Build For Lasting Quality

Make excellence your goal. Strive to be the best. These are both different ways of saying the same thing: Build for lasting quality. Successful people are quality (process) oriented people. Pat Williams said that all the successful people he has met seem to possess four attitudes that are focused on lasting quality. The four attitudes are:
1. Strive for perfection
2. Pay attention to details
3. Constantly try to improve
4. Give it all you've got.

Four simple tasks. But the greats always keep it simple.

The Back of Our Team Notebook Re: Arete

Re: Arete

There are moments like this when I feel I possess that elusive quality known as class. More frequently, I am certain I don’t. But I am aware that it is always available to me. Anyone can have class. It’s character is nonetheless elusive.

In talking about class and trying to define it, one runs the risk of sounding silly and snobbish. For one thing, not only is class difficult to define, it is much more evident in its absence. Since part of class is not boasting about it, the no-class people stand out. For every class athlete you see, you can name any number of spoilsports, showboats, alibiers and cheaters.

The Greeks have a word for it. Arete means the best. Arete also contains the idea of something, whether it be an object or a creature, doing exactly what it was made for. Arete means being the absolute embodiment of what it was designed to be. It is not being better than something else; it s the best of what it is. Arete is me being the best possible ______ I can be.

The important thing about actions is not what you do but the way you do it. “Every calling is great, said Oliver Wendell Holmes; “when greatly pursued.” It is the old refrain all over again. Have no care for the outcome. Play the game to the hilt. Show a little class.

The great ones, whether they are mechanics or cardiologists, waiters or housewives, always do. They have all the virtues and qualities that go with class. They believe the way they do something matters, and in the long run that is all that matters.

The distinction between life lived as a success and life lived as a failure as I see it, is a matter of class. Class is a product of body and mind and spirit. I suspect that for me it begins with an all-consuming desire to do my best, a compulsion that everyone has felt from time to time for different activities. My task it to do it to everything I do.
--Taken from This Running Life
By George Sheehan

Lou Holtz-- 10 Keys To Excellence

Lou Holtz-- 10 Keys To Excellence

1. The Power of Attitude
The attitude you choose to assume toward life and everything it brings you will determine whether you realize your aspirations. What you are capable of achieving is determined by your talent and ability. What you attempt to do is determined by your motivation. How well you do something is determined by your attitude.

2. Tackle Adversity
You are going to be knocked down. I have been on top and I have been at the bottom. To achieve success, you are going to have to solve problems. If you react positively to them, you’ll be stronger than ever. If you react to setbacks more quickly and positively, you gain a distinct. advantage. I’ve never encountered a person who achieved anything worthwhile that didn’t require overcoming obstacles.

3. Have a Sense of Purpose
Understand what you are trying to do. Stay completely focused on your primary purpose. Don’t get sidetracked. Give a first rate performance every day.

4. Make Sacrifice Your Ally
You can’t be successful without making sacrifices. Most losing organizations are overpopulated with people who constantly complain about life’s difficulties. They will drain your enthusiasm and energy. Take pride in making sacrifices and having self-discipline.

5. Adapt or Die
Things are always changing, so embrace the fact that your life and career are always in transition. Yes, you will achieve goals, but don’t fall into the trap o not thinking you don’t need to go further. Even when you reach the top, remember to stay focused on the fundamentals.

6. Chase Your Dreams
All great accomplishments start with a dream. Dreams fuel your enthusiasm and vision. They will give you a burning desire to get up and achieve.

7. Nurture Your Self-Image
A positive self-image grows out of having strong character. To be trustworthy, committed to excellence and to show care for others are the underpinnings of a successful person.

8. Foster Trust
Relationships are based on trust. Many people have ruined tremendous opportunity because they didn’t have the discipline and decency to do what’s right. Continually ask yourself, “Is this the right thing to do?” Do what you feel is right regardless of peer pressure or personal desires. Success and confidence will follow close behind.

9. Commit to Excellence
Do everything to the best of your ability. Everyone wants to be associated with people who set and maintain high standards. When you lower standards, you only invite mediocrity.

10. Handle with Care
Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Working on the process of Excellence

Beginning The Process of Excellence

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”--Aristotle

If excellence is a habit as Aristotle suggests, then we must focus on the process to get us where we want to go. We want the result of Excellence, therefore we will focus on the process (the habits) needed to get our desired result.

We are working to be process oriented. We must have process oriented thinking. Process Oriented vs Outcome Oriented. We’re not talking about results. Focusing on the things in the process that are important to being successful, that are excellent.

As we develop our Process, we must first:
1. Educate—teach technique to identify quality problems.
2. Organize—Make work cleaner, simpler and with more initiative. Nothing is random.
3. Analyze—Study the root cause of every defect and fix the problem once and for all.
4. Track—Map out every process. Make people own it and reward constant improvement.
5. Lead—Convert top management into disciples..Non believers will head for the exits.
Must have complete comprehension or our current situation before we can improve upon it.

