THE ONE INTANGIBLE THAT WILL NEVER CHANGE -- WORK ETHIC

There is so much that evolves and changes in our business.  Technology advances in everything from video to so many advanced pieces of equipment that we can use to develop our players.  Computers have certainly impacted how we do our jobs.  But there is one thing necessary for success that will never change -- WORK ETHIC...especially if you are an assistant coach.

I was rereading on of my old journals and came across this passage which I do not know where it originated:

When Lombardi was an assistant coach with the New York Giants, head coach Jim Lee Howell recalled that when left the office late at night, "there was always one light burning, the one in Vince Lombardi's office."

LOMBARDI ON LEADERSHIP, FUNDAMENTALS AND COMMITMENT

"Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities; and while no one individual possesses all of the needed talents that go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader."

"Fundamentals win it. Football is two things; it’s blocking and tackling. I don’t care about formations or new defenses or tricks on defense. If you block and tackle better than the team you’re playing, you’ll win."

"Most important of all, to be successful in life demands that a man make a personal commitment to excellence and to victory, even though the ultimate victory can never be completely won. Yet that victory might be pursued and wooed with every fiber of your body, with every bit of our might and all our effort. And each week, there is a new encounter; each day, there is a new challenge."

LOMBARDI ON THE THIRD INGREDIENT

Vince Lombardi on the separator for his championship teams:

"There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don't win the game.  Then you come to the third ingredient: if you're going to play together as a team, you've got to care of one another.  You've got to love each other.  Each player has to be thinking about the next guy and saying to himself, "If I don't block that man, Paul is going to get his legs broken.  I have to do my job in order that he can do his."  The difference between mediocrity and greatness is the feeling these guys have for each other."

LOMBARDI ON TEAMWORK

Teamwork was a prominent word in the vocabulary of Vince Lombardi. He wanted them to possess “selfless teamwork and collective pride,” which, as he said, would “accumulate until they have made positive thinking and victory habitual.”

1. “Teamwork is the primary ingredient of success.”

2. “People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses or the complex problems of modern society."

From "Run to Win" by Vince Lombardi

THE GREAT ONES STUDY THE GAME

In the early years of the Lombardi regime, he (Bart Starr) often transported the film to Gary Knafelc's house, where they projected the movies on the wall and searched for clues.

"Dedication made Bart a great football player," Knafelc said.  "You could see his dedication in the way he watched film obsessively, before most people in the league watched much film.  He was very astute at picking out the tiniest things...Those little things gave us openings.  And he knew how to take advantage (of weaknesses) better than any quarterback I have very seen.

The dedication gradually made Starr smarter, and his intelligence emerged as an increasingly powerful weapon in the Packers' arsenal.

Even as the accumulation of live game experience with Lombardi's system helped him grow into the position, it was through obsessive film study that he was able to learn what to look for in the opposition and among his own players.

Next to the film projector in his basement, Starr kept a blackboard.  In later years, he and longtime backup Zeke Bratkowski spent hour upon hour drawing up hypothetical situations and testing each other with hypothetical adjustments.

LOMBARDI'S FIRST GREEN BAY PACKER TEAM MEETING

The following comes from a book I'm currently reading "America's Quarterback Bart Starr" written by Keith Dunnavant.  The passage below is Vince Lombardi's very first team meeting as the new head coach of the Green Bay Packers.  There are several points to notice in the passage including:

1. The simplification of the playbook
2. The simplification of the team's terminology
3. His ability to communicate
4. His ability to maintain eye contact
5. The way he set the tone with the standard of excellence he set forth

Here is how the first meeting reads on Dunnuvant's book"

After Lombardi walked around the room handing out new playbooks and took up a position near the blackboard, chalk in hand, he said "We're going to take a giant step backward, gentlemen."

The first milestone in the transformation was a dramatic simplification of the offense.  As he asked the player to empty their sculls full of Scotter McLean's much, they noticed that the new playbook was less than half the size of the old one.  The point was clear.  They were going to do a few things and do them all well.

In contrast to McLean's unnecessarily verbose working, which often left his quarterbacks overwhelmed, Lombardi introduced a new play calling terminology that boiled down to two digits: one number for the formation, another for the hole.  The new system transferred the calling if blocking assignments from the quarterback to the offensive lineman and gave the quarterback much great latitude to react to the defense.

"This was such a radical change," Starr said.  "He threw out all the crap.  And you're thinking: Man, does this make sense or what?"

