Tag: leadership

Communications, Leadership, Responsibility and Discipline

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It can be challenging and rewarding to teach communications skills, leadership, responsibility, and discipline to young athletes. This blog post illustrates what happens when young athletes don’t learn those skills.

Coach K

The following quotes from Coach K (http://coachk.com/quotes/) address the importance of the above-mentioned skills.

  • “No matter how successful you believe you yourself to be, you can never feel as if you’ve reached the absolute pinnacle. There are always new and wonderful challenges out there, and part of maintaining success is knowing when you need to accept them.”
  • “Effective teamwork begins and ends with communication.”
  • “Communication does not always occur naturally, even among a tight-knit group of individuals. Communication must be taught and practiced in order to bring everyone together as one.”
  • “Making shots counts, but not as much as the people who make them.”
  • “A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on “x’s and o’s” as compared to time spent learning about people.”

On November 24, 2015 the Boulder Daily Camera ran an article, “CU football: Apsay apologizes to teammates for ‘harsh comments’ – QB criticized receivers, linemen after loss”

The article stated:
During the frustrating moments after Colorado’s 27-3 loss to Washington State on Saturday night, redshirt freshman quarterback Cade Apsay threw some criticism at his receivers and linemen.
On Tuesday, Apsay said he apologized to his teammates and doesn’t feel there will be lingering issues from those comments.
“I’ve actually apologized to the receivers and the linemen, especially,” said Apsay, who made his first career start last week. “I know I made some pretty harsh comments. I didn’t realize I was at the time. The postgame emotions got the best of me. When I did apologize to them, they didn’t really care much, especially the linemen. We’re all pretty close anyway.”
Head coach Mike MacIntyre said he didn’t know about Apsay’s postgame comments but was glad that his young quarterback took the initiative to apologize to his teammates. Junior quarterback Sefo Liufau, who is injured and didn’t make the trip to Washington, said it’ll be a good learning experience for Apsay.

The freshman quarterback was presented a great opportunity and he made a mistake. He was given a chance to learn from his error.

The story has an unfortunate ending. On March 1, 2015 the Boulder Daily Camera ran an article. “Cade Apsay, Evan White dismissed from Colorado football team -Both were dismissed “for violating team policies”

The article stated:
One day before spring football is set to begin, Colorado announced that quarterback Cade Apsay and safety Evan White have been dismissed from the team.
Head coach Mike MacIntyre said Tuesday that both were dismissed “for violating team policies.”
Apsay, who would have been a redshirt sophomore, was the Buffs’ second-team quarterback last season and started the final two games after Sefo Liufau went down with a season-ending foot injury.
Apsay completed 64.1 percent of his passes (59 of 92) for 582 yards, three touchdowns and five interceptions this past season. He was expected to compete with redshirt freshman Steven Montez and senior Jordan Gehrke at quarterback this spring.

Hopefully the freshman quarterback will learn from these two mistakes.

The Bottom Line
College athletic programs provide students with a  great venue for learning the lessons of life. The only caveat is the athletes have to be willing participants in the learning process.

One of two things has happened. Either communications, leadership, responsibility, and discipline are not being taught in the CU football program or not all athletes are taking advantage of a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow as individuals.

Relentless Competitors

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Are you looking for a way to motivate your athletes to be more competitive?

Jeff Janssen has written a series of books about leadership, team building, coaching, and competitiveness. His book Develop Relentless Competitors Drillbook provides coaches with drills, concepts, activities, and stories to help them raise their athletes’ levels of competitiveness. Examples are provided in the following paragraphs. Relentless Competitors

Concepts

Carolina Basketball’s Awards Board

In a nutshell Coach Roy Williams tracks statistics in 37 categories such as charges taken, box outs, and deflections. The categories also include turnovers, the quality of the screens, and the passes that would have been assists if the shot had not been missed. Ratios are established to measure the relationship between positive and negative plays.

These statistics did not focus on winning; rather they focused on the process of winning. Data was published shortly after each game which allowed played to have immediate feedback. As well, this allowed the coaches to recognize the players on a regular basis for their accomplishments in each of these key categories.

One of the important benefits of the awards board was that it helped players see the broader scope of the game. As well, the data provided athletes with the ability to objectively see what they needed to do to improve. The data was particularly helpful in determining the players who started and sat on the bench.

Activities

Competitiveness Continuum Discussion

Janssen has developed a continuum where players can rate themselves on the following scale of competitiveness:
• Scared
• Wimpy
• Passive
• Indifferent
• Assertive
• Aggressive
• Fierce
After rating themselves players can learn steps they can take to transition from being a scared competitor to a fierce competitor.

In addition, Janssen takes it a step further and suggests that coaches have their players evaluate their teammates on this continuum as a tool for helping them bring out the competitiveness in their teammates. Most likely, that exercise should be implemented with discretion.

