10 Lessons in Coaching (eBook)

Lesson One:

Put Relationships over Everything

The truth is if you do not understand this first “Lesson” the others really do not matter. If you are not willing to focus on relationships and put relationships above everything else, you will not be successful as a coach. It really is that simple. Relationships with players, assistant coaches, administration, parents, and others will all determine how successful you will be as a leader.

As you build positive relationships with the people around you, you will gradually gain their respect. This respect will feed your success as a leader. When you earn respect, you will be able to talk to a person about anything. The individual will listen and value your opinion. A successful leader needs a trusting relationship with each person in the organization to get them to put the team first. One of the keys to being successful is managing the critical conversations.

The ability to have a crucial conversation with someone may be one of the most underrated traits necessary for successful leadership. People reveal their level of respect for you when you tell them something they do NOT want to hear. It seems that “back in the day” you could get respect just by having the “Head Coach” title. Now you must earn that respect. You earn respect through the relationships you build over time.

I have not met anyone that did not want to build good relationships. No one intentionally messes this up. While being a builder of relationships is something that some people are naturally better at than others, it is also a learned behavior. Always work on building better relationships. The work is never done and there is always a new person to help!

The relationships you build will determine how you handle these situations:

• Convincing players to buy in to the team first
• Turning a losing program around
• Maintaining a winning program
• Upset parents
• Assistant coach issues
• Administration issues
• Team Culture issues
• Convincing parents/players you are doing your best in college recruiting
• Player discipline
• Parent participation
• Outside influences trying to lure players to other places

How can you get better at building relationships? Here are the important factors:

• Show them you care
• Get to know them
• Be honest with them
• Put yourself in their shoes
• Be there for them

Show them you care

You cannot be scared to show people you care about them. This was a mistake many coaches made years ago. Be yourself and, although it is overused and cliché, treat everyone the way you would like to be treated. Be proud of people on your team when they do something good. Take every opportunity you can to brag on someone in your program. Make sure your care is genuine. Fake is easy to spot. Genuine, real care is a powerful thing. If someone knows you care about them, they will listen to you when you have something to say. The old saying, “they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is true.

Recognition matters to people now. If you do not like it, you will have to get over it as I am afraid it is here to stay. When I first started coaching, I hated recognitions. I believed you should do good things and work hard for the team and not to get recognized. As I grew as a head football coach, my philosophy on this evolved. As times have changed and social media became more important, I felt forced to pick between what I liked to do or what I needed to do to win. The expansion of the internet and social media completely changed the landscape. It was not my job to judge whether that was good or bad. It was my job to help the people on our team reach their maximum potential. I wanted every player and coach to feel like they were better because they were part of our program. It became evident we needed to recognize our players more and we needed to teach them more character traits than they were learning. We developed a Team Building program.

We would start practice on Mondays and Tuesdays in the locker room having a group discussion. On Wednesday we would not have a pre-practice discussion and go straight out to practice. At the end of Wednesday practice, we would get everyone together and give out “helmet stickers”. These helmet stickers became a staple of our program and was a way we could show them we cared.

We would start out the team meeting each Wednesday evening having each assistant coach give out 1 or 2 helmet stickers from the last week. The coaches would pick a mix of young players and older players who stood out either in the game or in practices. I would always go last as the Head Coach and I would give out several. I tried to give them out for intangible reasons and make sure I recognized people and things that many would not recognize. Things like playing hard on the scout team, giving great effort in individual parts of practice or in the weight room. I also always recognized a couple young players for their hard work.

We even let the teachers get in on the fun. On Wednesday mornings I would usually send an email to the faculty and ask them who they wanted to give a helmet sticker. This was a hit. Teachers would respond with people who were doing well in their class. I would have a list and I would read off which teachers gave out stickers to what players. The players loved it. They would go to class and beg teachers to get a helmet sticker. Teachers responded to me that they had seen an increase in positive behavior with some athletes because of helmet stickers. It was a great way for the teachers to show they cared to the athletes.

Finally, we would let the players give out helmet stickers. Players would select other players who they thought stood out during the week. They would stand up and say who they wanted to give the sticker to and for what reason. Everyone clapped for each person. We had to limit it each week to usually around 10 stickers. At least one of those stickers needed to be given by a player to another player for something they did outside of the field. We heard some good things that players said about other players in the classroom and in the community. It was a thing that really made our team closer.

As the Athletic Director and Head Football Coach I was usually charged with being the “administrator on duty” at our basketball games. I was not much help to cover games in the fall so I enjoyed attending our basketball games. I would always make a point to go see the football players that were in attendance and talk to them. At one particular game I had one of our freshman football players come up to me and show me the back of his cell phone where he had placed the helmet sticker that I gave him a few months earlier. He had taken it off his helmet after the season and stuck it on his phone so he could keep it. He told me, “I was prouder of this than anything else, Coach!” I was genuinely amazed at how much that meant to him. It took little effort from me, but it meant a great deal to him. That is just one instance of many times players told me stories about how they got a helmet sticker. Those little helmet stickers meant a lot!

Show them you care: How do you do it?

• Take advantage of every opportunity to brag on someone – do not be “too cool” to say nice things about people. They need to hear nice things when they do something well. Positive reinforcement is a real thing!

• Have a rewards and awards system – you do not have to use helmet stickers but find something where you can reward and award people for doing good things.

• Recognize birthdays – I always kept a running list of everyone in our organization and recognize their birthdays. You can do it on social media, or you can simply send them a message wishing them happy birthday. It takes a minute or two a day and it is a great way to show you care.

• Embrace the current – Social Media is a great tool that we did not have when I was starting out in athletics. If you want to show people you care, you must meet them where they are. Whenever the next thing comes around, find that!

Get to know them

Do not treat the people in your program like they are just a part of the puzzle or a person you are using to help “your” program. Make them feel like part of “our” program by genuinely getting to know them. This is another common mistake made by coaches. They accidently treat players like they only matter relative to their value on the field or court. This is a huge mistake. I have not seen many coaches do this on purpose but when you do not have a clear plan to get to know your players, it can happen. Talk to players about their personal lives. Do not make it all about the game.

Team building activities are a great way to get to know people in your organization. These can be formal or informal events. We always had some planned “team events” each year but I...