The ladies came together gathering around the central pillar in our weight room to receive feedback from our strength & conditioning staff regarding the outcome of their mission.  They circled up standing shoulder to shoulder while their hands were still covered in chalk and sweat still pouring down their faces.  They look eagerly towards us awaiting to receive their mission outcome.  We make it a habit to debrief the team and the individual leader for every session (or evolution) we lead our athletes through.  In this session, Whitney stood proudly in front of her teammates having lead her squad through the 60 minutes of challenging feats of strength & power.

“Give it up to Whitney for having the courage to lead the team today”, I command.  The teammates hoot and holler while applauding and acknowledging Whitney’s trial of fire through our leadership program.

“Let’s Debrief.  Whitney, give your teammates one thing they did well today and one thing they need to improve on before our next session.” I said.  She turned to her teammates and commented that her squad did a great job communicating coaching cues to each other while navigating through a new lift, consisting of new exercises.  I nod my head while listening to her.

Whitney then addressed that the team needed to do a better job at hustling from one exercise to another.  I paused as I listened to the words Whitney was saying.   “Their were moments where I was coaching you to jog from one side of the weight room to the other and not every single athlete was responding”.

I affirmed her statement by nodding along as she was recalling the tough and physically challenging 60 minute session.  I held a long pause, to draw the team’s focus, before moving along.  “Teammates!  Give your team leader one thing she did well today and one thing she needs to improve on before her next opportunity to lead.” I asked the team.

The teammates were quick to respond on Whitney’s ability to to “see the room” and offer vigorous partner coaching to every single one of them.  Tonya, one of Whitney’s teammates, quickly added “Although I wasn’t Whitney’s partner during this lift, she was always pushing me to do better; even while she was struggling through an exercise, her focus was on improving her teammates.”

“Tonya, You’re absolutely right” I said.  I scanned the team and made individual eye contact for a few moments with every athlete.  “What’s one thing she can improve on before her next leading opportunity?” I inquired.  The team fell silent and soon after, the eye contact strayed.

“If you’re too afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, you’ll never be confident in your ability to lead” I said.  I attempted to get the ball rolling by addressing our fundamental strength & conditioning belief.

‘”Whitney, you’re responsibility is to make sure our teammates accomplish the mission.  Your mission today was to ensure every athlete abide by our four weight room standards.  You identified that several of your teammates did not respond to you coaching.  Their response falls upon your ability to lead; as its your sole responsibility to complete the mission.”

She responded with an affirming nod and continued to listen.

“Use my staff to help communicate your message.  If you see teammates not responding to your command, confront the teammate to walk in lock-stop.  I promise you that I’ll back you 100% during the session.” She again nodded understandingly.

I asked the rest of my staff to contribute their feedback regarding what they witnessed during the lift.  In an instructed and educated manner, they sandwich their responses to the team of athletes.  They start by reinforcing  or praising a few positive elements of the session.  Our staff then follows the positive reinforcement with future-oriented instruction that identifies elements of the lift where the athlete could improve.  My team then encourages them with motivational praise ergo conveying our confidence in their ability to perform the skill correctly.

“What are we saying today” I enthusiastically command as I reach my clutched fist into the middle of the circle.  “Shocks on three”, Whitney responded.  In a violent eruption Whitney yells out “one, two, three” .  The team roars will a loud and defining “SHOCKS!” 

It’s all in a days work, and coincidentally, it all transpires in final moments of each session.  I believe these last 5 minutes allow for the greatest growth of an athlete.  Perhaps, more importantly, it allows for the greatest opportunity for the growth of a leader.

It was a particularly gloomy day in Wichita, Kansas but that didn’t stop the hustling of our Wichita State athletes from flying through the weight room like a precision strike missile set upon it’s destination.  I love days that this.  The atmosphere in the weight room was perfect; one part fantastic momentum from a great weekend sweep; another part great senior leadership; and equal parts of both competitive & hungry freshman and sophomores eager to move up the depth charts.  This makes for a great environment to train and an even better one to coach under.

This atmosphere is akin to having a freshly hand-washed 2011 Ferrari, turbo charged, and eager for top speed drive.  The road conditions are perfect with freshly paved cement and a straight away stretch that begs for putting the pedal to the metal.  What a great day for cutting loose and opening the speed up.

Stephanie was one of my more gifted athletes; she was one of the most talented athletes I’ve worked with.   On the court, she was a complete show stopper; dominant, aggressive and eager to put the team first.  I cannot reiterate the capabilities and talents Stephanie had.  My job is to help her realize how dominant she really is.

Stephanie had only one downfall to her game; herself.  The session was coming to a enthusiastic finish and I noticed Stephanie wasn’t herself throughout the lift.  ”Steph!” I said questioning. “Let’s talk when you finish foam-rolling”.  She nodded.  Moments later, Stephanie came into my office with her workout card in hand and sat down in front of my desk.

As I commonly do, I motioned for her workout card and she slid it across my desk.  I sat bewildered as I read through her latest lifting session.  After drawing comparisons from her previous six weeks of lifts, I noticed that Stephanie didn’t attempt to progress in either weight or reps during this last lift.

“Stephanie, is there any confusion about what my expectations are?” I said sternly.  She looked back at me and repeated “The team looks up to me during the sessions because I am their go-to on the court”. She added, “I don’t want to fail in front of them so I didn’t add weight to my lifts today.  I don’t want them to see me struggle, or possibly worse, fail.”

I handed the workout card back to Stephanie and added to the conversation “Steph, you’re an amazing athlete capable of so much more; I wouldn’t tell you otherwise if I didn’t believe in these words with full conviction” I said.  ”You are a top speed Ferrari but are deathly afraid to take it above 35 MPHs.  Believe in yourself.  Believe in your preparation” I added.

“You’re teammates are counting on you to push yourself to your full potential and any failure to do so hurts the team” I said.  ”I know you were trying to protect the team by securing their confidence in you, but in reality, you’ve cheated yourself an opportunity to let it rip”, I said.

Stephanie gathered her belongings and collected herself before leaving my office.  She responded “I understand what you mean about being capable of so much more.  My team needs me to lead and part of that means that the need to see me confident under stress.”

I nodded and I repeated our leadership creed,  ”A leader accomplishes the mission first, and protects their teammates second.  Your mission is to prepare yourself to the demands of the sport.  Do not forget what the mission is.”

The next lifting session I witnessed a transformation in Stephanie.  I want to write that I didn’t know this transformation was possible, but that would be a lie;  I knew Stephanie had more to give than what she ever believed.  After all, she’s a top speed Ferrari.   It’s up to her to continue pushing the pedal to the metal.

