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MOTIVATIONAL THOUGHTS |
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| Decision Making | Winning Attitude | Lesson From Geese |
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THE WINNER'S TEN COMMANDMENTS
1. When a winner makes a mistake, he says, "I was wrong." When a loser makes a mistake, he says, "It wasn't my fault."
2. A winner credits good luck for wining, even though it isn't good luck. A loser blames bad luck for losing, even though it wasn't bad luck.
3. A winner works harder than a loser and has more time to give. A loser is always too busy to do what is necessary.
4. A winner goes through a problem. A loser goes around it, but never past it.
5. A winner shows he's sorry by making up for it. A loser says, "I'm sorry," but does the same thing next time.
6. A winner knows what to fight for and what to compromise on. A loser compromises on what he shouldn't , and fights for what isn't worth fighting about.
7. A winner says, "I'm good, but not as good as I ought to be." A loser says, "I'm not as bad as a lot of other people."
8. A winner would rather be admired than liked, although he would prefer to be both. A loser would rather be liked than admired, and is even willing to pay a mild contempt for it.
9. A winner respects those who are superior to him, and tries to learn something from them. A loser resents those who are superior to him, and tries to find chinks in their armor.
10. A winner feels responsible for more than his job. A loser says, "I only work here."
As Freshman-we expect some problems
As Sophomores-we expect fewer problems
As Juniors-we expect No problems
As Seniors-we expect Problem Solvers (not creators of them)
Decision making is the most important aspect of any athletic activity. You make millions of decisions during every practice or game. Pay close attention during both practice and game (whether playing or watching) to improve your ability to make good decisions as often as possible in as many situations as possible.
(taken from Lou Holtz, when he was head coach at Notre Dame)
Prior to the start of each Notre Dame football season, Lou Holtz and his coaching staff set team goals. The goals are written in a booklet that is given to each player. Even ahead of winning, Notre Dame's highest priority goal is to graduate 100 percent of the seniors on the team. Last year, 92 percent of the Irish seniors graduated, highest in the nation among NCAA Division 1-A football teams.
But the Blue and Gold's sterling graduation rate wasn't by chance, Holtz points out, "If you want to graduate, you better be prepared. Sit in the front row. Pay attention. Study. Don't hang around people who distract you. If graduating isn't important to you, you probably aren't going to achieve it."
When it comes to winning, I have a simple philosophy that any coach no matter what is coached is irrelevant. I would coach all sports the way I coach football.
First, you associate yourself with people who care about the end results. At Notre Dame we want young men who genuinely care what happens to the team, not just themselves.
Second, I teach sound fundamentals. In football, you must be able to block, tackle and know what you're doing. Basketball has different fundamentals: You need to dribble, pass, rebound and shoot. There are fundamentals in volleyball or baseball or track. I may not know what they are, but the better teams are the ones who perform those fundamentals best.
We set goals as what we want to achieve as a team. We hand each athlete a small booklet identifying those team goals, and they are encouraged to write their individual goals on the opposite page. Our number one goal each year is to graduate 100 percent of our seniors.
We ask three questions about all our athletes: One, can we trust them? Two, are they committed to excellence? Three, do they care about the team? If you can say "yes" to those three questions, you've got a winner. But you also need to make sure your athletes can answer "yes" to those same three questions about you as a coach-and believe me, they're going to ask them. Those questions go both ways.
We have few rules. People think I'm a disciplinarian. discipline is not what you do to somebody; it's what you do for somebody. I'm not a social worker. I'm not a warden. I'm a football coach. I take for granted that if you give me your word that you are going to practice hard, that you honor that word. If you don't have Character and integrity, what good are you to yourself, or to your teammates? I want players to trust me. They don't need a friend. What they need is a leader.
Too many people in this world worry about being popular. they try to keep their players happy, and be doing so the set themselves up for mediocrity. As a leader, popularity isn't my goal. My goal as leader is to set a standard higher than they believe themselves capable of achieving-and show them how to reach it.
Young people what high standards. They want to be shown how to achieve goals and be successful. Not everybody will play. Not every layer will make first team. Not every time will win the national championship. But we do expect everybody to be the best they can possibly be.
How do you create winning attitudes?
We begin with incoming freshmen. We teach them to operate by those three rules mentions above. If somebody fails to do so, we're going to told about it. We expect problems with a young man as a freshman. We expect few problems when he's a sophomore. We expect no problems when he's a junior. We expect him to solve problems-not create them-when he is a senior.