As he diagrammed several plays, Lombardi was able to manipulate the chalk without losing eye contact with his players, a little detail that impressed Starr.

Then, in what amounted to a verbal mission statement, he clarified the purpose of his Green Bay Packers.

"Gentlemen," he said, "we are going to relentlessly chase perfection...knowing full well that we won't catch it, because nobody is perfect..."

Starr was on the edge of his seat, soaking up the message like a sponge.

"...but we're going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process, we will catch excellence."

Perfection.

Excellence.

The words tumbled into Starr's mind as Lombardi paused and moved closer, close enough to see the fire in his eyes.  Starr would always remember the pause, the perfectly timed theatricality of it, the way it heightened the sense of anticipation pervading the room.

"I'm not remotely interest in being just good."

When the took a break for lunch, Starr rushed downstairs to a pay phone and place a long-distance call to Cherry at their off-season home in Birmingham.  "Honey," he said excitedly, "we're going to begin to win."

4 CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT COACHES

The following comes from a post on Stack.com written by Lee Gordon:

Former UCLA Head Basketball Coach John Wooden, the only collegiate coach to win 10 NCAA National Championships, is considered by many to be the greatest coach in the history of all sports. More than a dozen leadership books are based on his teachings, and his admirers include some of today’s most successful coaches, like two-time Super Bowl Champion Tom Coughlin of the New York Giants.

Coughlin and many others employ the techniques taught in Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, a 15-step process designed to foster attributes of true leadership. But if there were a perfect formula for leadership, everyone would follow it. So what do coaches like Nick Saban, Rick Pitino, and Vince Lombardi do that others don’t? What attributes make them not just good, but great? While it’s impossible to say exactly what works, there are four characteristics that nearly all great leaders share.

1. They Get People to “Buy In”
Athletes have to work at things, and coaches must convince others why they should work—fostering a belief within them that their work matters. Whether coach oversees a 12-man basketball squad or a 65-man football roster, each player is an individual, and each has his or her own agenda. A coach must mold the players together and convince them to do things for the good of the team—and not just the really talented guys. In fact, one of the things that made John Wooden such a successful basketball coach was his ability to reach his bench players and get them to perform. Wooden’s teams weren’t just about the five starters. The other seven guys made important contributions—and everyone knew it.

2. They Believe in Themselves
Great coaches are able to win others over to their way of thinking, a feat that wouldn’t be possible if they didn’t truly believe in themselves and possess the confidence that they can get the job done.

Former Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa is a great example. His players almost never saw him rattled, whether the team was leading by eight runs or losing by ten. In an interview with SUCCESS magazine, LaRussa said simply, “My job was to keep our whole staff at a level 10.” No matter what challenges he or his team ran up against, he remained steadfast and undeterred. “Some days you feel like a six because you are distracted,” LaRussa said. “You need to get to a 10.”

3. They Seek Opposing Ideas
Dictators have “yes men,” but great leaders seek differing opinions. Coaches often have mentors or confidants who are willing to tell them “no” and bring them back down to earth. Nick Saban and New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick both have said that their fathers played this role. Other top coaches, like Ohio State head football coach Urban Meyer, credits a former coach for his leadership style.

4. They Visualize Success
Don Yaeger is a 7-time New York Times bestselling author and former Sports Illustrated editor who’s spent his career researching greatness and leadership. What he found is summed up in his 16 Characteristics of Greatness—a road map for those who truly want to be successful. He says a key attribute of winning leaders is that they see themselves as winners, all the time.

"The greatest leaders in sports are able to visualize victory even before the game starts," Yaeger says.

But when it comes to success, “seeing” and “believing” are just part of the equation. What great coaches understand is that visualization must be backed up with real world hard work. Preparation only comes through practice, and men like Coach Wooden were willing to put in the work—and convince his players to do the same.

"I spent a lot of time with Coach Wooden,” Yaeger said. “He was never frazzled, and always seemed two steps ahead of everyone.”

“But more than that, [Wooden] was more prepared than anyone else in the room." Yaeger said.

VINCE LOMBARDI'S "NUMBER ONE SPEECH

"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

"There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that's first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

"Every time a football player goes to play his trade he's got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.

"Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization - an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win - to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is.

"It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there - to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules - but to win.

"And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

"I don't say these things because I believe in the 'brute' nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour - his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he's exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."

