BO ON A BACK UP PLAN AND MAKING SURE YOUR TEAM IS IMPROVED AFTER HALFTIME

I've always been a big believe in "Plan B" (and even Plan C & D).  You always go into a game with an organized plan of attack but the best coaches are flexible in their preparation and in their game execution.  We might want to come out and trap ball screens -- and we will work on it in practice.  But if the offense throws us a new wrinkle or if are execution does not give us the pre-conceived results than we are going to hedge, ice or slide thru.  And we are going to make sure we work on at least two in practice just in case.

I loved Bo Schembechler's thoughts on this concept as he wrote in "Bo's Lasting Lessons" with John U. Bacon:

They say the first casualty of war is the war plan, and I'd have to agree with that.

I knew more about Woody Hayes than any coach I ever went against, hands down.  I played for him, coached for him, I studied him.  I knew that guy cold!  And every time we played each other, he still did something I didn't expect -- ten straight years!  Hot damn!  I didn't know he was going to do that!

So that goes to show you, as much time as we spent scouting and preparing and planning -- and I don't think any team in America prepared better for anyone than we did for Ohio State -- the game never went exactly as we thought it would.  It just never does.

That's all right.  If things aren't going your way, you adjust.  Forget your game plan, forget your ego.  Get the best information you can, and give your team the best chance to succeed from that point forward.  To do anything less is to let your people down when they need you most.  And that just inexcusable.

The best time to do this, if you're a football coach, is halftime.  When you leave your locker room for the second half, you're not going to be the same team.  You're either going to be better informed, or you're going to fall behind because the guys in the other locker room are making better adjustments than you are.

We almost never spent that time on inspirational talks, but on technical adjustments.  To make the most out of our time, we followed a strict routine.

DO YOUR JOB AND DO IT WELL

"That was the final lesson I learned from my days as an assistant coach. Don’t waste your time and energy looking for the next job. Take care of the job you’ve got now. If you’re good at what you’re doing now, they’ll find you."

-Bo Schembechler

BO SCHEMBECHLER: THE TEAM, THE TEAM, THE TEAM

RANDOM COACHING THOUGHTS (PART VI)

RECRUITING

ROY WILLIAMS: “I recruit character as much as I recruit ability. And if you’ve built a team of character, they can handle moments that others cannot and they accept coaching on how to manage pressure.”

RELATIONSHIPS

BILLY DONOVAN: “The first thing you must understand is that the person being motivated must have the feeling that the one doing the motivating really cares about you.”

RESPECT

ANSON DORRANCE: “Invariably, the route to becoming liked is through respect. And I think one of the great mistakes that all the young coaches make as they are entering the profession is the feeling that they have to be liked.”

RESPONSIBILITY

TOM OSBORNE: "The players felt a responsibility not only to the program but to the men who had preceded them as well. Our players and coaches cared about the program to an unusual degree and were willing to pay a great price to ensure a continuation of excellence. Once a football program or organization reaches a point where the people involved begin to feel that type of loyalty, great things begin to happen."

ROLES

PHIL JACKSON: "It's just trying to keep everybody prepared to contribute. Sometimes you can only play a guy a couple of minutes. They just have to understand that whatever they have to do, to go in there and play is an important part of it. A coach can always read disappointment on a player's body language. But this is a team that wants to win and they know to do so they have to be willing to put 'me' second to team. That's an important aspect of it."

RULES

DALE BROWN: “The fewer rules the better. Rules reduce freedom and responsibility. Enforcement of rules is coercive and manipulative, which diminishes spontaneity and absorbs group energy.”

SACRIFICE

BEAR BRYANT: “If it’s worth playing, it’s worth paying the price.”

SALARY

BO SCHEMBECHLER: "When you're just starting out, it's better to make peanuts for a great leader than it is to make some big salary from a mediocre one."

SCHEDULING

DON MEYER: "Scheduling can give your early success but you can't overdo it. Remember, you can't build anything picking up sticks but you can get killed when the big trees fall."

SELF-DISCIPLINE

DICK BENNETT: “It is a paradoxical statement, but it takes incredible personal discipline to play with great freedom.”