Freshmen often make bad decisions. I once asked a businessman why he was successful. He said, "I make good decisions." So I asked how he learned how to make good decisions. He said, "Because I made bad decisions." The same applies to young athletes. we try to guide them to good decisions.
Leadership has to come from your assistant coaches and your seniors. We demand that freshmen show tremendous respect for the upperclassmen, and that the upperclassmen demonstrate by their actions how we do things here, and why we do things.
We keep life simple. And we don't have all the answers. We don't develop attitudes, we work on fundamentals and reinforce positive action. Teamwork is nothing more than everybody being committed to each other's success. It doesn't matter if you're third team, you need to contribute. You may not play Saturday, but we expect you to be the best player in practice you are capable of being, even if only running our opponent's plays. Our approach is just doing what's right. It's right to be honest. It's right to be on time. It's been five years since we've had somebody late for a meeting, and we don't fine them. it's just the right thing to do.
Wherever you've coached, you've achieved success. How do you convert a losing attitude into a winning one?
Examine any losing situation and you encounter people who lack confidence. They're petty, jealous, negative. They pull others down. the true coaches, the great parents, the good leaders are the ones who lift people up.
You recruit good people, but you need to develop them after they arrive. You aren't born a winner, and you aren't born a loser. You are exactly what you think you are, nothing more, nothing less. You can pay people to perform, but you can't pay them to excel.
What you are capable of doing is determined y your talent. What you actually do is determined by your attitude. If you looked at winning an losing programs, there would be some difference in talent, but not to the extent you would think. That's true on all levels.
When an athlete comes to the University of Notre Dame, he is not a pro prospect. He has talent. People succeed here not because of talent alone, but because of their work habits, because of their attitude, because of their intelligence, because of their values.
Inevitably you meet some equally talented and equally dedicated teams. In the last second, the field goal try goes left instead of straight. How do you deal with the inevitable losses?
If you did not have defeat, you would not have the great thrill hat victory brings. Since I've been here at Notre Dame, more than half
our games have been against nationally ranked teams. When you play people of that caliber, sometimes things do not go well. But it is absolutely important that your players feel they control their own destinies. You can't believe that the other team determines who wins or loses. You do!
When that field goal slides left, that's the play everybody looks at. But that field goal is not what lost the game. There were at least 30 plays that led up to that missed field goal. We tell our field-goal kicker, when you go into the game it's because other people made a mistake; otherwise you'd be kicking an extra point. We call our kicker the eraser. All he's trying to do is erase a mistake that somebody else made.
If he misses, it's not the end of the world. He's human. They made a mistake; he made one. We try to keep pressure off our players other than to focus on doing the best they can in each situation. So when we lose, we ask: What's important now? Are you going to wallow in self pity? Everybody gets knocked down. My first year at Notre Dame, we lost for of our first five games. You are not going to achieve success if you do not overcome adversity.
Everybody has a different approach to winning an to losing. But you cannot worry about other people. We have tremendous respect for opposing coaches. We go under the assumption that they are smarter that us and that they will do a better job in certain areas. But it's not just X's and O's, it's building your program on a firm foundation.
What about overconfidence? When you have an opponent coming in the a 2-8 record, is there a tendency to relax?
The greatest disservice you can do to your team is to allow them not to respect the opposition. we don't care about won-and-loss record; we believe the other team is going to line up for the kickoff highly motivated and ready to play the best game they ever played, because they know they can make their season by beating the University of Notre Dame.
We don't have this problem often because of the difficulty of our schedule. But if you do not show respect for your opponent, you are not smart enough to sit at this desk. We ask the players to approach each game like we approach it as coaches. Our preparation as coaches, our procedures, our practices will be identical. The more you are favorites, the more you must challenge your team.
There is no shortcut to winning. You send a message to your team whether you are committed to excellence by your preparation. If the players walk into your office and it's messy and dirty, they're not going to respect you. If you walk onto the practice field without being completely organized, it's the same. That sends a message that they can't trust you, or you don't care about them. But if you're committed to excellence, your players will learn from you, and that's the only route to being a winning coach.
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LESSONS FROM GEESE |
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As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an "uplift" for the bird following. By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if the bird flew alone.
LESSON: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.
Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the "lifting power" of the bird immediately in front.
LESSON: If we have much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go (and be willing to accept their help as well as give ours to the others).
When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.
LESSON: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks, and sharing leadership--with people, as with geese, we are interdependent on each other.
The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
LESSON: We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging and not something else.
When a goose gets sick or wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is able to fly again or dies. Then they launch out on their own, with another formation, or catch up with the flock.
LESSON: If we have as much sense as geese we too will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.