To prepare our athletes to be both physically and mentally tough, we have identified a need to train our athlete’s minds as well as their physical bodies.  We hold many one-on-one meetings to discuss goal setting, challenges, and realistic expectations of training.  It is during these one-on-one meetings that we can begin to build the foundation for the four C’s of mental toughness training.

Challenge

Some athletes consider challenges to be learning growth-opportunity, whereas other athletes may be likely to consider a challenge as a threat.  Those who embrace challenge may have a mindset for self-development whereas those who avoid challenge may do it out of fear of failure or aversion to effort (Dweck, 2007).  During our meetings and training sessions, we setup the environment where athletes embrace challenging scenarios as a “learning opportunity” rather than a “test”.  This allows for athletes who struggle or lose to embrace an ideology that their “learning” from the experience.

Control

Some athletes believe that they can exert influence over their environment or that they can make a difference and change outcomes.  Whereas, other athletes feel helpless and perceive that outcomes of events are fixed and out of their control.  Our staff tries to empower athletes by giving them simple choices over their environment, i.e. the music, exercise selection, or warm-ups.  We do not allow the coaches to direct every single decision where as we want the athlete to take ownership over the control of their workout.

Commitment

Athletes differ in their likelihood to persist with a goal or work task.  Some athletes, in the face of difficulty, will persist till the skill or task is completed.  Other athletes may easily become distracted, bored or divert their attention to competing goals.  We setup environments where we break down goals or commitments to micro-goals.  We coach our athletes to climb Mount Everest “one step at a time”.  Often times, athletes can lose commitment to a goal or task when the result looks too overwhelming or too far away (Goleman, 1998).

Confidence

Athletes that have high confidence have the self-belief to successfully complete tasks which may be considered too difficult by individuals with similar abilities but lower confidence.  At Wichita State, our staff does everything in our power to build the confidence of our athletes through proper progressions and challenges.  As Harter (1981) wrote about in her research titled “A Model of intrinsic mastery motivation in children”, an athlete’s perception of competency or ability to succeed in a task is highly influential on their intrinsic motivation for that particular task.

At Wichita State, our athletes have learned to accept responsibility and not make excuses for performance.  If our roles as coaches is to prepare athletes for the challenges of tomorrow, than a realistic and transferable skill is accountability.

We don’t allow athletes to make excuses for themselves nor their teammates.  We also don’t allow athletes to accept any excuses.  This has created a culture where athletes are consistently honest with each other and everybody is held to the same accountable actions as everybody else.

We receive a lot of athletes who have talent that delivered them division one scholarships.  The downfall of that statement is that these athletes have relied off of their talent versus their work ethic.  We aim to change that continuum in the direction of relying off of their ability to work extremely hard.  Talent gets you to the starting line; work ethic delivers you to the checkered flag.

It is not uncommon for our staff to physically challenge athletes to do what they believe is impossible.  Conditioning sessions are perfect environments for teaching athletes how to work “ruthlessly hard” as a team.

The Strength of Many is Greater than the Strength of One

Being a leader isn’t a temporary job.  It’s not season position or a typical nine to five.  It isn’t a trait that you can turn on or off at your disposal.  Being a leader is a permanent characteristic that defines a person.  Coaches often ask for my advice when trying to develop leaders out of their athletes and I often admit that there is no better environment to cultivate leadership growth than the strength and conditioning weight room.  I also find it humbling that many other coaches, much my senior, seek my knowledge and expertise about leadership development.  I credit this personal development to expert mentors who’ve groomed and developed world class leadership experiences for myself to foster in.  I only mention this because leadership is not always a natural process.  As humans, our basic mode for survival often predisposes us to selecting the easiest path of least resistance.  The path of least resistance, however, does little to naturally develop leadership qualities that transfer over to the competitive arena.

At Wichita State, we believe in developing leadership qualities through the combined efforts and struggles shared by a team.  There is no better environment for producing natural challenges that test the physical and mental wherewithal, then the strength and conditioning department.  At Wichita State, there are three foundational principles that all Shocker athletes abide by.

1)      We Are Mentally & Physically Tough

2)      We Don’t Make Excuses And We Don’t Let Others Make Excuses For Us

3)      We Work Hard

These are our most basic levels of principles that I expect out of every single one of our shocker athletes.  From the star athlete to the walk-on redshirt, nobody escapes without meeting those expectations.   You would imagine a strength coach to be overly concerned with developing physical strength; however, I am not impressed by amazing increases of physical strength.  I’m concerned and impressed by the increases of mental strength.  Wichita State athletes are bound to become both physically and mentally stronger through systematic training programs.  Shocker athletes will not make excuses for failing to prepare nor will they accept the false excuses given by fellow teammates.  Finally, Wichita State athletes will go above and beyond and work extremely hard to accomplish their goals.

Decisions are made by thinking about the team, rather than oneself.

Those selected individuals who are being groomed as team leaders have even higher expectations from our strength and conditioning department.  It is my belief that successful team leaders lead by doing two things;

1)      Accomplish the mission

2)      Protect The Team

First, without a second of hesitation, successful team leaders accomplish the mission through any adversity that is faced.  What I mean by this is that successful leaders, no matter the circumstances, consistently get the job done.  If a task is given to a leader, it is executed.  If I asked the leader to fulfill a particular role, they do it.  If I ask them to confront a teammate, they confront.  Successful leaders do whatever it takes, to accomplish the mission given to them.

Secondly, successful team leaders protect the team.  Understand the orders of these are absolutely critical. Make no mistake; the most successful leaders will sacrifice feelings and emotions for accomplishing the mission.  At the end of the day, leaders execute in order to accomplish the mission.  Good team leaders, however, also protect the team by saying what others don’t want to, and demanding expectations that others won’t.

Leaders protect the team by several different means.  Successful leader protect the team by demanding nothing but the best out of every single teammate.  They don’t allow for excuses to be made nor do they make excuses for others. Leaders also take responsibility for when a plan does not go smoothly.  We groom our leaders after a defeat, to address the team by taking responsibility for the loss.  A teammate’s failure to follow directions or execute a plan is collectively the responsibility of a team leader.  Leaders also give credit to the team when a plan is properly executed.  They naturally take responsibility and credit for the failures and give credit to the team for victories.  Make no mistake; successful leaders will confront others if they are not carrying out the expectations of their responsibility to the team.  Leading is about being comfortable with being alone.  Having the mental strength to stand alone and carry the pressure and burdens of accepting responsibility for defeat and having the ego and capability of giving away credit in times of victories.

We prepare our Wichita State athletes to be great team leaders and great team mates. Be certain, we prepare our shocker athletes, every single day, to fill either role.