Stories

The Bike Story

Stories are a great tool for helping people learn lessons they can apply to sports and life.

A young boy in Kentucky wanted a bike, but he realized his parents couldn’t afford to buy him one. He found a job at a local grocery store to earn money to buy a second-hand used bike.  The boy rode it from dawn to dusk, but it was stolen after he had owned it for only a week. A few years later this young boy got involved in the sport of boxing. As a form of self-motivation, he would look at his opponent and imagine that his opponent was the person who stole his bike. This tactic seemed to work. As it turned out, Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali), became one of the best heavyweight boxers of all-time.

Drills

You the Man

This drill is an effective way to help volleyball players learn to focus on passing and terminating the ball. The coach designates a terminator for both teams. The only time they earn a point is when that person ends the point. Each team must focus on getting good passes so their setter can effectively set the designated terminator. Teams are trying to make it difficult for their opponents to get good passes. As well, they may utilize special defenses, such as double or triple blocks, to prevent the opponents from terminating. Varying scoring systems can be used.

Even though coaches and players have a variety of tools and techniques for encouraging their teammates to get fired up, they will find Janssen’s book to be a quick read that may provide them with some new ideas for becoming relentless competitors.

The End of an Era at the USPTA – Bad News or an Opportunity?

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This past year marked the end of an era at the USPTA (United States Professional Tennis Association) when Tim Heckler stepped down as CEO. Heckler’s departure will be a major loss to tennis because of his vision, respect within the industry, ability to work with all organizations, and commitment to represent the viewpoints of all members, even those he disagreed with. Under Heckler’s leadership, the organization truly set the standards by which the sport was taught.

It is fully recognized that John Embree, the new USPTA CEO, is a capable man and a proven leader, but it remains to be seen whether he can garner the support of all 17 divisions. For the past two years, some of the association’s elected leaders have been so focused on creating change they have failed to develop and communicate a vision for the future. It is the membership, i.e. Executive Committee, not the CEO who provides the direction for the association. It will be Embree’s job to work with the divisions to fulfill the wishes of the membership. Good luck!

There are a number of challenges to be faced in the months ahead. Some of the questions that must be answered are listed below.

  • The USPTA has been a leader in the industry. Over the past two years its credibility has been diminished by the hatred, lack of ethics, greed, and pettiness demonstrated by key leaders. How much will this hurt the association and industry?
  • How many USPTA members have been lost because of its family feud? Will new members be incented to join the USPTA because of the hope and change provided the new leadership?
  • Does the new leadership have a vision for the future, now that they have accomplished their goal of ousting Tim Heckler? If so, when will it be communicated to the members?
  • Will the new leadership be transparent in its operation of the association?
  • What new, fresh, cutting-edge ideas will the new leadership put on the table to raise the standards for teaching the sport? How will they increase the number of players playing the game?
  • How many USPTA members have been lost because of the weak economy that plagued the U.S. for a majority of the past decade? What will be done to get them back in the fold?
  • Historically, sponsors have played a major role in supporting the organization. How many USPTA sponsors will be lost because of a diminished base of members and the change in leadership? Will additional sponsorships be attracted because of the change in leadership?
  • This past fall there were rumors that the USPTR and USPTA would be merged. The groups have co-existed for 35 years in a manner that has made the teaching profession stronger. Why has this issue again become a priority? How will such a merger, if it occurs, further the teaching profession and help promote the sport of tennis?
  • It makes sense for USPTA members to also be members of the USTA, but they should not be required to do so. Will the new regime require USPTA members to join the USTA?
  • How will the new leadership increase the number of women professionals?
  • How will the new leadership increase the number of minority professionals?
  • There have been rumors that the recent tumult was driven by the USTA to divide and conquer the USPTA. Will the USPTA be folded into the USTA within the next five years?
  • Will continuing education be mandated?
  • Will John Embree last longer than four years in his new position?
  • Will the USPTA be in existence ten years from now?

Moving forward there are three priorities for the USPTA and the industry.

Tennis is a great sport. As difficult decisions are addressed within the USPTA and between it and other groups, it must be remembered that Tennis has to remain the top priority.

Second, it is essential that the companies and alphabet soup of organizations in the industry remember that The players are the most important part of the game. They buy the goods and services provided by industry. For the most part, the players don’t care about the politics of the sport and industry. They just want to play tennis.

Third, The tennis professional introduces players to the sport, teaches them how to play and improve their game, sells them equipment, provides them with opportunities to play, encourages them to watch their favorite pros on television, and creates an experience they allows players to enjoy the sport for a lifetime. There is no need to have the USTA, USPTA, USPTR, WIlson, Penn, Head, and others without the tennis professionals who bring the players to the sport. The professionals have an obligation to maintain high standards by which the sport is taught and abide by those standards. The rest of the industry has the responsibility to respect and support the professionals.

Game on!