Why I Play Sports When I interviewed with Mr. Hinton for the Athletic Director position at Westminster he asked me, “Why do you want to do this?” My kids were in the 6th grade at the time. My answer was, “What will my kids look like at 18 when they leave my house?” My…
Grit: Quotes from the Special Forces I think I mentioned to you all that I am engrossed in the Fox reality series Special Forces (Wednesday nights). As one more week on grit, I thought you might find value in these quotes from the first two episodes. “Deep inside, everyone wants to know if they…
Grit I watched a show the other night on FOX called Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. Sixteen celebrities are put through 10 days of physical and mental tests in Jordan. You are only eliminated if you are medically disqualified or if you quit. The “winners” are those that finish. Here is the trailer. What…
Strength in Gentleness This is from the latest edition of Wooden’s Wisdom (email I subscribe to): One of the core characteristics most identified with Coach Wooden was his calmness and quiet resolve. He could get others to do things with simple commands as opposed to yelling. He could interact with authority figures (mainly basketball…
Strong in the Storm The title of this article caught my attention as I looked at the front page of the ESPN app on Sunday. It is an article written about the French World Cup team’s victory over England in the quarterfinals. Here are a few quotes from the article of note: “The difference…
Respect I recently subscribed to WoodensWisdom.com. It is a weekly email where it discusses various aspects of teaching principles from the legacy of the legendary basketball coach at UCLA, John Wooden. It got me to thinking of some of the character building principles our Headmaster, Robbie Hinton, has been working on with staff for…
Team Building: When the Game Stands Tall I recently read When the Game Stands Tall by Neil Hayes. This is the story of Coach Bob Ladouceur and the De La Salle high school football program in California in the late 90’s and 00’s when they held the longest winning streak for a high school…
Narrow the Focus I remember reading an article back when I was coaching football receivers regarding focus. The article had two stories. The first story was about Steve Largent. Steve, at the time, 1989, led the NFL for touchdown catches above notable receivers like Jerry Rice. Steve was asked how he had done this…
Dysfunctional Team or Functional Team? On Friday at our weekly leadership meeting Mr. Hinton talked about Patrick Lencioni’s book The 5 Dysfunctions of at Team. I think there are really good insights for us as you all begin to build YOUR teams for this Winter season. Lencioni presents these in a pyramid format as…