INTRODUCTION “You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.” Jerry Garcia. There is no doubt that within competitive athletics, athletes and coaches alike are always striving to be the on the top of their game.  This quote by Jerry Garcia defined an essence of what my coaching philosophy is about. While this quote is highly cited by many other coaches among collegiate and professional sports, I believe it defines my drive for excellence in coaching. In a 60 Minutes interview, legendary USC football coach Pete Carroll said

“To be all by yourself out there doing something that nobody else can touch—that’s the thought that guides me, that guides this program: We’re going to do things better than it’s ever been done before in everything we do, and we’re going to compete our asses off. And we’re gonna see how far that takes us.” (Linneweber, 2010). It is my personal philosophy to best my full potential in any endeavor I undertake. I believe it is important to no only live up to your potential but to find methods and push yourself to surpass personal potential towards perfection. In coaching I think it is a necessity to strive for your own personal best at everything you do. While perfection remains a figment of imagination or a never ending road, it is important to do everything the best you can at every opportunity. This is the essence of my personal philosophy and it is what defines my coaching philosophy. Doing your best and finding way to surpass your best is what I look to teach my athletes and peers around me. Hurricanes’ head football coach Bill Young said it best when he said “what you see is what you coach”, and I believe in doing my best at every task I approach (Haistan, 2009). If I am seeing something that is below my potential or the potential of another being, it is my responsibility to correct that behavior and accelerate the process towards personal potential perfection. However in life situations, it may be unreasonable to expect that you will be perfect in everything that you do. I must personally admit that I do not think I would make a great youth or high school coach. I expect too much out of my athletes and my desire to compete at everything is not the ideal learning environment for youth athletes. I can accept this fact but that does not mean that if I was in that situation I would do any less than my personal best. Situations like these are reasons why a coaching philosophy is so important; it provides the guidance and foundation. Writing a coaching philosophy should be an easy task. Coaches should simply sit down quietly and reflect on how they would like their program to run. I however find myself in a conundrum as a young coach when drafting this philosophy. In my strength coaching profession I answer to many different people who all want different things from me. The problem with answering to multiple people is that each wants a different objective. The administration will say they define success by GPA and graduation rates. The sport coaching staff defines success by obtaining wins versus losses. Finally, the athletes are looking for an athletic experience that is both fun and rewarding. As a strength coach I must find a balance between pleasing the administration, coaches and the players I lead. Each are as just important as their respective other. In these situations having a clear and present coaching philosophy is necessary in order to provide guidance throughout an ever changing career. Many coaches say that actions speak louder than words; I believe the same principle applies to coaching philosophies. It is easy to say what you would do or how you would act if a situation occurred, but making those decisions in the middle of a crisis is ever more challenging. Understand that philosophies should change depending on the overall objective for the usage of sport. Within all the different levels of sport, while foundational philosophies should remain, the implementation of others will differ greatly.

OBJECTIVES OF SPORT It is incredibly important to understand your personal coaching philosophy because it serves as the roadways in which you will navigate your career. Having clear understanding of your coaching philosophy and style is similar to a teacher and their lesson plans; it guides and operates them through every situation minute by minute. A coaching philosophy remains the foundational unit of every good coach’s decision. Without clear philosophies decisions are often are made on a whim and usually do not reflect the organizational goals initially established. Similar to the proverb “you can not see the forest for the trees”, it is difficult to make big picture plans when overwhelmed with the all the short-term decisions. Understanding what the objectives are for the sport you coach remains an important process necessary for developing your coaching philosophy.

As a coach I understand how a hundred little decisions can be made without calling question the overall big-picture plans and objectives. Having a coaching philosophy allows for consideration of the programs goals and will negate most difficult decisions to be contemplated. Within my own profession and coaching experience, I often have to ask myself “what is the goal”, or “what am I looking to accomplish”. Doing this often allows for me to reflect on what is most important to me, the program, and to the athletes I coach. While the objectives of sport will differ at each individual level as you progression in the career, the goal will remain the same; to educate. Coaches serve as merely educations, nothing more. While the classroom that we operate within differs greatly, the content and purpose of our words and actions remain the same; to enhance and reach the greatest potential of personal success. Whether how one defines success as academically, athletically or spiritually, we can always improve. There is no such thing as perfection; however we must always strive to reach it. As alluded to earlier, sport ultimately serves as an educational tool to prepare individuals for life challenges. Sport is the ultimately life simulator. There are moments in sport that will test self-control, initiative, and intentions. The will be other moments that challenge your desire, humbleness, and leadership capabilities. In the earlier stages of sport development, sport objectives should be focused on creating a fun environment that cultivates fundamental skill development. Winning is secondary to the development of an athlete. I believe as coaches it is our responsibility to foster the pursuit of excellence in both academics and athletics. Much like Jerry Garcia said, “I don’t want to simply be the best; I want to be the only.” I believe my philosophy serves athletes with similar notions. My coaching philosophy is designed to make athletes avoid mediocre performance, but rather serves to foster being the best and striving further and past the mediocrity. I want my athletes and coaching staff to be the only one who is capable of doing what they do.

I believe it is important to realize that that a great majority of these athletes will not go onto collegiate athletics much less professional sports. For these athletes I aim to cultivate a learning experience that is unlike any else. When athletes leave their tenure at their high school or collegiate level, I am hopeful they will have the desire to rise above meritocracy and only accept their best performance; in athletics, academia, professional careers and in life. I aim to challenge their beliefs of their capabilities are and through relentless coaching and expectations, I hope they become greater competitors and greater people because of it.

