As a person who has spent a life-time coaching performers (just short of 60 years), it occurs to me that parents of the highly talented (genius if you will) child have not done a particularly great job. I have no question about their intentions nor their love for their child. Recognizing how unique the child [...]
Professional athletics are business, BIG business. So, what is the business of sports and what does it mean? It means that decision-making is governed by profit and loss just like any other type of business. Problems occur when decisions are influenced by other levels of sports, or thinking it should look like the college version. [...]
For well over 50 years, I have been working at educating myself and thousands of others. I am clear I have been able to provide most of those others a way to look at life that gives them choices. Then I meet young people who have been educated to be average and ... the real [...]
Players will say “He’s a player's coach.” What do you think that means? Is it that the coach has been where they are now? Or, that he understands what motivates the player? How about, “I see him as my friend?” Maybe, he “understands” what I am going through because he was a player? Just what [...]
Being talented is not a “piece of cake.” First, it creates expectations. Expectations for a 14 year old that need to be earned while still a “spoiled” teenager. There are bumps in the road for anyone. How we bounce back from those bumps and what we learn is critical when the decision-making is solely our [...]
Coaches, your athletes are just like you (only younger and in better shape). I am not saying identical. I am saying they are a reflection of what you bring or don’t bring to the party. They are reacting pro or con, for or against, etc. They are not identical, but neither are identical twins. Therefore, [...]
As we make our journey through life things happen that are out of the realm of our experience. We write them off as weird, strange or certainly not worthy of our attention. How about this idea? They are symptoms of something and it is so big that it needs our full attention. Change is always [...]
You hear all the time that it is a competitive world out there and rightfully so. My question is, “if that is the case, why aren’t we raising our children to get the point?” Why are they consistently given a trophy for just showing up? Of course we want our children to have a great [...]
28 years ago when I stopped coaching basketball to work with coaches, athletes and organizational leaders, we (my partners and I) had each participant complete a short questionnaire. One of the questions we asked the athletes has been a big factor in our work ever since. The question was “what do you want your team [...]
This weekend I had the opportunity to reaffirm the rewards of coaching as former players of mine gathered to honor their relationships formulated some 30 years ago. Most of the people attending brought their wives or significant others who had been hearing the stories about their husbands’ experiences for years. As the head coach I [...]