THE WINNERS MANUAL

One of the better books I've read over the past year is The Winners Manual by Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel. The Winners Manual has took on a life of it's own over the years with people talking about the Ohio State football program and the way this Winners Manual has help guide the team to success. Coach Tressel doesn't divulge everything in this book but he does outline a number of things that keep his football program on the right track and among the nation's elite. Over the next few months you will probably see several posts here from this book but I strongly recommend that any coach go out and buy it -- I promise there will be something in it to make you a better coach and your program a better program.

A sample of something from the Winners Manual:

Promise yourself...

...To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind
...To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true
...To think only of the best
...To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own
...To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future
...To share the greater achievements of the future
...To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others
...To be too large for worry, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble

Having the Proper Attitude:

1. More athletes fail through faulty mental attitudes than in any other way.
2. Attitudes are habits of thinking. You have it within your power to develop the habit of thinking thoughts that will result in a winning attitude.
3. The foundation for the proper attitude consists of developing the habit of thinking positive thoughts.
4. Tell yourself constantly that you can do something, and you will. Tell yourself you can’t, and your subconscious mind will find a way for you not to do it.
5. A desire to win and a desire to prepare to win are important ingredients of a winning attitude.
6. Before you can scale the heights of athletic greatness, you must first learn to control yourself from within. Be your own master. Control your emotions.
7. An athlete with a good attitude is coachable. He welcomes criticism, constantly seeks to learn, and avoids criticizing his coach or teammates.
8. True success depends on teamwork, and the winning attitude puts the good of the team ahead of anything else.
9. Whether or not you create a winning attitude is entirely up to you—but nothing is more important to you on your road to the winner’s circle.

AN INNATE DESIRE TO IMPROVE

"We have an innate desire to endlessly learn, grow, and develop. We want to become more than what we already are. Once we yield to this inclination for continuous and never-ending improvement, we lead a life of endless accomplishments and satisfaction."

-Chuch Gallozzi-

PETE NEWELL ON SCREENING

"Good reflective screens and good footwork are synonymous. To effectively screen, the screener must have a low base with the feet comfortably spaced and balanced so that the screener can turn and become an immediate offensive threat.

It is an axiom of basketball that the better a player screens, the better the chance of a good close shot for the screener."

From Basketball Post Play

By Pete Newell & Tom Newell

NAPOLEON HILL'S KEYS TO SUCCESS (#1)

KEY #1: DEVELOP DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE

Your progress toward success begins with a fundamental question: Where are going.

Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.

The difference between a wish and a burning desire is crucial. Everyone wants the better things in life -- money, fame, respect -- but most people never go beyond just wishing for them.

There is a proverb which says:

"If you would plant for days, plant flowers.

If you would plant for years, plant trees.

If you would plant for eternity, plant ideas."

As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "One single idea may have greater weight than the labor of all the men, animals and engines for a century."

Definiteness of purpose develops self-reliance, personal initiative, imagination, enthusiasm, self-discipline, and concentrated effort. All these are required for success.

Definiteness of purpose makes you aware of opportunities related to your major purpose, and it inspires the courage to act on them.

Ninety-eight out of a hundred people never make up their mind about their major purpose in life.

Your mind becomes sold on success and refuses to accept the possibility of failure.

Any dominating idea, plan, or purpose held in your conscious mind through repeated effort and emotionalized by a burning desire for its realization is taken over by the subconscious and acted upon through whatever natural and logical means may be available.

Great success is the result of one's understanding and using a positive mental attitude (PMA).

You must write it down...Once you have written your plan, read it aloud to yourself at least once every day. This fuels your obsession and reinforces its nature in your mind.

There is no scarcity of opportunity. There is only a shortage of imagination.