OBJECTIVES AT DIFFERENT LEVELS If it is understood that sport can be used to simulate life experiences and properly prepare athletes for life situations than it is understood that coaches can manipulate the coaching atmosphere to cater to different age levels. Understanding what the purpose of the particular sport context one is coaching in is absolutely important to the style in which a coach will use. There are several differences in the objectives a coach should expect when dealing with different levels. Sport at the high school level should be engaging but also focused on preparing the athlete educationally for life challenges. While modern society tends to hold competition and winning as a major objective in youth sport today, coaching styles and philosophies should not necessarily hold those objectives as important. High school sports serve as the optimal learning environment for skill development for young athletes. High school coaches should focus on tailoring practice and competition towards skill development and fundamental movement patterns. This arena and level of sport should have a competition factor but the objective of winning should not be the total outcome. It is in high school that young athletes should learn fundamentals about sport and have an experience to play multiple sports. As a coach I believe in high school strength & conditioning, importance should be made on developing foundational knowledge of exercises without placing much emphasis on volume or intensity. High school strength & conditioning should be tailored to developing proper movement patterns that modern society has replaced for technological advances like video games and computers. Collegiate sports however require a greater demand on winning and successful performances. The instructional component to collegiate coaching should be heavily on perfecting skill development, but also on drawing out athlete’s strengths to best serve the objective of winning. The focus in collegiate sports should be about refining the processes that create winning teams. Rather than solely focusing on the one objective of winning. Coaches and athletes should focus on all the little processes that will lead to winning, rather than solely being outcome oriented. By focusing on perfecting the little steps throughout the greater process, through the accumulation of perfection among all the tasks; victories will usually follow. Sports at the professional level should be about reaching excellence. At this level the competition is so great and the expectation for winning is demanded. In a perfect functional society the athletes competing at the professional level should not need the life coaching that is so prevalent at the youth and high school levels. However, with athletes being fast tracked into the NBA and NFL, these athletes often have missed valuable moments learning about leadership, responsibility, accountability and other positive characteristics. If previous coaches at lower levels have successfully done their job preparing athletes for the next level of competition, then the professional level of coaching should be more about fostering excellence in skill and less about recreation and teaching life lessons. As a professional level strength coach, it would be my responsibility to serve the head coach’s expectations for the program. At this level of competition winning is vital. While creating an environment that is enjoyable is important to keep athlete’s engaged, the time spent with the strength & conditioning coach is best used by doing drills and performance based exercises. The margin between winning and losing is often so small that every second with the coaching staff should be best utilized by drawing out individual’s strengths rather than improving upon their weaknesses.

ROLE OF WINNING There are valuable lessons to be learned by both achievement and failure. Some of the most rewarding learning experiences come after a crushing loss. Having the composure to demonstrate sportsmanship and character in times of losses is a difficult task. While losing teaches individuals tremendously about character, winning is a rewarding accomplishment that also serves as an educational tool. Winning has some important implications at the youth level however winning will not serve as my first priority preparing youth athletes. Winning serves as important validation to youth athlete’s confidence. Winning also serves as a very useful tool in building team cohesion. If you ask any losing team, the team’s cohesion or spirit de corps is much harder to substantiate after a loss. Winning also gains one access to rewards and special privileges.  At the youth level it is important to create opportunities for similar skilled athletes or teams to compete against each other. Winning against a similar strength opponent builds confidence in perceptual ability. While winning is important at the youth level, winning is not everything. Losing does not have to be a negative outcome of sport. Losing at the youth level can teach participants skills about overcoming adversity, sportsmanship, and character. To endure losses and have the go-with-all to stand back up and brush the dirt off and compete is a valuable asset to have in this demanding world. Winning however becomes more important as you progress up the coaching levels. This is emphasized by the short lived but high paying coaching positions that seem to be highlighted on the front pages of sport sections everywhere. The reality is that coaches at the collegiate and professional levels are paid the high salaries in order to put together winning teams. Winning is obviously important in collegiate setting for a number of reasons. First, alumni and boosters usually come across hard times collecting donations and funding when a team is a losing season. Donations are increasingly important in economic times like America is undergoing currently. Alumni donations help fund parts of athletic programs that a very thin budget would never be able to substantially fund. Without these donations vital equipment and resources that directly benefit student-athletes would vanish due to funding limitations.

Secondly, ticket sales are dependant on the hype and winningness of a collegiate team. USC and Ohio State certainly can create more hype surrounding their football team than North Carolina’s team, as within the last ten years Duke has accumulated more losses than any other Division 1 team with over 85 losses.

GENDER EQUITY  While opportunities in collegiate sports for females have increased, strength and conditioning head coaching positions are rarely held by women. Nearly two percent of men’s teams are coached by women coaches. More disturbing is the fact that only 44 percent of NCAA women’s teams have female head coaches. Since the prevalence of coaches comes from collegiate athletic backgrounds, one would expect that a rise in female participation would account for a rise in female coaches (Acker, 1989). This however is not occurring in our field of strength and conditioning. The statistics show that most women coaches are neither head coaches nor athletic directors. Women coaches are found majority in division II or III programs and are much more prevalent to hold assistant positions rather than head coaching positions. While there is little research addressing the reasons behind women’s under representation in collegiate coaching, it is the responsibility of those in coaching positions to help excel female opportunities in strength and conditioning careers. It is my responsibility as a coach to create equal opportunities for upcoming young female strength and conditioning coaches to break into this field. It is necessary early on to dispel the myth that women cannot coach male teams. Despite gender differences there are no reasons I have witnessed why a women could not successfully coach any male team. A matter of fact, I have seen many male coaches within the field act more stereotypically “woman like” than most the women I have encountered in the profession. It is my philosophy that if women are more qualified than men at a position may the best person win. I believe wholeheartedly in competition; it is the essence of my philosophy. If a female strength coach outworks any male strength coach than the female will be hired without any hesitations or judgments of gender.  It is my professional goal to help equalize the decision-making processes when it comes to hiring female coaches. I am approaching this topic from a coaching perspective only because in my field of strength and conditioning, gender differences and roster management does not truly apply. However, within the field of strength and conditioning hiring practices, it is well noted that the field is made from a majority of Caucasian males. As a head strength coach it will be my responsibly to provide more professional opportunities to the female gender.

Not only are female coaches underrepresented within the coaching community, but those of different racial backgrounds are also subjected to the unfair hiring practices established in strength & conditioning.

EQUITY I again approach this topic from a professional coaching perspective due to a limited role at determining team management. As a strength coach I often do not make a decision about who is recruited on a team. However, as a head coach I will have a responsibility of hiring my own staff. Because of this great professional obligation I need to be aware that it is my goal to create an equal opportunity for people of different racial backgrounds. If I continue coaching in the collegiate setting, the NCAA does a tremendous job with ensuring the hiring practices of NCAA schools are compliant with the regulations established by law. I believe however that equality is not merely meeting a quota or going through the proper hiring channels. I am a competitor at heart and that competition drives every essence of my decisions. Because of my competitiveness, I believe in fair competition. If an African America is more qualified at a position than any other candidate, then he or she will receive the position. There is nothing to contemplate about the hiring practice. The best will win. In professional sports, new regulations are laws are now established to help equalize the opportunities within the coaching field. The Rooney Rule in the NFL now requires teams to include minority candidates when coaching jobs are open. NCAA has similar policies but this initiative was a huge step forward for professional sport coaches. To understand the magnitude of the racial limitations in professional coaching, the NFL only has six minority head coaches out of 32 positions (Mullen, 2009).

