Success crosses domains. Exceptional coaches and other sports share lessons. Grab sticky ideas.
Gridiron Genius belongs on every coach's bookshelf. Mike Lombardi shares decades of experiences with Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick. "Everybody on every team knows who the good players are, who the bad players are, and who the team's favorite (a.k.a. untouchable) players are."
Randy Moss, "helped teach Belichick how to see the downfield passing game from a player's standpoint, how the routes looked on the field in three dimensions...also someone who works hard, is a supportive teammate, and cares deeply about winning. In other words, someone with football character."
Lombardi wrote of Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks, "a psychology major, gave each prospect a lengthy test in which he was looking for high scores in open-mindedness, willingness to learn, and coachability." In other words, Brooks was mining MINDSET.
Cal Rugby's Jack Clark talks about "conditional love" and the need for shared leadership. Every team member is expected to lead. "High-performance teams are highly, highly conditional organizations.“ Focus on strengths. "We open every meeting with what we did well. We never cut that list short — we always build upon it. It’s got to be real, though. It can’t be stuff that is kind of halfway true. It’s got to be real stuff. Make that list as long as we can. Spend so much more time on your strengths." He asks coaches to decide 'what are you willing to fight for?"
James Kerr's Legacy explores the New Zealand All-Blacks rugby dynasty. They emphasize continuity, to "leave the jersey in a better place than you found it." He discusses having the cool "blue head" under pressure.
Soccer's Anson Dorrance preaches "agenda-free" excellence and describes the commitment needed to be the best, exemplified by his quote about Mia Hamm.
Football coaches share many team lessons. Belichick says, "If you're not talking, you're not winning." Nick Saban is famous for The Process. Urban Meyer teaches "above the line" behaviors needed to win, 10-80-10 distribution of talent that needs redistribution upwards, and being ready to go when you "cross the red line" onto the field.
British cycling's Dave Brailsford "nerded out" with the "aggregation of marginal gains" to sculpt a championship program with better equipment, better training, technology, and habit training.
Chess World Champion Garry Kasparov distinguishes between strategy and tactics. "Tactics is knowing what do when there's something to do; strategy is knowing what to do when there's nothing to do." Kasparov explains tactics "disturb the balance of a position."
Do we know about The Mindset List from Beloit? Volleyball's Mike Hebert shares. Here are a few points about the Class of 2022:
- They are the first class born in the new millennium.
- They have grown up afraid that a shooting could happen at their school, too.
- The words veritas and horizon have always been joined together to form Verizon
- Films have always been distributed on the Internet.
Challenge ourselves to use what we learn to teach and execute better, more signal and less noise.
Lagniappe: "All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course I wrong and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride." - Sophocles (Have the will to change.)
Lagniappe 2: "To live in the past is to die in the present." - Bill Belichick (Gridiron Genius)
Belichick removes photographs and artifacts from the previous season. Last year disappears from this year's thinking. Nobody 'moves on' from past success better.
Lagniappe 3: Lombardi explains his first assignment with Belichick, evaluate every player on the roster (small talk not included).
