LITTLE
THINGS MAKE BIG THINGS HAPPEN!
Plan Your
Summer Doing A Few Little Things That Will Make Some Big Things
Happen
written by Bill
Utsey, Director of Athletics, Greenville County Schools,
Greenville, South Carolina
 Most
coaches I have come to know spend a large amount of their
off- and pre-season planning time on game strategy they will
use for the upcoming or next sports season and school year.
In the team sports, many coaches have a thought process that
offensive and defensive strategy will be the main things that
will bring success to their team. No doubt, strategy is one
of the "big" things in coaching and the one obvious
thing that coaches do, or the public thinks coaches do. Of
course, we know different. There are indeed a large number
of "little" things that go into any high achieving
sports program.
There is a great John Wooden quote, "It's the little
details that are vital…Little things make big things
happen." This quote will be the focus of this article,
with the objective being to get you to focus on some of the
little things this summer in your preparation that one may
think have little or no consequence on the success of their
program. For sure, Wooden knew what he was saying.
As the summer begins so begins the planning for the next
school year and sports season. As a lifetime educator I am
very familiar with this process. The first "little"
thing you should focus on is to prepare yourself. The intensity
of teaching and coaching consuming ten, twelve, and fourteen
hours every day of the week is extremely taxing upon our bodies.
The summer break is a time of rest, regeneration, and relaxation.
It is also when you should make the time to prepare, nourish,
and recharge your body and mind. Let's think about some "little
things" that we can do that will make a difference for
you mentally and physically as you approach the next school
year and your upcoming sports season.
Exercise and recreate. Get into shape both
physically and mentally for the intense season of coaching
that you will enter once the first official practice begins.
Develop a habit of doing some type of exercise routine that
will improve your cardiovascular fitness level, the one fitness
area that will enhance your energy level for the rigors of
your season. If you were like me, it was most difficult to
find time for this in the afternoon or evening. I found that
an early morning session was much easier to make into a habit.
Additionally, find time where you can recreate - a vacation
with your family, hiking, time in your own backyard or your
favorite place where relaxation is best achieved. Do not forget
to renew your spiritual self through your selected faith or
self-discipline. Reading is my favorite pastime, and it always
renewed me in more than one way.
Develop your summer reading list. Really!
Plan this summer to read at least three to five books that
have some direct or indirect relationship to your coaching.
I just finished reading My
Personal Best by John
Wooden with Steve
Jamison. It was my fourth book about the great UCLA basketball
coach in my lifetime. Every one was inspirational, thought-provoking,
and philosophically stimulating. In fact, My
Personal Best is a book I would recommend to any coach
in any sport as a must read. John Wooden was way ahead of
his fellow coaching peers in strategic planning. He had a
driving mission statement, a crystal clear goal, and reachable
objectives. I encourage you to find others that will inspire,
motivate, and educate you. Some books I always recommend to
our coaches are:
Review and update your personal coaching philosophy.
Your above summer reading will naturally lead you to, and
influence you in, this little task that may make a big difference.
What you learn from your reading and what you have learned
from your prior coaching years needs to be applied to your
coaching philosophy. I hope you actually have a "Philosophy
of Coaching" in writing. Your philosophy of coaching
is a compilation of your thoughts and beliefs about why and
how you will coach and teach your students of the game or
sport of your passion. A philosophy begins with what you believe
to be true about coaching young people...what John Wooden
would have called your "coaching maxims?" Take time
this summer to rediscover your belief statements, your coaching
maxims, and include these in your philosophy.
Review and update your strategic plan for the program
and team. This, of course, is where you put in writing
the mission for your sport program. Your strategic plan is
where you will combine your passion and philosophy into words.
What are you all about? What is your coaching supposed to
do in the lives of the young people under your charge? If
you do not have a strategic plan, develop one. This will be
your guiding compass in all that you do in your coaching.
At a minimum, your strategic plan should have a list of statements
regarding your beliefs about coaching young people, a mission
statement defining your passion for coaching, and a goal for
your program. To put this plan into action, your goal for
your team should have a list of written objectives with deadline
dates when these objectives will be met.
Begin now to develop your team's personality and
attitude. This takes lots of planning and note-taking
during your off time, and is loaded with tasks that are not
to be taken lightly. John Wooden was big on developing his
team's personality. There are a number of ways in which the
creative coach can influence, shape, and mold the way his
athletes and team will think and act. Some of the ways this
can be done are as follows:
- Your first meeting with
your team. Lou
Holtz was said to take at least three days to prepare
for his first team meeting. This is the meeting where you
will set the tone and pace for your team. What you say at
this meeting is indeed crucial. It may not take you three
days, but the critical importance of setting the tone and
environment for your team should not be taken lightly. All
coaches are advised to think deeply and spend many hours
this summer in preparation for this all-important first
team meeting.