CUTTING PLAYERS I believe in Pete Carroll’s philosophy when he said “We’re going to do things better than it’s ever been done before in everything we do”. Cutting players in order to stay competitive is necessity in competitive sports. I do not think people question whether cutting players is necessary. I think people question the reasons for cutting players at different levels. Youth level sports are becoming more competitive every single day and because of this competition, youth leagues are now becoming more selective than ever. Cutting players and roster management is a necessary evil in athletics. As a competitive athlete, one of the worst experiences a player can endure is being told that their performance in not worthily enough to warrant a position. However, as a coach, I understand that it is unfeasible to include everyone that tries out. As a walk-on athlete who was personally affected by roster management in collegiate sports during 2004, I can understand how terrible it feels to be cut from a team. Six years later and being on the other side of athletics, in the coaching position, I can now rationalize why it had to be done. It is my opinion that in youth sports cutting players should not be an option. If there are too many athletes than a reduction of team sizes should occur to allow for an expansion team to be created. Youth sports serve as an educational tool and the experiences of sport should not be withheld to anybody for any credence. This however is not the case as athletes move up to the collegiate levels of sport. Due to regulations of the 1972 Title IX amendment of the Equal Opportunity in Education Act, institutions that receive federal funding must provide equal opportunities or roster spots for female demographic at the university.

PAY FOR PLAY The youth and high school levels of sport will rarely encounter situations where money exchanges hands due to committing to play for a certain team. However, in collegiate sports there is a growing community of proponents who believe collegiate athletes should be compensated financially for the services they provide to the university through their athletic endeavors. Currently as a collegiate coach I must say that while student-athletes commit a great deal of their time and resources towards athletics, the university as a whole equally commits and fulfill their end of the scholarship arrangement. Some proponents say that the players are entitled to compensation because of the revenue they bring in and the risk of injury they face. As a coach I believe the athletes are sufficiently compensated by the quality education they are likely receiving on behalf of their athletic capabilities. As the price of tuition is steadily increasing, athletes who manage to earn a full scholarship, including tuition, room, board, and books, need to understand that they essentially are earning 15,000 to 20,000 dollars a year for their athletic capabilities. As a coach who may deal with these issues it is important to foster an environment where extrinsic motivators like money, fame and attention is not the overall goal. As head strength and conditioning coach it will be my responsibility to ensure that athletes under my coaching know what is personally most valuable to them. I will do my part to create an environment and culture that is about winning with class, and improving towards personal potential perfection. The culture I look to establish is about competing against yourself, your teammates, and your other collegiate competitors – out of the love of the game. The moment I sense that an athlete is competing for other intentions it will be my role to confront the athlete and determine what is best for the team and program as a whole. I believe that confrontation and excellent communication is vital to the success of athletic programs. As a future head strength coach I will do my part to ensure that athletes remain in the game because they love it. These objectives are the ways I will carry out my coaching philosophy. My philosophy does not differ from my personal ethics. I believe my ethics are in tune with the character and style of coaching I look to accomplish and be.

PERSONAL ETHICS It is my personal philosophy to create better athletes, better students and better leaders due to my coaching. Like my philosophy statement, “We are going to do things better than it has ever been done before in everything we do.” This means I will not just focus on making better athletes but I want everyone to strive to do better at everything. I believe competition breeds competitions and striving to do better then your personal best is a recipe for success at any endeavor.  I understand that winning is important. There is absolutely no doubt in a collegiate setting that winning is desired among coaches and athletes. Administration will deny it, but if a team manages to create an all-academic team with a losing season, the coach will have a target on his back. However, I think we need to understand that while winning is our desired outcome, focusing on improving “everything” is the recipe that leads to winning. Similar to Coach Wooden’s approach, I believe in focusing on effort, and not winning. If you focus on effort and are doing everything in the present better, all these little changes will lead you into a win, a series, or a championship (Ige). As a strength coach it is my priority to make sure the athletes are prepared physically for the challenges that they will face in their athletic arena. If I successfully prepare them physically for the field or court I could easily collect a paycheck and be done. However, doing this only represents a small percentage of what a dedicated strength coach “should” do. Due to my personal conversations with strength coach Tim Wakeham, I believe that successful strength coach will do more than just physically prepare athletes for their sport season (personal conversation, January 12, 2010).  I believe it is my larger role to mentally prepare individuals for not only challenges they are likely to face in the arena, but also for the ones they will face in life. It is my responsibly as their strength coach to mentally strengthen their will and fortitude.   I also have to consider keeping athletes engaged. As collegiate and professional athletes nearly compete and train year round, it can easily become very taxing to be coached by their skill coaches constantly. A strength coach can positively influence their engagement and motivation by creating an atmosphere of training that allows for perceptual control and competence by the athletes. I approach training athletes with an athlete-centered approach by including them in the decision process. This action allows for the perception of ownership and decision making, and ultimately engages the athletes by involvement. It is my philosophy to be engaging and to spill over with enthusiasm. I understand that life as an athlete is strenuous and the ability to control your actions are very limited. I base my philosophy around the foundation of being and preparing athletes to be absolutely the most industrious and enthusiastic student-athletes around. Just as I believe that competition breeds competition, enthusiasm and hard work fosters great enthusiasm and work.  My coaching methods vary by the population I work with. I am not going to communicate in the same style with a female as I would a male. I expect to treat a football player differently than a gymnast. However, my underlying principles will remain the same despite differences in the way I communicate my philosophy. How I engage and interact with people differ by their personality differences.  It is my belief to involve the athletes as much as possible when it comes to teaching. As a coach I look for any teachable moments that occur during lifts or conditioning sessions. If there is a moment an athlete is doing something incorrect I will use this as a teaching moment to instruct the entire group or affect those within ear distance. I will not overly criticize the incorrect athlete or draw emphasis to their incompetence however, I will be honest in my observation and will use inspire to moment to team others and improve the team as a whole.  Defining success as a coach can be a difficult task if operating without a clear philosophy of your program. As the strength coach I define success by doing things better than it has ever been done before. If we are running, I am looking to make the athletes run better than they ever have. If it is a movement pattern, I am looking for them to improve and do better than the previous time. If I am training mental toughness than I am looking for them to display an ironclad “I will never fail” attitude every single test of character. It is easy in this profession to get caught up in sets and reps, however, I believe with a philosophy to always improve and evolve; this philosophy of besting your efforts and creating competition will ultimately breed competent winning teams. I avoid focusing solely on wins versus loses in order to establish a different criteria to grade and judge performance. If I create an atmosphere were success is no longer defined by winning but rather focused on doing things better than they ever have been done before, I will be coaching the process rather than coaching for the outcome. By changing how I define success I will ultimately be teaching that effort and improvement is the most important principles behind a successful career in athletics and life. It is my responsibility to use team lifting sessions as a means to shape future behaviors. I do this by creating a system of principles and organization rules for athletes to abide by. For instance I believe in accountability and time management. I expect athletes to be ready, on time and concentrating on improving and doing things better than they have ever done them before without any outside distractions. I also hold similar expectations for my co-workers and myself. While my field of expertise does not have formal practices and games, I make competition out of everything. If there is a weight to be moved, who can move it with the best form? If there is a sandbag to be carried one hundred yards, who can move it faster? These are all questions and instances for competition that I create in order to create engagement from my athletes. My coaching philosophy includes a well defined set of rules that all athletes must follow. I believe rules give structure to program similar to the bones of a human body. I will often create a leadership group consisting of hard working individual team players to help develop team rules. Creating this leadership group allows for the perception of control and influence and often will help the team buy in to the newly developed rules. I make no exceptions to the rules. This part is a difficult task for coaches who solely focus on winning and losing. The rules I establish apply to all players, regardless of star power or situational demands. The message I look to make is that no person is above the rules, even if success hangs in the balance. One of the most challenging aspects to developing an effective philosophy is communicating your philosophy to your athletes in a way that allows them to buy into the principles. Once the philosophy is developed it is up to the coaching staff to use the document in a way that dictates every decision. A successful philosophy is one that is transparent and has clear expectations and guidelines that shape athlete and coaches behaviors (Youth Football USA, 2003). Transparency of the philosophy is hugely important to successful coaches. By referring to the philosophy statements often and by creating an environment which surrounds the principles established; the athletes know what to expect. Coaches seem to have well established philosophies but the message gets clouded because athletes do not know what the expectations are. It is my mission to ensure athletes under my coaching know what I expect out of them; I expect personal bests.