From Napoleon Hill's Keys To Success

By Napoleon Hill

SABAN ON COACHING YOUNG PLAYERS

The following is from Nick Saban speaking of the difficulties of coaching young players which becomes increasingly more difficult with each passing season. He's really nailed it in regard to the part of how sensitive young players are these days. They think it is all a personal attack on them and miss out on the opportunity to learn. It is a wonderful feeling to watch a young player that finally figures that out -- to watch him/her grow from that point. It is equally disappointing when you come across the talented player that can never get over the hump and understand that all along you are trying to make him/her better.

"We're out there coaching guys, and the young guys they can't play a lick and they get upset every time you say something to them. They're so sensitive about getting criticized. Rather than being worried about what we're saying to you, why don't you listen to what we're saying to you and try and do it and it might help you get better...We're not evaluating you when we correct you. We're teaching you. So if we're teaching you why would you get upset about it? We have a bunch of youngens out there you have a hard time with that."

UNDERSTANDING

"There is a great difference between knowing

and understanding: you can know a

lot about something and not really understand it."

-Charles F. Kettering-

"He who does not understand your silence

will probably not understand your words."

-Elbert Hubbard-

"Understanding is a two-way street."

-Eleanor Roosevelt-

"Whatever you cannot understand,

you cannot possess."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-

"The improvement of understanding

is for two ends: first,

our own increase of knowledge; secondly,

to enable us to deliver that

knowledge to others."

-John Locke-

"It is difficult to get a man to

understand something when his salary

depends upon his not understanding it."

-Upton Sinclair-

MIKE D'ANTONI ON COACHING

A nice piece on by Eric Neel on Mike D'Anotni. This is a great read but also has an Outside The Lines video of a long insightful interview with Coach D'Antoni

"We cast our coaches as geniuses, and he could go that route -- he has written two books, he speaks two languages and he sees combinations in a five-man running game the way Duke Ellington heard the daring possibilities in his band -- but more often than not he demystifies, sees you as someone who loves the game and casts himself in the same simple role."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=dantoni/090401

THE MUNDANITY OF EXCELLENCE

My good friend Greg Brown from Central Florida sent me the following from a swimming coach. It's outstanding and obviously applies not just to basketball but about anything in life that one would like to excel. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Got it from Greg today and have already printed out to give to our team tomorrow.

The champion athlete does not simply do more of the same drills and sets as other swimmers; he or she also does things better. That’s what counts. Very small differences, consistently practiced, will produce results. In swimming it could be doing all turns legally, or swimming one extra set of repeats after practice every day, or wearing gloves on your hands to keep them warm at a meet. American historian John Morton Blum reportedly has said that to be successful a writer need produce only three pages a day---every single day. Often the trick is doing little things (like good turns) correctly, all the time, every time. Championship training consists of doing more and more of these little things---and they are, finally, innumerable---each one consistently, so that each one produces a result.

The results of such quality training inevitable add up. Swimming is swimming, we can say---in practice, or in meets, it’s all the same. If you swim sloppily 364 days a year, nothing great is going to happen on the day of that one big meet, no matter how excited you get. Nowadays top-level swimmers tend to treat workouts as meets, where every swim counts; they have to win each repeat, always do great starts and turns. Steve Lundquist, for example, decided early in his career to try to win every swim in every practice, and eventually he did that. Many Mission Viejo swimmers took time every day to psych up for workouts, which they treated as intense competitions. It was not uncommon to see swimmers at Mission Viejo swimming within seconds of their lifetime bests in practices, going all out every day. When they eventually got to a meet, there was nothing new to be overcome, and the conclusion was all but foregone: for all the closeness of the times at Nationals, the same people often do win, year after year.

When Rowdy Gaines studied the starter in the Olympic Games, that was not a new “trick” he invented that day. He always checked the starter, as do many swimmers, because he knows that sometimes it makes a difference. He wasn’t “cheating” to win that day. He was simply attending to details that other people didn’t, and he had the good luck that the officials didn’t recall the start. Mike Heath and Mark Stockwell and the five other swimmers in that race could have anticipated the gun, too, perhaps with good results, but they didn’t. Gaines did.