Process of Excellence

As we prepare for the post season, we continue to focus on the "Process of Excellence".

1. We must have complete comprehension of our current situation before we can improve upon it.

2. By learning how we got where we are, we can learn how to get where we want to be.

Why Not Your Best

WHY NOT YOUR BEST?

Why Not The Best?

This was the title of a book by Jimmy Carter, the title was inspired by a job interview Carter had with Admiral Rickover.

Carter had applied for the nuclear submarine program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing for the job...The interview consisted of Carter discussing any topic he chose. Carter said he chose topics he was most comfortable with—current events, tactics, etc. The interview continued for two hours while Rickover would ask him questions, increasing in difficulty. Carter soon figured out he did not know as much as he thought he did and the Admiral knew much more than Carter had imagined…

From President Carter—”Finally he asked me a question and I thought I could redeem myself. He said, ‘How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?’...I swelled my chest with pride and answered, “Sir, I stood 59th in a class of 820!” I sat back to wait for the congratulations—which never came.

Instead the question: “Did you do your best?”

I started to say, “Yes, sir,” but I remembered who this was and the classes, tactics, seamanship, etc and I could have done better...I finally gulped and said, No sir, I didn’t always do my best.” He looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked me one final question, which I have never be able to forget—or to answer. He said, “Why not?”

Jon Gruden's 4 Components of Teamwork

Jon Gruden's 4 Components of Teamwork

1. Put strong individuals on your team
a. Every member has to be strong. Each player on the team has a job to do. They need to do it effectively and contribute to the team.
2. Match the individual to the best position for the team
a. So many times people take a position because it is in their comfort zone.
b. Are you using the talent of each individual in a way that is best for the team.
3. Provide direction and goals for your team
a. This starts with the coach or leader of the team.
b. Think big. Your goals should be attainable, but they should be a stretch. Clearly set goals will ensure the team is moving in the same direction.
c. You cannot expect hard work out of a player that doesn’t share your passion for the end result.
d. Set daily, weekly or monthly measurements.
4. Let team members share in the success
a. Everyone likes to be recognized for hard work.
b. People thrive on recognition.
c. Coach should set the tone.
d. Hard to expect the team to follow your lead if negativity is your daily outlook.
e. Motivate and challenge your team daily.
f. Your purpose is to bring out the best in each player on the team.

Distinguishing Between Good & Great

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN GOOD AND GREAT

1. PREPARATION
a. “Prepare for every game like you just lost your last game.”—Lon Kruger
b. There is a difference between readiness and preparation, readiness doesn’t get it done. You must prepare—Marine boot camp philosophy.
c. Johnny Cochran vs Marcia Clark
2. TEACHING
a. Not volume—quality
b. Emotional word pictures/key phrases/terminology
c. “It’s not what you teach—it’s what you emphasize”
d. See the skill
e. Feel the skill
f. Repeat correctly, quickly over, with variety and repetition.
3. THE THREE C’s
a. Consistently—simply correlate on both ends
b. Compete—always
c. Close—hardest part of surgery is closing; most plane crashes in Vietnam came when planes were returning from successful missions (relaxed).

Re: ARETE

Re: Arete

There are moments like this when I feel I possess that elusive quality known as class. More frequently, I am certain I don’t. But I am aware that it is always available to me. Anyone can have class. It’s character is nonetheless elusive.

In talking about class and trying to define it, one runs the risk of sounding silly and snobbish. For one thing, not only is class difficult to define, it is much more evident in its absence. Since part of class is not boasting about it, the no-class people stand out. For every class athlete you see, you can name any number of spoilsports, showboats, alibiers and cheaters.

The Greeks have a word for it. Arete means the best. Arete also contains the idea of something, whether it be an object or a creature, doing exactly what it was made for. Arete means being the absolute embodiment of what it was designed to be. It is not being better than something else; it s the best of what it is. Arete is me being the best possible ______ I can be.

The important thing about actions is not what you do but the way you do it. “Every calling is great, said Oliver Wendell Holmes; “when greatly pursued.” It is the old refrain all over again. Have no care for the outcome. Play the game to the hilt. Show a little class.

The great ones, whether they are mechanics or cardiologists, waiters or housewives, always do. They have all the virtues and qualities that go with class. They believe the way they do something matters, and in the long run that is all that matters.

The distinction between life lived as a success and life lived as a failure as I see it, is a matter of class. Class is a product of body and mind and spirit. I suspect that for me it begins with an all-consuming desire to do my best, a compulsion that everyone has felt from time to time for different activities. My task it to do it to everything I do.