SPORTSMANSHIP I believe it is a coach’s responsibility to coach sportsmanship in athletes. It is all too common to believe that athletes should already know what being a good sportsman is. We have a tendency to believe that athletes are instilled with this value. However, if one is present in the coaching environment today, it is easily witnessed how much we have failed coaching this valuable asset. Much inspiration of mine is driven from legendary coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. There are four foundations that represent what I believe sportsmanship truly means. Wooden cited poise, confidence, self-control and intentness as important foundations of sportsmanship (Wooden 2007). There are differences as to how to show poise in the coaching atmosphere. While coaching it’s important to be authentic to yourself and calm in your surroundings. Often novice coaches get caught in the dynamics of coaching at it distracts them from their philosophy. Remaining confident is about respecting your abilities and making crucial decisions without fear. Confidence comes from within by knowing you have done everything you could and are completely prepared.

CONCLUSION It should be quite evident that I admire coaches like John Wooden and Pete Carroll. These are individuals who seem to put together winning programs by affecting the culture and environment around the sporting context. By creating an environment that is shifted away from winning and focused on doing all the little things better, they have collectively managed to create back to back championship seasons. When Pete Carroll was presenting at a business lecture he asked the audience to recite their own personal philosophy in under fifty words. As I approach 6000 words I have often asked myself if I could have wrote this in fifty words or less. My coaching philosophy is as follows. “I am going to do things better than I have ever done them before every single time I try. I will never fail because losing is never a failure if it is always a learning lesson. I will always compete because I am comfortable against my toughest opponent – myself.” Throughout this philosophy I discussed how I felt the objectives of sports differ between youth, high school, college and professional levels. I talked about the differences of winning and losing and expectations and fundamental practices at each level. It is my belief that as an athlete progresses up the levels the emphasis should climb from enjoyment to skill development. I discussed the different objectives at different levels throughout my philosophy. I wrote about how youth and high school sports should focus on engagement and fundamental skill development while collegiate and professional sport coaching should focus on creating winning teams by casting the right individuals’ strengths at appropriate team positions. The philosophy discussed the roles of winning and how winning becomes more important as you progress through the levels. It is easy for academia to believe that winning is evil and should not be the end all outcome of sport. However, in the collegiate and professional setting winning becomes the benchmark of success for evaluating a coaches’ performance. If a collegiate or professional level coach cannot produce wins then they will surely be replaced regarding in the athletes are enjoying their time or earning high GPAs. I discussed briefly the role coaches have in ensuring gender and racial equity in the hiring practices of coaches. While sport coaches may have to deal with these issues from a player standpoint, as a strength coach I will likely face these issues from an administrative aspect. It will be my role as a coach to ensure that the best person receives the position, regardless of gender, race or sexual preference. I am a competitor and I believe the strongest, fastest, and smartest competitor should win – regardless of external physical attributes. I discussed how cutting players and pay for play are two hot button issues that seem to be creating problems for coaches at all levels of sport. I wrote how strength coaches rarely have opportunities to cut players but I rationalize the thought process and support the notion in order to create an equal opportunity for females. Roster management remains necessary in collegiate and high school sports due to NCAA and federal Title IX regulations that dictate equal opportunity for both male and female participants. Pay for play was briefly discussed and I shared thoughts about how I believe universities are already providing sufficient financial compensation for student athletes. While proponents will say that these athletes are the life blood that keep channeling money into universities, I remind them that these athletes are receiving expensive tuition, room, board, books and other equipment as compensation for their services at the university. Lastly, I discussed my personal ethics and what sportsmanship means to me as a coach. I shared how I plan to conduct my coaching practices and how I will hold all my staff and athletes accountable for their actions. I shared how my coaching philosophy and ethics are dictated and how they evolved from Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. Ultimately I provided an exact recipe of the coaching philosophy I currently use in my coaching profession. This is the manual in which I conduct my life, my coaching and my personal philosophy. I have shared how I plan on treating my athletes, treating my employees, and treating those I come in contact with in my life.