These little things matter not so much because of their physical impact, but because psychologically they separate the champion from everyone else. Having done the little things, the champion can say “I have done what no one else has done, and I know it; and they know it, too.” The little things, the details, then can be important for their testimonial value, their symbolic value, in setting one apart as someone special or different---someone to be watched and to be paid attention to. “This guy takes this seriously (and we don’t); he really does deserve to win.” “Why should I hurt myself in this race when Christine wants it that bad?” The little things, far from being an aggravation for top-level athletes are the part they most enjoy: the polished points that mark the craftsmen of sport.

One result of this we call “confidence.” Some people believe that confidence is “mental” or is “all in your head,” as if you could just, one day, decide to have it. Or they believe that you get “confidence” when you buy a cassette tape that tells you to relax, think positively, visualize your races, and so on. They believe that confidence is a mental trick, like hypnosis, that can take one to incredible feats. But the confidence of the champion is not some trick learned by listening to an inspiring lecture. Confidence is not the cause of championship; it is the result of setting up difficult tasks and then doing them. As one coach put it, “Mental preparation is something you do in the water everyday.”

Our usual view of champions tells us the opposite. We think they are special people, larger than life: unusually good-looking, successful, happy all the time, patriotic, and self-confident. Failures don’t get much TV coverage. For the sake of drama, reasonably enough, storytellers enhance some part of the story and downplay others. And we think reasonably: My God, this guy is nothing like me, I could never do what he does.

But there is no magic that separates Olympians from everyday people, despite the fact that the title suggests Greek gods. No one is born to make the Olympic finals; potential doesn’t win a gold medal. Doing it is the only thing that counts. The truth is simple: Most swimmers choose every day not to do the little things. They choose, in effect, not to win. They say, “I could do this workout if I wanted to,” or “I could have rolled with the start,” or “I would have won if I had been healthy.” In some sense, everyone “could” win in the Olympic Games, but “could” doesn’t count. The gold medal is reserved for those who do.

The doing---this alone makes champions different. The excitement they feel comes from the raw physical and emotional reality they face every morning as they swim six miles, paying attention to all the details. Certainly the Olympic Games represent a rare opportunity to demonstrate publicly one’s heroic capabilities. But champions do not wait four years to find their heroic opportunities; they create those opportunities, every day.

From “The Mundanity of Excellence”

Excerpted from Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers

By Daniel F. Chambliss

MASTERING YOUR DESTINY

Those who master their destiny share many qualities, none of which are determined by society’s definition of success. How many of these statements describe your principles and values? Those who’ve tasted this vintage wine of success:

*Have the courage to risk failure and realize that setbacks are lessons to learn from.

*Lose the ability to blame others for the circumstances of their lives.

*Develop their strengths and manage their weaknesses.

*Know that labels are unnecessary. They see the true divinity — the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity.

*Continually look for ways to express love.

*Are visionaries and dream of those things that haven’t been and believe they are possible.

*Tap into a higher consciousness to master their destiny; they go “within” as the deal “without.”

*Commit to personal excellence.

*Say “I can.”

From "What Makes The Great Great"

By Dennis Kimbro

MJ THE COMPETITOR

“I’ve never seen anyone like Michael Jordan who would fight so hard not to lose,” said Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin. “I’ve never seen anything like his drive.”

When Rex Chapman scored forty on him, Jordan responded in their next meeting with fifty. When Jerry Stackhouse scored nineteen points in the first half, Jordan held him scoreless in the second half — and scored forty-five points. “MJ might have a bad game,” said veteran pro Sam Cassell, “but never bad back-to-back games.”

Former NBA player Kenny Smith remembered, “When I played at North Carolina, all the NBA guys would come back to play in the summer. During the scrimmages, Michael would never leave the court. Not even for a drink of water. Between games, he’d stand out at mid court. I asked him why and he said, ‘I don’t need water. I don’t need anything. I’m not leaving the whole time’.”

“He knew that to get faster, he had to run against faster people,” said UNC teammate Joe Wolf.

From "How To Be Like Mike"

By Pat Williams