BO SCHEMBECHLER'S THOUGHTS ON TEAM MEETINGS

First, if you don’t have anything important to say, don’t schedule a meeting for the heck of it. When you do have something worthwhile to address, know what your message is—and just as important, know what you want them to get out of it.

The person who knows how to run a meeting will get twice as much out of his people, because when the meeting’s over, they’ll be ready to act on the message. That’s what a meeting’s supposed to accomplish!

The most important meeting you will ever have with your people is your first one—because it is absolutely vital that everyone knows exactly what your values are, from Day One.

When the players walked in, they picked up a thick Michigan football binder with everything they needed to know to be a Wolverine inside. Well, almost everything. Instead of spoon feeding them the opening speech by printing it out, I had them write down everything I said so they would remember it.

And it worked.

Before the meeting even started we established that, from now on, early is on time, and on time is late. That’s why we locked the door right at seven o’clock.

“If you plan to succeed as a Michigan football player, you need to understand our meetings are just as important as our practices. They are practices, mental exercises where we learn to eliminate mistakes! And trust me, when we take the practice field, we know immediately who was paying attention and who wasn’t. So, if you have a question, you better ask it now.”

From "Bo’s Lasting Lessons" by Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon

MILES LEARNED FROM BO: TAKE THE "TEAM" APPROACH

The following was a column written in The Advocate by a friend and fine writer Scott Rabalais:

When the media’s preseason All-Southeastern Conference team was released way back in July, LSU had one player on the first team: Morris Claiborne.

Alabama had eight first-teamers, Georgia three. Even Kentucky had two, and an investigation revealed they weren’t wandering basketball players, either.

In the vote for who would end up winning the SEC, Alabama was an overwhelming favorite. Not surprising since most of the media attending the SEC Media Days in Birmingham is based in Alabama, but objectively most people looked at the team the Crimson Tide had returning and the fact LSU had to play there Nov. 5 and figured that would be the telling moment.

The Tigers, despite their lack of obvious superstar talent, earned the second-most first-place votes. It proved to be a telling statistic.

“Everyone was saying we don’t have anybody on the all-conference team, whereas somebody thinks we have a pretty good team,” LSU coach Les Miles said.

Back when Miles’ mentor, Bo Schembechler, was head coach at Michigan, he made a stirring preseason speech one year, a speech that certainly has to still resonate within Miles.

“No man, no coach is more important than the team,” Bo said. “The team, the team, the team.”

The team above all. The team’s goals. The team that can be greater than the sum of its individual parts.

As the season went on, surely this LSU team had its superstars. Claiborne became everybody’s All-American. Tyrann Mathieu became the Honey Badger, and despite a midseason swoon rode his indelible nickname and incomparable talent for making big plays to a seat in New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

But overall, it has been LSU’s depth that has led the Tigers to 13-0 and a berth in the BCS National Championship Game. Players like Mathieu and Mo certainly have had their critical moments, and individual playmakers abound. But it’s LSU’s ability to grind teams down, come at them with waves of players of similarly high-grade talent, that has been the Tigers’ biggest asset this season as they defeated everyone on a schedule that included eight ranked foes.

“This team has found exactly what they’ve needed to do to win,” Miles said. “They took on all comers.”

Certainly by this point on a team this good, it was to be expected that some players would get individual honors.

But you have to imagine this is exactly the kind of team Miles enjoys coaching – and the kind of team that ultimately would have earned Schembechler’s approval.

“I guess what I’d rather have is a guy who has a feel of having his teammates’ back, where if somebody makes a mistake or is out of position or fundamentally doesn’t make a play, that guy has his back and makes that play,” Miles said.

“Just for me is not enough. I want to do it for the other people in this room. That is necessary for any team that achieves significantly.”

The team. The team, the team, the team.

ESTABLISH YOUR EXPECTATIONS NOW!

"I say, whatever your philosophy, whatever your standards, whatever your expectations, you establish those on Day One. Don’t waste a second! Let them adjust to you, not the other way around. You can always soften up if you need to, but you can’t get tougher later on."

-Bo Schembechler (from: "Bo's Lasting Lessons" by Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon

BO: "COACH THEM ALL"

Everyone thinks talent is fixed—that this guy’s got it and that guy doesn’t—but it’s just not true. Talent is elastic, and particularly so in team sports. A team of athletes that are well coached well disciplined and play hard together can beat a team with more talent, if that team lacks character, or proper attitudes or cohesiveness. You can beat a team like that—and it’s satisfying when you do!

