source

“The road to achievement takes time, a long time, but you do not give up.  You may have setbacks.  You may have to start over.  You may have to change your method.  You may have to go around, or over, or under.  You may have to back up and get another start.  But you do not quit.  You stay the course.  To do that, you must have intentness.”—John Wooden

John Wooden is the man.  There’s really no other way to see it.  I thumb through his book, Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, at least once a week.  In the section he devotes to intentness, he uses different words as synonyms to describe what intentness means to him.  So I’ve decided to look those words up in order to shed more light on exactly what intentness should mean to us with our teams.  It turns out that it’s not just one thing, but a combination of five wonderful traits that all of us would love to see in our players.

5 characteristics of teams that are intent on success

Determination: When I looked this word up, the definition that stood out to me was “firmness of purpose”.  I often remind my team that they’ve got to be sure of their goals, because achieving them will be hard.  If they’re not sure…it may just be too hard.  Building our team goals on a firm foundation of belief will help our teams to be determined.

Persistence: “Constantly repeating” is what the dictionary had to say about this one.  As a coach, I love that definition, because that’s another way of saying “practice”!  If our teams are persistent in their approach to practices (and corrections within practice), then success is sure to follow.

Tenacity: Love this one too!  “Holding together, cohesive, tough.”  Like I talked about with determination, sometimes the road to success is very hard.  Weak teams fall apart…they start fighting amongst each other or forming cliques within the team.  But strong teams?  The hard times bring them together and make them a more cohesive unit.

Perseverance: “Steady persistence in a course of action, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.”  Can you imagine a season without difficulties?  Have you had one without obstacles?  Surely there have been points during the season when your team is discouraged.  In spite of it all, we press on…never losing hope that we’ll be successful in the end!

Patience: This one is a toughie for anyone…who really wants to be patient?  Most of us would rather be successful now rather than later, but that’s not the way it typically works.  Generally you plug away, always doing things the right way, until your team (eventually) finds success.  The definition:  “the capacity for calmly enduring pain or trying situations.”

If we nurture these characteristics in our teams, I believe that we’ll be on our way to building successful teams, seasons, and players.

You can check out more of my writing at www.coachdawnwrites.com.  You can follow me on Twitter @CoachDawnWrites and Facebook so that we can connect and talk coaching.

source

“If you’re afraid of failure, you will never do the things you are capable of doing.”—John Wooden

I sometimes wonder if we’re creating a generation of young people who have never had to deal with failure.  They play age group sports where the score isn’t kept, or if it is, they all get participation trophies or ribbons.  As a consequence, they don’t have to capability to navigate the emotions that failure brings, they don’t have the self-awareness that failure brings, and they most certainly don’t get the correction that failure brings.  As you can imagine, I believe that sport is a great teacher of all of those lessons and more.  In order to reach the pinnacle of the Pyramid (competitive greatness), a measure of initiative will be required…check out these three reasons why!

3 ways that having initiative will make your athletes courageous

They will have the courage to make decisions.
You’ve seen it.  I’ve seen it.  We’ve all seen it.  The athlete that looks at the bench constantly to check in with the coach.  They do something awesome…they check with coach.  They do something awful…they check with coach.  They are so unsure on their own two feet that they need constant reinforcement.  Not only is that player probably annoying to their coach, they’re suffering from a severe case of fear.  That player is afraid their coach isn’t happy with their performance.  With some time in the gym and some leeway to stretch their wings, that player can learn the type of initiative that’s necessary to make game time decisions that they’ll know their coach will be proud of…without checking the bench every two seconds!

They will have the courage to take action.
Say you’ve got captains.  And say they see some of their teammates doing things off of the court that are detrimental to their on-the-court performance.  It doesn’t even have to be something clearly wrong (and illegal) like underage drinking or doing drugs.  What will your captains do when they see their teammates lying to you about doing their weight room workouts?  Or when they hear that their teammates are playing another sport during the season and risking injury?  Well, if you’ve trained them well, they will take action.  They will talk to their teammate and hopefully squash it before you even know about the problem.

They will have the courage to push their limits.
What if I fail?  That’s a question that all of us ask ourselves at some point in time.  Folks with initiative push through that uneasy feeling.  Every year during our first practice of the season, I tell my team to let go of any aspirations of perfection.  I tell them that they’re going to make mistakes…sometimes really big ones.  And that sometimes those mistakes will come at crucial times and they’ll be so disappointed with themselves.  Then I reassure them that no one expects anything from them except their personal best…and the only way to get to their personal best is to test themselves.  Then I tell them that “testing yourself” is coach-speak for making mistakes and pushing their limits.  I want my team to have the courage to see just how good they can be…don’t you?

Let’s all agree to teach our teams about the antidote to fear:  initiative.

You can check out more of my writing at www.coachdawnwrites.com.  You can follow me on Twitter @CoachDawnWrites and Facebook so that we can connect and talk coaching.

source

“As you strive to reach your personal best, alertness will make the task much easier.”—John Wooden

I’ve written before about using the Pyramid as a team building exercise with my team.  Without fail, alertness is a tough one for whomever is lucky enough to pick this particular block.  If you do an internet search on alertness, you’ll find lots of information about caffeinated products designed to keep people awake.  The alertness Wooden is talking about is deeper than that though.  I went to the always reliable Wikipedia to find out what they had to say about alertness. Using their page as a starting point, let’s talk about three ways we can help our teams use alertness to become more successful.

3 attributes of alert athletes

1.      Pay close and continuous attention. My high school volleyball coach talked about being alert so much so that our team started calling ourselves “lerts”.  We didn’t appreciate him enough at the time, because he was a wise man.  Imagine if our teams were consistently alert in practice!  Our athletes would learn from the coaching staff by listening and they’d learn from each other by watching.

2.      Be watchful and prompt to meet an emergency.  This one builds upon the first.  If our athletes have paid close and continuous attention, then they’ll be able to respond to an emergency.  You’re probably wondering what kind of an emergency our athletes will encounter on our courts and fields.  To me, the 6’2” girl across the net who can touch 10’2” constitutes an emergency!  Hopefully our athletes have learned to recognize tendencies and weaknesses in their opponents so that they can properly respond to whatever emergency presents itself in competition.

3.      Quick to perceive and act. This one is more of an intangible.  Don’t we want all of our athletes to be self-aware?  A big part of alertness is knowing their place on the team…and being happy with it.  The young lady whose skills aren’t up to par quite yet should be content with preparing the starters for competition.  That’s being alert to your position and role on the team.  Or how about when your team captain notices that one of her teammates has been down in the dumps lately, so she pays extra attention to her.  That’s being alert to your teammates’ disposition and how it could affect the group.

Can you think of other ways that alertness can be applied to our athletes?

You can check out more of my writing at www.coachdawnwrites.com.  You can follow me on Twitter @CoachDawnWrites and Facebook so that we can connect and talk coaching.