The idea of a Perpetual Motion machine, one that creates as much (or more) energy than it uses may be a myth in the world of physics, but in teaching and coaching it does indeed exist.
Energy In = Energy Out
The more “energy” you put into your coaching and teaching, the more “energy” you will see come out of your students and athletes.
Don’t believe me… try it Monday!
You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
All it takes is a quick look at FootballScoop.com to see that mastery of technology is no longer a “bonus” when looking for a job, but a requirement… especially, it seems, for entry level positions. I did a quick scan of posted positions today and these were just a few of the skills needed…
It wasn’t long ago a coach could tout proficiency in these skills as something that would set them apart from the next candidate…. now they are the expectations.
So how does that affect you and your career?
If you don’t have these skills, or they are out of your comfort zone (see Expanding Our Comfort Zone) the off-season is a great time to become stronger in these areas.
Also, and maybe more importantly, what are the next wave of technology skills that can once again set you apart from the crowd?
Five years ago few would have thought any of the above were skills that coaches/ teachers needed to have. Can you be ahead of the curve for the next five years? Think of the related technologies that have not even been developed yet.
Clicking on any of the links above will take you to a post that will help you get started with that technology…. thanks to Coach Keith Grabowski for many of the links!
Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
The Seattle Seahawk’s Super Bowl run was fueled by their defense. Do you know who their defensive coordinator was this season?
The Denver Broncos had the top offense this year in the NFL. Can you name their offensive coordinator?
If you are like most fans, you probably cannot.
Ernest Shackelton is credited with engineering one of the most amazing maritime survival stories in History. His ship, Endurance, got trapped in an ice flow during his Antarctic expedition in 1914. As a result, he and his crew had to live on the Antarctic ice for a year, and then board three lifeboats when the ice eventually crushed the Endurance. They sailed the boats 350 miles to Elephant Island.
At this point Shackelton took five men in one 20-foot long lifeboat and made an 800-mile open ocean journey to South Georgia Island where a whaling station was located. After landing on South Georgia Island his group hiked 36 miles over the mountainous terrain to reach the whaling station.
After reaching the whaling station he immediately set out back to Elephant Island and rescued his stranded crew. Four and a half months after leaving his men on the island he returned to safely rescue all 22 of his crew.
As I mentioned earlier, Shackelton is credited with this amazing survival story.
The thing is, it was actually the skills and leadership of the captain of the Endurance, Frank Worsley that saved the men. He was the one who sailed and navigated the ships safely to their destination on each leg of this epic journey. Worsley was the type of leader that avoided the limelight, and was content with just doing his job to the best of his ability. Few know Frank Worsley’s name… many know the name of Ernest Shackelton.
Worsley was “Leading Up”.
Marketing/ Business Guru, Seth Godin explains “Leading Up” as…
“… creating a reputation and an environment where the people around you are transformed into the bosses you deserve. When you do this with intention, it gets easier and easier. From afar, it seems impossible, and it will be until you commit to it.”
Someone who is leading up [I have added my comments in the brackets]…
“…takes the right amount of initiative, defers the right amount of credit and orchestrates success. That success might happen despite (not because) of who her bosses [head coach/ athletic director] are, and that’s just fine, because she’s leading up.”
Everyone knows the name Peyton Manning…. The Bronco’s Offensive Coordinator is Adam Gase.
Pete Carroll gets the lions share of credit for the Seahawks Super Bowl victory…. His Defensive Coordinator is Dan Quinn
Ernest Shackelton is a maritime legend but the real hero of the story was Frank Worsley.
They all are examples of “Leading Up”
More on leadership at these posts:
You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
In a post Super Bowl press conference, Russell Wilson was asked when he knew the 2013-14 Seahawk team was going to be special. He said he knew it early on because they had a “Championship Off-Season”
Most of us are now well into our off-season programs. Can you tell if your team is going to be special in 2014? Are you having a championship off-season?
I can think back to all of the “special” squads that I have coached… and we had an inkling … normally about this time of the year… that the team was destined for good things.
What were the indications? What were the qualities that set these teams apart during the off-season?
Often, I think, it was a combination of things… both tangible and intangible.
Attendance. – Although attendance is critical, there was a difference between groups that “just showed up” and those that showed up with a purpose. There was an intensity in the air with the great teams that you could feel… it was palpable, and contagious.
Team Bonding and Team Building – There is a huge difference between what I call “trust fall” team building and True Team Building. The teams that really bonded would work, eat, sweat, and puke together.
Leadership – The biggest difference that I could put my finger on is teams that had an “organically grown” group of leaders, as opposed to teams whose leadership was voted or appointed, were typically better… there was greater accountability.