Everyone knows this. But how do you do it? I’ll tell you how: You coach them all—and let the cream rise to the top.

Here’s the point: You’re not going to yell your way to the top of your profession. If your people are going to perform their absolute best, you need to give them the tools to do so.

If you’re mining gold, you better give your miners the best shovels and picks out there—or you won’t get much gold out of them.

Why coach everybody? Because no one is so smart they can tell you which young prospects are going to develop, when they’re going to develop, or how far they’ll go.

Here’s another reason you should coach them all, instead of just the hotshots: because you recruited them! And if you picked them, you should help them. If he’s no good—well hell, whose fault is that? Yours! So you’d better do your best to make them better.

I’ve always thought you can get more out of every player, even the stars, if you coached them as a team. If you try to win championships, instead of individual awards, everyone will get better.

This means everyone on your team must have a clear, specific role to play, and they have to see those roles as being vital to the success of the entire organization.

The most important things we gave every player, though, were time and attention.

If one of our players wanted to see me, he got to see me, no questions asked. And whether or not they wanted to see me, I wanted to see them! That’s why we set up those meetings twice a year, so I could go over their grades, their goals, and let them know what they could do to contribute to the team’s success that season.

When they left that meeting, they had no confusion about where they stood on the team, what I expected of them, and why there were important to us.

From "Bo's Lasting Lessons" by Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon

BO SCHEMBECHLER: INNER DRIVE AND MOTIVATION

1. Meaning of motivation poem: I’d rather see a sermon than to hear on any day; I’d rather one should walk with me than merely show the way; The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear; Fine counsel is confusing, but examples are always clear. And, best of all, the preachers are the men who live their creeds; For to see good put in action is what everybody needs. I soon can learn to do it, if you’ll let me see it done; I can see your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run. And the lectures you deliver may be very fine and true, But I’d rather get my lesson by observing what you do; For I may misunderstand you and the high advice you give; But there’s no misunderstanding how you act and how you live!

2. Motivation is the will to do something to the absolute best of one’s ability. A motivated man refuses to surrender even when there is nothing left to give. The enormity of the task does not matter. Neither do overwhelming odds against success. An effort may at times fall short of its goal, but a motivated team never allows itself to come up short of effort. Success isn’t a case of never making mistakes. It’s a case of never giving up after making mistakes. That’s motivation! Ordinary men make promises to achieve excellence. Motivated men are fearless. They take it one step further. They make commitments, and they never compromise. The late Bob Zuppke, who coached the University of Illinois football team for 29 years, once said, “The difference between champions and near champions is the ability to play for something outside of self.” That’s motivation! No one can achieve lasting success without it.

3. The wise coach knows that true motivation comes from within. The successful coach understands how to share that marvelous uncompromising spirit with every member of the football team. People often mistake motivation with the histrionics of a pregame or halftime speech. Normally those kinds of speeches serve only to prove that, given the opportunity, a coach is capable of making as many promises as a double-talking salesman. Speeches are better left to politicians and preachers. Save them for the student pep rallies and the fund-raising affairs. Sometimes the right words can trigger a player’s emotion lying just beneath the surface. But the coach should have planted that emotion in the bellies of everybody on the team a long time ago. A wise old preacher once said, “I’d rather live one good sermon than give a million bad ones.” There’s no better piece of advice for a football coach.

4. Motivation is a passion for the game, a passion for life, and a passion for bringing out the best in every person whose life you have the opportunity to touch. A man must commit himself to that degree of passion before he truly earns the title coach.

5. A coach cannot instill motivation into any of his players, his assistants, or any other member of the football organization unless he himself is motivated. A coach must live his passion. He must breathe it. Above all, he must conduct himself accordingly, not only on the football field but in every aspect of life. He must be the living image of what each of his players aspires to become. Only then will he have a chance of transferring that motivation to his men. Motivation is not restricted to the 11 autumn Saturdays when the team plays games. The team must practice it when preparing for each game throughout the season. Motivation must be paramount during the off-season conditioning when it’s easy to believe that the upcoming season is too far away to worry about. And, most important, motivation must become an integral part of all aspects of life away from the field, where character and morality are the true measures of a man.