Taken from This Running Life
By Dr. George Sheehan

Maintaining Standards

"Evil is anything that imperceptibly lowers our standards just a hair."

Be Excellent At The Things We Can Control

We treat Excellence as a skill that must be tended to and developed daily. We work to get our players to understand that they must take ownership of the things they can control. Here are some items that we work to control and strive for Excellence at:

1. Attitude
2. Effort
3. Being a team
4. Communication
5. Rebounding
6. Pushing ball and running floor
7. Playing in active stances
8. Perfect defensive positioning
9. Conditioning

Qualitative Differences To Produce Excellence

1. TECHNIQUE

Champions are ordinary people who do ordinary things extraordinarily well.

2. DISCIPLINE

Make the practice like games and the games like practice.

Coach's job is to replicate game situations in practice.

3. ATTITUDE OF A CHAMPION

What are they eager to do? Not willing but eager is the key.

Champions don't look at it as a sacrifice. Champions choose to live as champions.

CHAMPIONS BECOME CHAMPIONS BECAUSE THEY DO WHAT CHAMPIONS HAVE TO DO

Key Thoughts For Success

Just wanted to share a few thoughts I came across this morning from my dayplanner journal.

1. There is no happiness when what you believe is not what you are. It's impossible for people to heed your advice and ignore your example.
2. You have to study the game. When two coaches are together and one is talking and one is listening, you know the one listening is the better coach.
3. Each week evaluate your players in manners, courage and language.
4. Do you have servant goals or selfish ones?
5. Build your own army wherever you are. You can't do this by taking from people, you must give. Daily acts of kindness build an army.
6. You are the sum total of your experiences.
7. Don't make decisions because they are convenient, inexpensive or popular. Make them because they are right.
8. Have the mentality of, "Count on me."
9. It's better to be content with a little rather than discontent with a lot.
10. Take nothing for granted.

Butkus Defining Excellence

"Excellence--Consistent superiority of performance"

Ripken's Rules

Cal Ripken's Rules:

Love The Game

Love Your Team

Play At The Highest Level

Coach Meyer Pre Game Notes

I went through a notebook today looking for some of our motion teaching points. I came across a notes page from my Franklin DayPlanner from December 6, 1991.

The notes were from the Lipscomb vs. IUSE pre-game:

Here's what Coach Meyer said:

1. Can't be careless in what you do.
2. Poise with purpose.
3. It's not what you do, it's how you do it.
4. We will not tolerate things not getting done by the way we want it done.
5. It's not how many games you won and lost, it's how you won and lost them.
6. Terry Anderson (on his 6 years in captivity)--the years weren't wasted, he learned a lot. His attitude kept him alive. He wants peace of mind.
7. Get back to ATTITUDE being important.
8. You can't get into winning and losing. Commit to excellence.
9. Just play hard.
10. We stand for the best the game can be played.
11. We play against the game.
12. You must give all.
13. Be the best at what you're doing.
14. Strive to be the best you can be.
15. You can't always control winning and losing, just play hard.

George Will On Excellence

"Americans are fascinated by excellence, not only as a product but a process.

How do you achieve it?

How do you sustain it?

What's the edge and what makes them special?"

Teaching The Pursuit of Excellence

Bob Ladouceur began coaching the De La Salle High Spartans in Concord, California in 1979, when he was twenty-five years old. He took over a team that had never enjoyed a winning season since the school's founding in 1965 and turned it into a perennial winner. From 1992 to 2003, he guided the team to 12-consecutive undefeated seasons, setting a national winning streak record for high school football of 151 consecutive wins – a record matched in amateur sports only by the 159 game winning streak of Passaic High School in men's basketball. Ladouceur was enshrined to the National High School Hall of Fame in 2001. His team has topped the USA Today rankings five times and he is a three time coach of the year. Entering 2008, his career record was 343-22-3. His .936 winning percentage is a record among coaches with 200 or more wins.
The following notes are from his book, "When The Game Stands Tall", it is a must read for all coaches.

• It's a game of technique, repetition and getting it right in practice before you run it in a game. Discipline. The game is played aggressively; it's hard, and it's tough.
• It's getting all the guys doing their jobs at one time.
• Quickness and precision instead of size and athleticism.
• We wanted to train kids to play at a level of excellence that satisfied us. We wanted to take the spirit of the game and infuse it in the kids. He wanted them to play with pure joy and abandonment. Winning was secondary to that. It was a by-product of playing at that level.
• Everybody is at De La Salle for the same reason. They want to be the best.
• We don't count wins. We count on them improving every week. We just work day to day and keep plugging away. Wins are the outcomes.
• Teach them what it takes to play at the highest level: Aggressiveness, Eliminating mental mistakes and a Love of the game.
• Are we going to do this right or are we going to accept mediocrity?