References Acker, J. (1989). Doing comparable worth: gender, class, and pay equity. Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press. Dettmer, H. Leadership in complex systems, Retrieved  January 15, 2010. Ige, C. How to coach teams in business the John Wooden way, California State University. Haisten, B. (2009). Cowboys’ defense moves past meltdown. Message posted to http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/article.aspx?subjectid=387&articleid=20090917_93_B1_OSUdef334781 Linneweber, C. (2010, January 13). The greatful dead, Mark Sanchez & Pete Carroll, Bleacher Report. Retrieved  January 16^th, 2010 from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/325332-mark-sanchez-pete-carroll-will-both-thrive-in-the-nfl MHSAA. (2003). Good sports are winners. [Brochure]. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan High School Athletic Association Mullen, J. (2009, September 23). Minorities shut out of NCAA football coaching positions, USA Today. Retrieved January 15th, 2010 from http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2009-09-07-minority-coaches_N.htm Parash, D. (2007, April). 8 steps to a coaching philosophy. Coach and Athletic Director, 76-56 Parkin, D. (2003, July 16) Coaching philosophy, Retrieved January 15, 2010. Sager, M. (2010) Big Balls Pete Carroll, Esquire Magazine. Retrieved January 15, 2010, from http://www.esquire.com/features/pete-carroll-1009 Wooden, J. (2007) Pyramid of Success. Retrieved from http://www.erhoops.org/…/John%20Woodens%20pyramid%20of%20success.pdf Youth Football USA. (2003). Coaching Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.yfusa.org/PDF/Coaching_Philosophy.pdf

As strength coaches our number one priority should be preventing injury. No matter how strong or fast we can make our athletes, it is useless if they’re sitting on the bench due to an injury. I know there are many facets that we cannot control once the athlete is in the game. However, there are a number of things we can do in our training environment to “better the chances” that our athlete won’t get injured during their competition. Even more, each year one out of 100 high school female athletes and one of 10 college female athletes experiences an ACL injury. This is crazy, isn’t it? At our training facility we have a majority of the female teams and to personally think that one out of every ten women who walk through our door will have an ACL injury – outrageous.

Based on the data provided by the NCAA, we know that approximately 2,000 female athletes are expected to tear their ACL. What the means is that generally females have 8x the chance of ACL injuries compared to men. You might be asking, how the hell is this happening? Beside all the physiological differences between men & women, one of the biggest components may be the lack of hamstring strength. The NCAA also cited that an ACL surgery costs the university approximately $25,000 to repair. Can you imagine that? Not only does the athlete lose their playing season, a possible scholarship, but in a matter of a second we could cost a university $25,000. (1,2) Damn.

So we got to ask ourselves; what are we doing to stop this (or at least lower the rate of occurrences)? I can tell you a number of things what we’re doing, but if you’re up on your literature, it should come as no surprise.

Deep Front Squat.

Let’s first take a look at what usually happens when a female athlete first steps through our doors. Most will come in being extremely quad dominant. This is no surprise as the majority of their athlete careers they were probably running & jumping, kicking and all other sorts of knee dominant movements. This is great that they’re extremely strong through their quads, but whenever we tested their hamstring strength in relation to their quad strength, they’re hamstring was extremely significantly weaker.

As we know through research, the balance of power and recruitment between the quads and hamstrings is one of the most important factors of knee stability in sport. As I already stated the ratio of Q/H (Quad to Hamstring) in female athletes tend to favor more quadriceps strength than hamstrings. The difference between men & women is that women tend to be more quad dominant meaning on knee dominant exercises, females tend to engage the hamstrings first which increases stress on the ACL (1,2,3,4,5).

So the article is named, “Let’s Get Our Female Athletes Squatting Again”. With that said, now is time to start discussing what we’re doing to try to increase hamstring strength and improve that Q/H ratio. With our athletes it’s important to ensure that we’re doing everything we can to get better hamstring and glute activation and work. Whether it is the glute/ham, bodyweight hamstring negatives, leg curls, Romanian deadlifts, glute bridges, swiss-ball hamstring curls, mini-band adduction/abduction walks, etc. We make sure to use them ALL.

However, when we approach “selling” the squat to female athletes, there always seems to be some hesitation. “I don’t want my butt to get bigger”, “I don’t want to look like those women bodybuilders”,
“I only want to look toned”. Whatever the excuse may be, it’s our job to sell the squat like its the million dollar cure that is going to change their world. How can we do that? Proper queuing, coaching, psychology.

Deep Back Squat

Now at this point you might be following me and the article but is wondering about “Why Squats”. I know there are 100 ways to skin a cat and certainly a squat is merely “one tool in our toolbox”, but based on the photos provided, look at how much total muscle activation/work the squat accomplishes. The way we instruct squats is a wide stance (as research has shown to get better glute work) with intense verbal queuing to sit back, sit back, sit back (to engage more hamstring). If we’re looking for even more glute work we’ll throw a mini-band around the knees to get more RNT (Reactive Neuromuscular Training) which will slightly adduct the knees into a valgus position “queuing” the the glute med to “turn on” to abduct those knees into neutral alignment, essentially flipping the switch that allows for more glute med work.

So that is it folks. I will by no mean say that I’m an expert at this. I have probably bastardized so many concepts that it isn’t funny. However, I will say I know simply enough to be dangerous. All joking aside, whether my research, writing skills, or communication capability lacks a bit, I can say that since we focused heavily on improving the posterior chain in our female athletes, our ACL injury rate has decreased dramatically. Like I said in the beginning, it’s our job to make sure we’re doing everything we can to prevent injury in our athletes. Whether you want to include squats in your program is ultimately up to you, but you cannot neglect adding posterior chain exercises in your programming to prevent ACL injuries.

1. Adams, Erik, M.D., Ph.D., An Increased Risk of ACL Rupture in Female Athletes. Midwest Institute of Sports Medicine, Epidemiology, 2002.

2. Griffen, Letha Y., M.D., Better Understanding of ACL Injury Prevention. The NCAA News, October 2000.

3. Boden, Barry, M.D., Letha Griffin, M.D., Ph.D. and William Garrett Jr., M.D., Ph.D., Etiology and Prevention of Non-contact ACL Injury. The Physician and Sportsmedicine, v28, 4, April 2000.

4. Courdes, Laura, For Women, ACL Tears All Too Common. The DePauw.com, December 1999.

5. Mannie, Ken and Tim Wakeham, Strength Training for Female Athletes. Coach and Athletic Director, v70, 5, December 2000.

Those who work with athletes (or even individual clients) will know this. Some time athletes don’t necessarily give you 100% of their focus and attention. It is our job as coaches to ensure that the athlete is giving their attention so that skill development can occur. But what is this skill? How can coaches approve on their ability to demand focus. This is a skill that really coaches have and what separates them from everyone else is their ability to recognize when an athlete’s focus is fading.

Lets face it, athletes are competitive by nature. This is partially why they are competing in athletes on the collegiate scale. As a coach, this is a particularly good trait to latch onto. Use their competitive fire and create an atmosphere around your training that demands and challenges their competitiveness. Pete Carroll does an excellent example of this.

“We want to make it as competitive as we can make it. That’s the priority. Our guys are so accustomed to it, they don’t know anything else.” – Pete Carroll.