6. The team will reflect what the coach is. The team will believe what the coach believes. How can the coach expect any member of his squad to live by the highest standards if he doesn’t apply the same yardstick of judgment to himself? He must radiate his qualities to each member of the organization—assistant coaches, players, trainers, equipment managers, secretaries, every member of the staff. No unit of the team can achieve success without the dedicated effort of the whole. Motivation doesn’t magically start in August when the first footballs are thrown out onto the field. Motivation is a 12-month, 52-week, 24-hour-a-day job. It all starts with the head coach.

7. If you slice open the belly of motivation, I guarantee you’ll find two basic elements—honestly and integrity. No coach, no football player, no person in any occupation will ever become truly successful without embracing each of those qualities with the fury that a football player applies when diving onto a fumbled ball.

8. The core of coaching is honesty. You can develop a trusting relationship only with people who believe in you, the program, the team, and themselves. A coach must lead his team with truth and honesty to confront the untruth, the half-truths, and all the baloney that others may throw at him.

9. The character of a leader, a team, and an entire program depends on honesty from all those involved. You cannot motivate without honesty. You cannot assemble a highly motivated team unless they know you speak the truth. Honesty is the core of coaching.

10. If you live the right way, you’ll play the right way. It begins with the head coach. By living the right way, a coach is free to demand the same of his team. Don’t ever ask anything of another that you are afraid to do yourself. How can a coach expect his players to develop an enthusiastic attitude if he doesn’t have one himself? How can he expect his players to be well disciplines if he himself is not? Players reflect the attitude and motivation of the coach. If you believe in what you’re doing and your heart is in your work, you will be able to motivate others to heights they never believed possible. The coach must establish high standards and expect nothing but the best.

11. A critical aspect of motivation is communication. Only through communication can a coach establish an honest and trusting relationship. Team meetings and pregame pep talks are overrated. I prefer one-on-one relationships. They provide the opportunity to establish trust on both sides.

12. Communication is more than merely exchanging words. Real communication is an art. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes the ability to listen. A coach must learn to accept each player for the individual that he is. A coach must understand that a young man may be reaching out for guidance that he may be unable to get from any other person in his world.

13. Throughout my career at the University of Michigan, no player needed an appointment to see me in my office. In or out of season, the door was always open to my players. Whether it was the starting quarterback or a fourth-string walk-on lineman, each young man was welcoming to visit me in my office any time, day or night. My secretary was careful never to disturb me for anything while I was in a meeting—unless one of my players had come to my office to talk. Then all the rules were off.

14. If a coach is serious about building character and instilling motivation in the young men under his charge, he must practice being a coach at all times and in every situation.

15. All athletes, down deep, want to be challenged. That’s why it is so critical for the coach to understand what method of motivation each individual responds to best. Then the coach must act with care and consistency to ensure that each player demands the best from himself so that motivation becomes self-starting.

16. Motivation takes on a different face in different situations. I have always maintained it is easier to motivate a team after a loss than when things are going well. When your team is on a winning streak and most of the breaks are falling your way, there is a tendency to believe that the good times will never end. If an injury or some other misfortune strikes, a team may not be mentally prepared to overcome adversity. When we were winning, I was a miserable, persnickety SOB while watching a game film. I spotted minuscule mistakes that normally took a microscope to detect. I always believed that sloppy habits, even in victory, set the table for a crushing defeat. I was far more concerned with instilling proper motivation after a victory than I was after a defeat in which our team expanded total effort. Even in victory, a motivated team never accepts lack of effort. Lack of talent is a separate matter. A coach must vociferously approach a lack of effort.

From the book titled "The Football Coaching Bible"

BO USES ROOM ASSIGNMENTS TO BUILD HIS TEAM

In his book, "Bo's Lasting Lessons," Bo Schembechler discussed who and why it roomed players on the road and in the dorms.  Great coaches look for many angles to build their team -- here is one way that Bo did it at Michigan:

At the end of the day, all we have is each other, so you need to get to know your teammates. That’s why we decide who rooms with whom, in the dorms and on the road.