- Setting
the team goal. For me, this was a huge deal. If
your team does not know where they are going, they surely
will not get there. They must know what a goal is, and the
difference between a goal and an objective. The team goal
must be set by the players, not you. Figuring out how to
get the players to collaborate productively and come up
with their goal is truly a difficult task, even for the
best of teachers and coaches. You cannot do this with a
short hour of preparation, or a short meeting with your
team. I did this every year with each of my teams. In the
end, I had six pages of preparation notes when I went through
this process with my players each year. The process took
at least four hours of meetings with the team. Again, such
a task requires a lot of thought, note-taking, and planning
to make this task a productive one.
- Develop
a theme for your season. What will be the main
objective for your players to achieve in order to reach
their goal? Coming up with a theme that will help to guide
your team through the pre-season and keep them going to
the end is a common practice among many successful high
school sports programs. This may require reviewing your
returning talent, the work ethic of your players, the past
weak links that have halted your team's success in the past,
and even the input of your players. Again, such a task requires
great thought and must be done well-ahead of the first official
practice. The summer is the perfect time to undertake this
task. A theme for your season and team is something you
will want to put on a team T-shirt, a poster or banner in
your locker room, or on cards for each team member.
- Enhancing
your environment and promoting positive expectancy.
One of the two most important objectives for a coach to
obtain in his or her practices is to create and maintain
mental intensity throughout. What will you do or what can
you do to bring out the passion and spirit you want your
players to practice with throughout the season? Having a
team theme is one thing, and another is having your players
commit to a team goal. But there are plenty of other ideas
that can and will contribute to an environment of positive
expectancy. These include, but are not limited to: posting
affirmations on each player's locker, using a newsletter
or e-letter to your players every week, having team meetings
with a player-share (up-close and personal things in a player's
life or family) session, or a player reward system for big
plays and super efforts. Coming up with your own ideas is
again something that you can do over the summer. These are
surely "little things" that will make a big difference.
- Develop
a reading list for your athletes. Every year of
my coaching career I went to the school librarian with a
list of books for them to buy. The media specialists always
welcomed my suggestions, and made every effort to purchase
the books I requested. I made sure to request books on sports
skills, fitness, and inspirational biographies that, if
read by my players, could possibly influence their passion
for sports. Today, I would recommend creating a list of
books for your players, and asking them to read some or
all of them. Today's inspirational human stories of toughness,
endurance, perseverance, leadership, and the hard work ethic
are out there in plentiful supply. Some books for your athletes
(and also you!):
Plan for your In-Season. Now is the time
to do every one of your practice schedules for your entire
season. In my early days, this had to be done either in writing
or on a typewriter. Today, a coach should take advantage of
Excel or a similar software program, and create a template
that is suitable for your needs and flexible for making minor,
daily adjustments. Such a template should have the periods
and time slot on one column or row, with your sport's positions
on the corresponding one. Once you create your template, it
becomes very easy to put the basic activities and drills into
each period of your practices. Make sure you have a master
checklist of every single fundamental skill and strategy that
you must teach to all of your players. Each of these items
on your checklist should have a deadline date where it must
be taught in the pre-season. Also, do not forget to plan your
entire season's conditioning routine that is based upon what
fitness experts recommend. Don't forget to include your strength,
speed, and explosion program for the entire season (Even today,
with all the science behind the benefits of an in-season strength
program, many coaches still do not do this "little"
thing!).
Let me finish with a couple of unique suggestions. I often
tell coaches today that the best thing I ever did was to call
off practice one day in the pre-season for our team and then
went with all of our coaches to visit another high school
team's practice. This was a tremendous eye-opener for me and
our coaches. Find another school (of course, not on your schedule,
but one with a highly successful program) and arrange to visit
their practice one day during your pre-season.
Another suggestion is to find out more about the Functional
Movement Screen. The Functional
Movement Screen (FMS) is a new fitness test sweeping the
sports world. This short, five minute test with seven movement
items has been used by the U. S. Marines Officer Candidate
School and was recently used at the NFL combine. The current
research is showing that a below average score for any athlete
indicates a higher propensity for injury. This year in our
school district all of our certified athletic trainers will
be testing our athletes with the FMS. Each athlete that scores
below normal will be given a prescriptive set of exercises
to compensate for and improve their weaknesses. The aim is
ultimately to improve athletic performance with the by-product
of reducing injuries and lowering insurance claims. We have
over 7,000 student-athletes in our high schools. We will be
compiling all the results and will be sharing them at a later
date. I encourage you to become familiar with the Functional
Movement Screen as a potential tool for improvement in
your sports program.
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