PUTTING PURPOSE IN WHAT THEY DO

So many of the great coaches in all sports are often misunderstood.  So many people think that coaching is about yelling and screaming at players to do what they're supposed to do.  But the great ones know how to laugh, hug and make their players know they are also loves.  Here is a great example from the book "Lombardi and Me" written by Paul Hornung.  This particular passage comes from Packer Hall of Famer Willie Davis (#87 in photo above):

I played for three Hall of Fame Coaches – Eddie Robinson at Grambling, Paul Brown at Cleveland, and Vince Lombardi with Green Bay – and they were all great. But one of the things Coach Lombardi could do better than the others was motivate. He could chew you out one minute, but the next minute he’d say something to make you feel loved and ready to run through a brick wall for him.

I still think his ability to analyze and diagnose an opponent was unbelievable. … It was almost as if he had written the other team’s game plan.

Lombardi did more individual coaching than anybody I’ve ever seen. He really got tot know his players and what made the tick. Once he called me in and he said, “Willie, I know what makes you play the way you do.” And then he related my being black and him being Italian and coming up the hard way. He said, “It’s very important to me, because of my background, that people recognize me as being a great coach.” He knew just how to get me involved.

I would have gone through hellfire for that man.

Lombardi put purpose behind what you were doing. You knew what you were doing and why, and you didn’t want to make a mistake. I still think his ability to analyze and diagnose an opponent was unbelievable. He’d come up to you and say, “You’ve got to be ready for this or that,” and he was always right. It was almost as it he had written the other team’s game plan.

In many ways, he challenged me every week. Before a game, he’s say, “When you walk off that field today, I want people to say they’ve seen the finest defensive end in the league.” He made me believe I could do anything.

VINCE LOMBARDI ON THE KEY INGREDIENT OF SUCCESS

"There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don’t win the game. Then you come to the third ingredient: If you’re going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another. You’ve got to love each other. Each player has to be thinking about the next guy.”

-Vince Lombardi

"BRILLIANT ON THE BASICS"

When Vince Lombardi took over the Green Bay Packers, he was asked if he was going to change the players, the plays, the training, or other key aspects of the team.  He replied, "I'm not going to change anything; we are simply going to become brilliant on the basics."

From "How The Best Leaders Lead" by Brian Tracy

TWO QUALITIES LEADERS ARE LOOKING FOR

"Leaders aren't born; they are made.  And they are made just

like anything else, through hard work.  And that's the price

we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal."

-Vince Lombardi

There is perhaps no area of your life where self-discipline has a great impact on your future than in your work.

A group of senior executives was asked, "What are the most important qualities that a person would need to be promoted in your company?"  Of these executives, 85 percent agreed that the most important qualities are:

1. The ability to set priorities and work on high value tasks; and
2. The discipline to get the job done quickly and well.

There is nothing that will bring you more quickly to the attention of people who can help you than for you to develop a reputation for hard, disciplined work, every hour of every day.

From "No Excuses" by Brian Tracy

WINNING IS A HABIT

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON COACHING (PART V)

PARENTS:

DON MEYER: “Most parents would rather see their child make the All-State team rather than their team win the state championship.”

PASSION

SKIP BERTMAN: “I’ve always believed that anything you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon, must, absolutely must, come to pass.”

PERSEVERANCE

MIKE SHANAHAN: “I’m sure you’ve heard that adversity builds character and strength. These are, in my mind, the two most important components of persevering.”

PHILOSOPHY

JACK RAMSAY: "Determining his philosophy is, therefore, a coach's primary task; he must decide, before anything else, what it is he wants to say of himself through the game."

PRACTICE

JON GRUDEN: "Teach your players how to practice. That's even more important than teaching them what to practice, because if you don't establish the pace you want and if you aren't consistent about it, they're going to work the way they want to and it's going to change with each day. You have to let them know that you want them practicing with a sense of purpose, every time."

PREPARATION

KEVIN EASTMAN: “Pressure always hits hardest when you are unprepared. Preparation is pressure's greatest obstacle. Be prepared every time; in every way.”

PRESSURE

JOHN WOODEN: “Pressure is healthy. It can lead to improvement. Stress is unhealthy. It can lead to mistakes.”

PROBLEM SOLVING

DALE BROWN: "The greatest of problems is the greatest of opportunities."

PROCESS

NICK SABAN: “If you don’t get result-oriented with the kids, you can focus on the things in the process that are important to them being successful. That is the only way they are going to compete the way you want them to.”

PURPOSE

VINCE LOMBARDI: "Success demands singleness of purpose."