This was by design. I didn’t see any point having two seniors room together on the road, because they already knew each other. No, you split them up and put each of them with a freshman who could benefit from a little guidance.

Same thing with the dorm assignments. Two guys from the same neighborhood? That’s too easy. So you pair up the kid from downtown Detroit with the kid from rural Ohio. They get to know each other. Four years later, you’ve got one helluva senior class, and they get a friend for life.

EARNING RESPECT

Respect must be earned over time. There are no shortcuts. It is earned through the consistent embodiment of three attributes:

1. Trustworthiness.
People never respect a person they cannot trust. Never. The best coaches know this and work immediately on letting their players know they can be trusted. Mike Krzyzewski, head basketball coach of Duke University, put it this way. “If you set up an atmosphere of communication and trust, it becomes a tradition. Older team members will establish your credibility with never ones. Even if they don’t like everything about you, they’ll still say, ‘He’s trustworthy, committed to us as a team.’”

2. A caring attitude.
In all my years of leading people, I must have said this more than a thousand times: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” It’s true. If players sense that you really care about them, that you have their interests at heart, they will listen to you and respect you. As former University of Michigan head football coach Bo Schembechler said, “Deep-down, your players must know you care about them. This is the most important thing. I could never get away with what I do f the players felt I didn’t care. They know, in the long run, I’m in their corner.”

3. The ability to make hard decisions.
 Players cannot respect a coach who cannot make the hard decisions necessary for a team to succeed. When a coach is willing to make those decisions, the players know he is acting in the team’s best interest. They feel secure, and they in turn are more likely to act in the team’s best interest themselves. Tom Landry said, “Perhaps the toughest call for a coach is weighing what is best for an individual against what is best for the team. Keeping a player on the roster just because I liked him personally, or even because of his great contributions to the team in the past, when I felt someone else could do more for the team would be a disservice to the team’s goals.” He would also lose his players’ respect.

From "Developing the Leaders Around You" by John C. Maxwell

BO ON CRITIQUING ASSISTANT COACHES

"I spent more time critiquing a potential assistant than I did a recruit—and for good reason. That coach is going to be around a lot longer than that player is! That’s why, before I hired someone, I’d go to his house and meets his family, just like I would with a recruit. But in the case of a coach, instead of getting to know his parents, I wanted to meet his spouse, because you can ruin a good person real fast with a bad spouse. But if you have an enthusiastic man with a strong wife who supports him, that’s someone you can count on. I even got to know their kids, and if their mother and father were close by, why not visit with them, too?"

From "Bo’s Lasting Lessons" by Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon

BO ON "THE TEAM, THE TEAM, THE TEAM"

When we hammered home our famous mantra, “The team, the team, the team,” that didn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation. When I came up with that, I wasn’t trying to be clever. It means if you’re late for the team bus, I don’t care if you’re Jim Mandich, Anthony Carter and Desmond Howard rolled into one. That bus is leaving, it’s leaving on time—and it’s leaving without you!

Look, they know Bo is always sitting up at the front of the bus, and when pullout time comes, he just checks his watch and says, “Driver, it’s time to go.” We don’t have anyone checking who’s here and who isn’t. We don’t check! I never took roll. If you’re on the bus, you must be on time, and if you’re not on the bus, you must be late, and it’s your fault. Driver, it’s time to go!

We’ve had guys running up to the bus as we were pulling out—starters, even—and the guys on the bus always started yelling, “Coach! So-and so’s running up to the bus!” I didn’t care who it was. I guarantee you right now I never even turned around to look, because the answer was always the same: Driver, it’s time to go!

Everyone knew Bo’s not mad at you, he’s just leaving you. And I’ll tell you why: Because it’s just not fair to the other guys who took the trouble to get there on time. The bus waits for no man!

Driver, it’s time to go!

And as your big All-American grows smaller in the bus’s rearview mirror, he’ll have time to consider if you really meant what you said about the team, the team, the team. Leave a guy standing in the parking lot just once, and you better believe he’ll be a half-hour early next time. Once everyone knows I’m not holding the bus for anyone, trust me, they get there. They always do.