So as a coach, if you start to see your athletes’ attention start to fade. Think about the workout and see if there are any elements you can change to make it more of a competition. Can you separate the team up into different groups and challenge the other team by which team coaches louder during the workout? How about running or biking on treadmills or bikes the furthest in a given time period? On the Keiser equipment, which team had greater power output? Nonetheless there are certainly elements of every workout that a good coach can make into a challenging competition that will draw out athletes attention and focus. It’s our responsibility to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep our athletes engages, training, and last but not least, safe and able to play their sport.

As strength coaches our number one priority should be preventing injury. No matter how strong or fast we can make our athletes, it is useless if they’re sitting on the bench due to an injury. I know there are many facets that we cannot control once the athlete is in the game. However, there are a number of things we can do in our training environment to “better the chances” that our athlete won’t get injured during their competition. Even more, each year one out of 100 high school female athletes and one of 10 college female athletes experiences an ACL injury. This is crazy, isn’t it? At our training facility we have a majority of the female teams and to personally think that one out of every ten women who walk through our door will have an ACL injury – outrageous.

Based on the data provided by the NCAA, we know that approximately 2,000 female athletes are expected to tear their ACL. What the means is that generally females have 8x the chance of ACL injuries compared to men. You might be asking, how the hell is this happening? Beside all the physiological differences between men & women, one of the biggest components may be the lack of hamstring strength. The NCAA also cited that an ACL surgery costs the university approximately $25,000 to repair. Can you imagine that? Not only does the athlete lose their playing season, a possible scholarship, but in a matter of a second we could cost a university $25,000. (1,2) Damn.

So we got to ask ourselves; what are we doing to stop this (or at least lower the rate of occurrences)? I can tell you a number of things what we’re doing, but if you’re up on your literature, it should come as no surprise.

Deep Front Squat.

Let’s first take a look at what usually happens when a female athlete first steps through our doors. Most will come in being extremely quad dominant. This is no surprise as the majority of their athlete careers they were probably running & jumping, kicking and all other sorts of knee dominant movements. This is great that they’re extremely strong through their quads, but whenever we tested their hamstring strength in relation to their quad strength, they’re hamstring was extremely significantly weaker.

As we know through research, the balance of power and recruitment between the quads and hamstrings is one of the most important factors of knee stability in sport. As I already stated the ratio of Q/H (Quad to Hamstring) in female athletes tend to favor more quadriceps strength than hamstrings. The difference between men & women is that women tend to be more quad dominant meaning on knee dominant exercises, females tend to engage the hamstrings first which increases stress on the ACL (1,2,3,4,5).

So the article is named, “Let’s Get Our Female Athletes Squatting Again”. With that said, now is time to start discussing what we’re doing to try to increase hamstring strength and improve that Q/H ratio. With our athletes it’s important to ensure that we’re doing everything we can to get better hamstring and glute activation and work. Whether it is the glute/ham, bodyweight hamstring negatives, leg curls, Romanian deadlifts, glute bridges, swiss-ball hamstring curls, mini-band adduction/abduction walks, etc. We make sure to use them ALL.

However, when we approach “selling” the squat to female athletes, there always seems to be some hesitation. “I don’t want my butt to get bigger”, “I don’t want to look like those women bodybuilders”,
“I only want to look toned”. Whatever the excuse may be, it’s our job to sell the squat like its the million dollar cure that is going to change their world. How can we do that? Proper queuing, coaching, psychology.

Deep Back Squat

Now at this point you might be following me and the article but is wondering about “Why Squats”. I know there are 100 ways to skin a cat and certainly a squat is merely “one tool in our toolbox”, but based on the photos provided, look at how much total muscle activation/work the squat accomplishes. The way we instruct squats is a wide stance (as research has shown to get better glute work) with intense verbal queuing to sit back, sit back, sit back (to engage more hamstring). If we’re looking for even more glute work we’ll throw a mini-band around the knees to get more RNT (Reactive Neuromuscular Training) which will slightly adduct the knees into a valgus position “queuing” the the glute med to “turn on” to abduct those knees into neutral alignment, essentially flipping the switch that allows for more glute med work.

So that is it folks. I will by no mean say that I’m an expert at this. I have probably bastardized so many concepts that it isn’t funny. However, I will say I know simply enough to be dangerous. All joking aside, whether my research, writing skills, or communication capability lacks a bit, I can say that since we focused heavily on improving the posterior chain in our female athletes, our ACL injury rate has decreased dramatically. Like I said in the beginning, it’s our job to make sure we’re doing everything we can to prevent injury in our athletes. Whether you want to include squats in your program is ultimately up to you, but you cannot neglect adding posterior chain exercises in your programming to prevent ACL injuries.

1. Adams, Erik, M.D., Ph.D., An Increased Risk of ACL Rupture in Female Athletes. Midwest Institute of Sports Medicine, Epidemiology, 2002.

2. Griffen, Letha Y., M.D., Better Understanding of ACL Injury Prevention. The NCAA News, October 2000.

3. Boden, Barry, M.D., Letha Griffin, M.D., Ph.D. and William Garrett Jr., M.D., Ph.D., Etiology and Prevention of Non-contact ACL Injury. The Physician and Sportsmedicine, v28, 4, April 2000.

4. Courdes, Laura, For Women, ACL Tears All Too Common. The DePauw.com, December 1999.

5. Mannie, Ken and Tim Wakeham, Strength Training for Female Athletes. Coach and Athletic Director, v70, 5, December 2000.

Those who work with athletes (or even individual clients) will know this. Some time athletes don’t necessarily give you 100% of their focus and attention. It is our job as coaches to ensure that the athlete is giving their attention so that skill development can occur. But what is this skill? How can coaches approve on their ability to demand focus. This is a skill that really coaches have and what separates them from everyone else is their ability to recognize when an athlete’s focus is fading.

Lets face it, athletes are competitive by nature. This is partially why they are competing in athletes on the collegiate scale. As a coach, this is a particularly good trait to latch onto. Use their competitive fire and create an atmosphere around your training that demands and challenges their competitiveness. Pete Carroll does an excellent example of this.

“We want to make it as competitive as we can make it. That’s the priority. Our guys are so accustomed to it, they don’t know anything else.” – Pete Carroll.

So as a coach, if you start to see your athletes’ attention start to fade. Think about the workout and see if there are any elements you can change to make it more of a competition. Can you separate the team up into different groups and challenge the other team by which team coaches louder during the workout? How about running or biking on treadmills or bikes the furthest in a given time period? On the Keiser equipment, which team had greater power output? Nonetheless there are certainly elements of every workout that a good coach can make into a challenging competition that will draw out athletes attention and focus. It’s our responsibility to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep our athletes engages, training, and last but not least, safe and able to play their sport.