THE DRIVE FOR SUCCESS

What success does to you.  It is like a habit-forming drug that, in victory, saps your elation and, in defeat, deepens your despair.  Once you have sampled it you are hooked, and now I lie in bed, not sleeping the sleep of the victor but wide awake, seeing the other people who are coming in next Sunday.

From "Run To Daylight" by Vince Lombardi

THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR "QUARTERBACK"

The following comes "Run to Daylight" by Vince Lombardi.  Coach Lombardi is talking about all the characteristics you'd like to find in a quarterback and you can actually translate it into point guard play on the basketball side:

Because of the enormous load he must carry in the way we play the game in this league, you spend more time with your quarterback and his back-up man than you do with any of the others.  Without a good quarterback, you just don't operate.

His I.Q. must be above average, because he must not only be able to absorb the coach's game plan each week but he must also have a thorough knowledge of what everyone does on every play, and he must know the opponent, the qualities and characteristics of each individual on the other team.

He should be strong physically and able to take punishment when those 270-pounders unload on him, and he should have enough height to see his receivers over those opposing linemen.

A quarterback must have great poise, too, and he must not be panicked by what the defense does or his own offense fails to do.  he must know the characteristic fakes and patterns of his ends and backs and anticipate the break before the receiver makes it.  Then there are those times when, by the nature of its rush, the defense overextends and leaves itself open to a run, so the quarterback who can also run has a great advantage.

If you find all this in one man you have found a special person, and each year you try.

THE LOMBARDI WAY: INTENSE PRACTICE = FUN GAMES

The following comes from "Lombardi and Me" by Paul Hornung with Billy Reed.  This excerpt comes from Redskin great Sonny Jurgenson:

Well before Lombardi came out of retirement to take the Redskins job, I had lunch with Bart Starr one day in Washington, and he told me, “You would really enjoy playing for him.  The games are fun.  We have such intense preparation during every week that it makes the games fun.  You’re never surprised on the field.”

I remember that Paul Horung told me about Lombardi time.  About how when he calls for a meeting at 10:00 a.m., you’d better be there at 9:30.

Leave no regrets on the field.

 Lombardi taught you how to anticipate and react no matter what the situation.  He prepared you, then he let you play.

LOMBARDI: COACHING IS TEACHING (AND SIMPLISTIC)

“They call it coaching but it is teaching.” -Vince Lombardi

Perfection came with simplicity.

It was at once simple yet subtle, direct yet flexible. Every player was taught not just what he should do under normal conditions but how to respond to any unexpected defense.

The sweep had another meaning in Lombardi’s system: it was his definition of team, a play in which the offensive players had to think and react together, eleven brains and bodies working as one. “Everyone was important in the sweep,” said Ron Kramer.

It placed the emphasis on reading the defense and giving the quarterback fewer plays but more options.


From "When Pride Still Mattered" by David Maraniss

THOUGHTS ON HOW THREE GREAT COACHES VIEWED THE CONCEPT OF WINNING

Thomas Edison once said, "I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that it won’t work.” But he did find a way, a favorite phase of coaches. And the way to find a way is to focus on a way — a means of getting the job done. We must trust that an appropriate approach will provide us with what we want. In fewer than 10,000 attempts.

Well Lombardi, Wooden and Knight, and others like them, would have no problem with 10,000 repetitions. It would get done. The right execution, that is.

But let’s consider the attitude these three coaches had about winning. John Wooden never referred to the word. His UCLA teams won regularly and consecutively.

Bob Knight has this say (Scholastic Coach, December 1982): “You can keeping winning and losing in perspective by never thinking about either one. The ultimate objective is neither to win or keep from losing. I can tell people how to win some games, but I don’t think many coaches know to think about winning. The way you win is not by striving to just ‘win the game,’ but by striving to play the game as well as you can.” (Emphasis was Knight’s).

And now the words of Vince Lombardi, who bellowed them out on a particular day: “Winning isn’t everything; but it’s the only thing.” Off quoted, oft misunderstood. Lombardi had many one-liners referring to winning but that one followed him to his grave.

These words he spoke at a later time, relating to the infamous remark, are rarely heard: “I wish to hell I’d never said the damned thing. I mean the effect...I meant having a goal...I sure as hell didn’t mean for people to crush human value and morality.”


From "Coaching The Mental Game" by H. A. Dorfman

LOMBARDI: WINNING AND LOSING

"Each Sunday after the battle, one group savors victory, another lives the bitterness of defeat.  The practice and the hard work of the season seem a small price for having won.  But there are no reasons that are adequate for having lost."

-Vince Lombardi