That bus symbolized the foundation of our values: simple, straightforward, no exceptions. You start cutting corners for this guy or that situation, and before you know it, you’re spending all your time playing judge and jury, deliberating over very little incident, when you should be leading your team. It’s painful sometimes, but you create a lot fewer headaches for everyone, including the players, when you simply stick to your guns.

From "Bo’s Lasting Lessons" by Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon

BO ON MOTIVATION

"Motivation is the will to do something to the absolute best of one’s ability. A motivated man refuses to surrender even when there is nothing left to give. The enormity of the task does not matter. Neither do overwhelming odds against success. An effort may at times fall short of its goal, but a motivated team never allows itself to come up short of effort. Success isn’t a case of never making mistakes. It’s a case of never giving up after making mistakes. That’s motivation! Ordinary men make promises to achieve excellence. Motivated men are fearless. They take it one step further. They make commitments, and they never compromise. The late Bob Zuppke, who coached the University of Illinois football team for 29 years, once said, 'The difference between champions and near champions is the ability to play for something outside of self.' That’s motivation! No one can achieve lasting success without it."

-Bo Schembechler

COMMON MISTAKE FOR NEW LEADERS

One of the most common mistakes new leaders make—and I just can’t for the life of me understand this one—is to ignore the history of the organization they just took over, or even to disrespect it. That, to me, is the mark of a weak leader—and one who’s probably not going to last very long.

Let me be as clear as I can be about this: When you become the leader, do not start your reign by dismantling or ignoring the contributions of those who cam before. The history of your organization is one of your greatest strengths, and if you’re new to the organization, it’s your job to learn it, to respect it and to teach it to the people coming up in your company.

From "Bo’s Lasting Lessons" by Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon

TO BE A GREAT LEADER, STUDY GREAT LEADERS

The following comes from "Bo's Lasting Lessons," By Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon. It's a great passage about how even the greatest of coaches start the bottom doing the simpliest of duties. Coach Don Meyer speaks of "sucking scum" as a young coach and taught us all that John Wooden use to sweep his own floors. In this passage you not only see what Bo did early on, but more importantly, the attitude in which he used to perform these tasks. At an early age in his professional career, Bo got it. A great study for assistant coaches as to how to become better at their craft and properly move up the ladder:

If you want to become a great leader, you need to prepare yourself to become a great leader, and the best way to do that is to study great leaders.

When Woody Hayes left Miami of Ohio in 1951, right after my senior year, to take the head coaching position at Ohio State, I didn’t have to think too long to accept his offer to go with him. This was the first of my two stints with Woody, which formed the bookends of my twelve years as an assistant coach.

But back then, there was no such thing as a graduate assistant, so he got me a job down at the tax department in Columbus, where I handed out the stamps that served as sales tax rebates for church groups, charities and other non profits. I got paid $100 a month. I wasn’t paid a cent to coach.

When the coaches needed coffee, I got the coffee. When they needed someone to get their laundry, I got it. When they had to pick up recruits at the airport, I picked them up/ I did all their grunt work, and I did it without complaining.

What did I get in return? I learned how to recruit, I learned how to run a practice, I learned everything I could, from top to bottom, from one of the greatest coaches who ever lived. I even learned a thing or two about alumni relations.

But what I learned from Woody was this: He was the greatest teacher and the hardest worker I have ever seen in my entire life, to this day.

Woody was not innovative. He didn’t waste any plays trying to fool you. That was not his game. No, his strategy was to teach his team fundamental techniques better than anyone else, and win game after game through simple, mistake-free football.

What did I do with all this knowledge I acquired from Doyt and Ara and Woody?

I didn’t use it to sell myself, that’s for sure. I used it to become the best assistant coach I could be. I had no qualms about being an assistant coach, and I thought I was the best offensive line coach there ever was!

I have never applied for a job in my entire life.

BO KNOWS (#4)

BO KNOWS GOALS

As soon as I had finished my annual first meeting with all the players, the seniors would get up in front of the room, address the team, and then they would establish the gals for that season.

That's right! I didn't set any goals for the team! None! The seniors set the goals for the team -- because it's their team. And the funny thing is, they almost always set their goals higher than I would have. It's pretty damn hard for them to claim I set the bar too high for the team, when they're the ones who set it!

