we will become.  If a mistake is not corrected, our forward progress is stopped. We plateau as a an individual and as a team. What we allow, will define who we will be.

Defining who we want to become as TEAM 30 will be the key to the 2017 season. Setting goals is a part of this process, Defining the process to be followed in achieving the goals set is a area we failed miserably in last season.  The goals set were within an established comfort zone. There would be minimal change required to reach these goals. They were safe goals. They accepted expected adversity as their lot and lacked true challenges to be overcome. They goals set were well within established comfort zones and lacked impetus to expand and grow, to improve.

These are the areas we will be concentrating on over the next 8 months. Can we step outside of our established comfort zones to set our goals AND define a process that will provide us a legitimate shot at achieving our goals?

Dare to dream big.

Work to make those big dreams come true.

That's what 2017 needs to be about.

Mail Bag

Although I have shared questions posed to me by colleagues, friends and readers of this blog I have never done so in what is considered a mail bag format, I thought I would give this a try and see what you think.  For disclosure sake, none of this questions relate to teams I coach.

QUESTION I
This first question actually came to me from a number of people and it pertains to Ohio High School soccer: If a referee issues a red card but does not report make out the report does the athlete have to serve the two game suspension?

I admittedly did not have a ready answer and had to ask referee friends of mine what the ruling would be.  The referee is supposed to file a report within 24 hours of the incident, The school administration is then notified so it can enforce the suspension. No report = no card = no suspension is what I was advised by a couple different referees. But wait a minute! OHSAA covers itself by including this disclaimer in the OHSAA General Sports Regulations; It is the responsibility of the local school authorities to ensure this regulation is enforced. This would seemingly absolve the referee from not filing a report while placing enforcement on the coach / athletic director / administration of the offending players school.  I later learned the referee did finally file a report 12 days after the match had been played. Knowing what the rule was, the coach had already sat the player for two games. Technically it might be the player would not have to sat two games until the report was filed but the spirit of the game was observed by the coach and school.

QUESTION II
You have undoubtedly seen the video of two San Antonio, Texas, John Jay High School football players intentionally hitting a referee during a game. If not, click on the You Tube video provided here.

The first series of questions involved what type of punishment I felt the student athletes deserved. I am old school.  I say they should be banned from any further interscholastic participation. Period. Their high school careers should be over.

Now with news that the "hits" were ordered by their coach I still stand by that and would include banning the coach from ever coaching again.

Plus, it seems possible legal and or civil charges could be brought against the players and the coach.

I firmly believe the punishment must be severe to discourage this type of incident from ever being contemplated again.

QUESTION III
This one comes from a coaching colleague in Arizona.  Robert writes,  "I have one player who refuses to get with the program. While everyone else is striving together he is marching to the beat of his own drummer. When he is challenged about his me first behavior he disengages by looking away, rolling his eyes and smirking. Then at first opportunity he talks about whoever challenged him behind their back."

Unfortunately this is not an uncommon occurrence, It tends to happen more in teams with weaker culture. Regular followers of this blog will recognize my favorite question when confronted with difficult situations is, why?

Why does this athlete do this?

Because he believes he can get away with it.

The student athlete in question here is apparently pretty talented and no one wants to offend him so they tolerate his selective effort and abrasive behavior. There are two basic levels of intervention that can be attempted with both being largely dependent on the programs culture for success.

Informal:
Non-verbal prompt - Temporary benching or removal from an activity

Gentle verbal prompt - A reminder of expectations for the team and position

Assertive but non-confrontational request to change behavior - A one on one talk specifically identifying the problem and expected modification of behavior

Formal:
Official warning - The behavior will be modified or specific consequences will be meted out. Loss of playing time for instance.

Removal from the environment - Benching for game or dismissal from training.

Public recognition of detrimental behavior and consequences - Player is suspended from or removed from team.

These are steps I follow and in most instances there is no need to progress from the informal to the formal. Generally speaking if unacceptable behavior is identified and consequences made clear people are not likely to violate the standards or norms for acceptable behavior.  However, human beings tend to be boundary pushers so incidents of inappropriate or unacceptable behavior will occur once in awhile. In over 35 years of coaching I have only had 3 individuals who pushed the boundaries to a point that dismissal from the program was necessary,

QUESTION IV
Gretchen from Kentucky wrote; "My daughter has been a forward since she began playing. She is a dominant player. We moved to a different club this year so she could play on a stronger team and against better competition. This new coach has her playing as a right defender. How can I approach him and make him understand that my daughter is a forward?"  With a little further research I learned the daughter is a U14 player participating on a good club team.  I'm pretty sure Gretchen did not like what I had to say about this situation.

It is the coach's role to decided positions and playing time. It is quite possible the team has better or more experienced players at the forward positions, in the coach's opinion. It is also possible there is a need on the team for a  right back. In many of today's systems of play the outside backs are expected to be main cogs in the offensive flow. They can be primary goal scorers or assist givers.

My response: Ask for a meeting with the coach. Ask what he sees your daughter's role on the team being and listen to what is being said instead of listening for what you want to hear. You just might find out the coach has an expanded role in mind for your daughter that will enhance her overall game.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Okay, I hope this was informative for you.  I know when people ask questions of me it is a learning opportunity for me as well.  If you have questions you would like answered and don't mind my sharing them as part of a mail bag article, please send them to coachtjbrown@gmail.com
As always, thank you for reading!