Fun – With some of my best groups, the harder you worked them, the more fun they had. It was like a daily challenge that “we could not break them”… it was very similar to the Short Work of a Long Road scene from the movie, Cool Hand Luke.
So, how would you rate your team at this juncture? Are they a “special” team? Are you having a “Championship Off-Season”? Are you “feeling it”? If not, is there anything that you can do to change the trajectory your team is on?
One thing that I am certain of… if you have too many conversations like the one below, it is probably not a good sign!
You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Thanks to PrepsKC, the home of the Greater Kansas City Football Coaches Association for running this post today on their site. If you get a chance to visit (and “Like” my post) you will find many good stories.
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
First… if you have not watched A Football Life, Vince Lombardi, I highly recommend it. It is a combination of information from the David Maraniss biography, When Pride Still Mattered, and John Eisenberg’s book about Lombardi’s initial year in Green Bay, That First Season. It has lots of great film footage, quotes, and overall coaching information. It is a genealogy/ history of football coaching.
A couple of quick takeaways…
Three words that many coaches have trouble saying… me included.
“I need help”
Is it that we are too proud to admit a fault, or have too much hubris and think we know it all?
I know that I am not good at saying or admitting that I need help, and at times it has slowed my growth as a coach.
Vince Lombardi began coaching at St. Cecillia high school in New Jersey. He won 5 consecutive state titles before heading to Fordham and then West Point to coach with the legendary Red Blaik. After a successful stint there, he went to the NFL as an assistant coach with the New York Giants (a pretty good staff…. Lombardi ran the offense and Tom Landry ran the defense).
Coach Lombardi overcame his pride during his first year in the NFL.
Coach Lombardi struggled adapting his coaching style to the NFL… and by some accounts was on the verge of being (in the words of Frank Gifford) laughable. Coach Lombardi was not afraid to admit he needed help. One evening during his first training camp with the Giants, he went to the room of Gifford and his room-mate Charlie Conerly and asked “What am I doing wrong?” They visited and shared some insight, and according to Gifford, “the football information just poured out of him from that point on”.
If Coach Lombardi can admit that “I need help”, then it is something we probably all could do from time to time.
John Madden realized he did not “know it all” after attending a football clinic where Vince Lombardi was speaking on the Power Sweep.
In 1962 Madden was coaching at a California Junior College. He walked into Lombardi’s presentation and had a seat in the back.
“How stupid was that… Vince Lombardi was talking about the Power Sweep and I took a seat in the back row like in church”
Madden shared that Lombardi spoke for 8 hours… ON ONE PLAY, the Power Sweep…
“He talked for four hours… we took a lunch break, then came back and he spoke for four more hours. I walked out of that clinic and realized that I did not know a damn thing about football”
When we think we “know it all” and stop being lifetime learners, we are probably in trouble.
Here are a couple of clips of on Lombardi teaching the Power Sweep… classic
I highly recommend this show, as well as the books, When Pride Still Mattered, by David Maraniss, and That First Season, by Jim Eisenberg.
Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
I hope that I can effectively tell this story…
It was summer during my early high school years. I was at home one afternoon doing what one does during their early high school years in the summer…. not much. A visitor arrived… not for me, but for my sister Joyce who was home from college.
It was her boyfriend, Jack Fischer.
This was the first time I had met Jack, and I was not impressed. He had long hair… ponytail long, long sideburns, cutoff jean shorts and an old T-Shirt. He was from the East Coast, was boisterous and I thought pretty arrogant. He was a Hippy, and I did not like Hippies. It took me about 2 minutes to formulate this opinion.
Jack tried to initiate a conversation with me, but I was not too interested.. until he started talking about sports. He asked what sports I participated in. He had no interest in football, but when I mentioned running track, that was a different story.
It seemed that Jack ran track too when he was in school, and was a sprinter as I was. The conversation started to move toward what my best times were in my races; 100m, 200m, 400m.
I was fast…. in athletics, that was always my “thing”. My senior year I had one of the top 100m dash times and THE fastest 200m dash time in the Kansas City metro area. I also had one of the top 400m run times. I was FAST… and I knew it.
Jack was unimpressed. Coming from the East Coast, I am sure he thought my rankings were due to my country bumpkin competition. When I asked his times… he “could not remember”… how convenient.
He did offer up a solution … instead of comparing times, lets just go out back in the field and have a race. Perfect!
There was no way this guy was going to win… he was a squatty 5-foot nothing with “cankles”… and I am sure hadn’t done any racing or serious training in YEARS. This was going to be fun.
So, out back we went… we set up the course, did some light stretching and we are ready. I acquiesced and allowed him the honor of giving the usual starting commands of “runners take your mark… set… GO!”
And Jack proceeded to win the race … easily.