Once the seniors set up their main goals for that season, it was my job to tell them how we were going to achieve their goals. And that's why, in sports and in business, you keep score. I don't care what field you're in, there's always a score at the end of the day. It might not be fair, it might not be right, but when your day is done, there's going to be a number next to your name. That's just life. For us, the numbers we cared about weren't just total points, but first downs and rushing yards and passing yards and tackles and sacks and turnovers and penalties. You name it, we measured it, and we had goals for everything we measured, every game.

BO ON MOTIVATION

"Motivation is the will to do something to the absolute best of one’s ability. A motivated man refuses to surrender even when there is nothing left to give. The enormity of the task does not matter. Neither do overwhelming odds against success. An effort may at times fall short of its goal, but a motivated team never allows itself to come up short of effort. Success isn’t a case of never making mistakes. It’s a case of never giving up after making mistakes. That’s motivation! Ordinary men make promises to achieve excellence. Motivated men are fearless. They take it one step further. They make commitments, and they never compromise. The late Bob Zuppke, who coached the University of Illinois football team for 29 years, once said, “The difference between champions and near champions is the ability to play for something outside of self.” That’s motivation! No one can achieve lasting success without it."

Bo Schembechler

BO KNOWS (#3)

Bo knows how to lay down the laws!

The most important meeting you will have with your people is your first one -- because it is absolutely vital that everyone knows exactly what your values are, from Day One.

1. RESPECT OTHERS

Respect must be shown for your immediate supervisor. If you have a problem, you to go your position coach. If, after that, the issue warrants coming to me, I might handle it in conjunction with your coach, but I can tell you right now that if there is a conflict between a player and an assistant coach, I will be taking your coach's side. Every time. I have confidence in your coaches, and they're going to be here long after you're gone.

2. HONESTY

Honesty has got to be the hallmark of everything we do, or nothing we do here is going to mean a thing. Any dishonest player will be dropped from the program. Dropped means dropped, because we will not tolerate dishonesty in any part of this program. I don't have to elaborate on that for you any more, men, do I? Why so tough? Because if you catch a guy lying, what are you going to do? Sit down and have a nice chat with him? He'll just lie to you again! It's the one problem that I just can't work with.

3. YOUR ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR GRADES

I introduced Dean Eugene Nissen, our academic advisor, and added that the ultimate academic advisor was Bo Schembechler -- and he was the toughest! Like every other aspect of their lives, I was aware of everything about their academics -- their attendance, their classes, their credits and their grades -- because I had it all right there in my files.

4. KEEP OUTSIDERS ON THE OUTSIDE

When you're part of a top-flight program -- and you are -- you're going to attract a lot of attention you don't need. Ignore it. Ignore the press, ignore the alumni, ignore the 'instant friends' who will come around looking to gamble or be your agent or be your drinking buddy. Once the players saw that I didn't care about outsiders, they didn't either.

5. THE TEAM, THE TEAM, THE TEAM

As the end of the day, all we have is each other, so you need to get to know your teammates. That's why we decide who rooms with whom, in the dorms and on the road. This was be design. I didn't see any point having two seniors room together on the road, because they already knew each other. No, you split them up and put each of them with a freshman who could benefit from a little guidance.

From Bo's Lasting Lessons

By Bo Schembechler and John Bacon

BO KNOWS (#2)

Bo knows how to take over a new program!

BO ON YOUR ATTITUDE

When you take over a new operation, some people will tell you that you ought to lie low, and look around before you do anything. But that's not me -- because I just don't think it works.

I say, whatever your philosophy, whatever your standards, whatever your expectations, you establish those on Day One. Don't wast a second! Let them adjust to you, not the other way around. You can always soften up if you need to, but you can't get tougher later on.

BO ON RESPECTING THE PAST

One of the most common mistakes new leaders make -- and I just can't for the life of me understand this one -- is to ignore the history of the organization they just took over, or even to disrespect it. That, to me, is the mark of a weak leader -- and one who's probably not going to last very long.

Let me be clear as I can be about this: When you become the leader, do not start your reign by dismantling or ignoring the contributions of those who came before. The history of your organization is one of your greatest strengths, and if you're new to the organization, it's your job to learn it, respect it and to teach it to the people coming up in your company.

From "Bo's Lasting Lessons"

By Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon