“We played like three tons of buzzard puke this afternoon.”
– Spike Dykes, former coach, Texas Tech University
“Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football.”
– John Heisman, namesake of College Football’s most coveted individual prize
“We didn’t tackle well today, but we made up for it by not blocking. When you ask me about our team’s execution, let me just say that I’m in favor of it.”
– John McKay, when Head Coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Coaching is about leadership, primarily. It’s about putting the team in a position to maximize its talent, and to win. It can also be about motivation. Different folks take different angles at that piece of it, and, with college football Saturday just around the corner, here’s hoping you can have some fun with these quotes today.
While all of these quotes are “backhanded” motivators (and pretty danged funny at the same time), coaching (leading) today is less about over-arching team assessment than it is getting the most out of each player (employee) by focusing on what they’re innately equipped to do best, and then putting in a position to do more of that each day.
If we’re tasked with coaching a team, large or small, here’s a challenge to know what “ticks” with each member of that team, and tapping in to it in such a way that the entire team gets better, one player at a time.
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