It seems that I was wrong about this squatty body guy not being able to run… and wrong about all my initial impressions…. Jack ended up marrying my big sister Joyce, and was one of the funniest, smartest, most interesting and nicest guys you could ever meet. I loved Jack like a brother.
A year ago today Jack lost his “race” with cancer.
When you judge a book by its cover you miss the most interesting parts.
You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
Everyone is Legendary at Something.
That is the tagline for the new Heineken Beer ad campaign which features…
And so on… 20 different guys on a cruise ship legendary at something. (You can see the ad in its entirety, including all the legends casting video at this link: Heineken – Odyssey Interactive
Everyone is legendary at something…
So, Coach… what is your legendary skill?
Now, just as important… how can you share that legendary skill? That is why you got into coaching and teaching… correct? Because you want to share/ teach/ coach/ help … other people.
Can you…
When you share your legendary skill… your art… it will come back to you… be selfless, not selfish.
From a Seth Godin post:
“The irony, of course, is that selflessness (not selfishness, its opposite) is precisely the posture that leads to more success. The person with the confidence to support others and to share is repaid by getting more in return than his selfish counterpart.
The connection economy multiplies the value of what is contributed to it. It’s based on abundance, not scarcity, and those that opt out, fall behind.
Sharing your money, your ideas, your insights, your confidence… all of these things return to you. Perhaps not in the way you expected, and certainly not with a guarantee, but again and again the miser falls behind.”
Everyone is Legendary at something!
Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
National Signing Day is exciting.
For the seniors signing the NLI , today is the culmination of the recruiting process. For everyone else (athletes in grades 9-11) the process is either still ongoing, or just getting going.
When I checked my blog stats over the last couple of weeks, I noticed a huge spike with search terms regarding recruiting and that National Letter of Intent. People with questions like “Does signing the NLI mean I get a full scholarship?” and “How will the NLI be delivered?”. This tells me what I already know… the recruiting process can be a scary and confusing time for student-athletes and their parents.
For student-athletes and parents with questions, I have compiled some links and posts that might help understand the recruiting process. For high school coaches, steering your athletes and parents to these posts might help relieve some of the burden of explaining this complicated process. I also make the point… often and strongly… that a high school coach will not “get you (or anyone) a scholarship”… that it is ultimately up to them as a student-athlete.
You can click on the following links to navigate to these pages:
In addition to these written posts, I have recently launched my YouTube Channel that deals specifically with the recruiting process. The channel can be found here : The YouCanDoMore YouTube Channel, and the complete playlist can be viewed here.
The Flipbard Magazines have links my recruiting posts. There is a little overlap, as some of the “Pyramid” posts are also included in the Wanted and Rewarded ebook. They are optimized for viewing on an iPad, but can also be read on your computer.
Questions or Comments are always welcomed… I will answer! Just shoot me an email or leave a comment.
Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
Today, people all over the world will participate in the time honored traditions surrounding the Super Bowl… watch the game (and commercials) with family and friends, and eat…. my tradition since Super Bowl I.
Super Bowl I is indelibly imprinted in my brain, even though I was only 9 years old at the time. It pitted my team, the Kansas City Chiefs, against the reigning World Champions… the big dogs… the Green Bay Packers.
Our whole family (a rather large family with 6 kids) gathered around the old black and white TV, ate s’mores (a “new” taste treat in 1967) and watched the Packers defeat the Chiefs.
That is what I remember…. family, eating, TV… and then the utter disappointment because my team lost.
It is easy, with 20/20 hindsight vision, to see with clarity how amazing this game was, and these two teams were.
There were no less than 17 future NFL Hall of Fame members on the field for that first Super Bowl! Here is a list of players (and links to their HOF page) from each of these teams that are now enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame:
Now for some editorial comment…
There are two glaring exceptions to this list – #64 Jerry Kramer from the Packers, and #89 Otis Taylor from the Chiefs.
Jerry Kramer was a six-time All-Pro (five first-team honors) at right guard and also went to three Pro Bowls and was on the NFL All-Decade team for the 1960s.
In addition to all that, Kramer was named as a member of the NFL’s 50th anniversary team in 1969. Kramer is the only member of that team not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Jerry Kramer was a member of 5 NFL championship teams and 2 Super Bowl championship squads.
Otis Taylor, Wide Receiver for the Chiefs from 1965-1975, was one of the best and most exciting wide receivers of his era. Taylor was part of two championship teams, numerous playoff teams, and selected to the Pro Bowl 3 times. His TD catch in Super Bowl IV sealed the Lombardi Trophy for the Chiefs in 1970. Taylor led the AFL in receiving touchdowns in 1967, and led the NFL in receiving yards in 1971.
Great players… great coaches…. great memories…
Enjoy the game – be safe.
Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com