Wednesday Coach Report · Arena Coaching

Wednesday Coach Report

Coach,

Welcome to the first edition of The Wednesday Coach Report.

After 33 years of coaching, I've collected a lot of stories—some from my own teams, some from great coaches I've been fortunate enough to learn from, and some from conversations with coaches across the country.

Each Wednesday this summer, I'll share one of those stories and, more importantly, the lesson behind it.

My goal isn't to give you one more thing to read. My goal is to give you one practical idea, leadership lesson, culture builder, or coaching takeaway that you can use with your team the very next day.

All of them will be written with one question in mind:

"How can this help a coach build a better program?"

I hope you'll find something useful in each report.

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SUMMER EDITION #1: Do you know them?

Summer is one of the few times of the year when you actually have a chance to get to know your players.

Don't waste it.

Every coach wants a team where players would "lay in traffic" for each other. We want trust. We want connection. We want a locker room where teammates genuinely care about the guy next to them.

But that kind of culture doesn't happen because we put a slogan on a shirt or hang a poster on a wall.

It happens when people know each other.

How many of your players know your story?

How many know why you coach?

How many know about the people and experiences that shaped you?

Now flip the question.

How many of your players have told you their story?

How many know what a teammate is dealing with at home?

What he's proud of?

What he dreams about becoming someday?

Relationships create trust. Trust creates connection. Connection creates culture.

One of the best things we ever did during the summer had nothing to do with football.

Every Wednesday, I would invite six or seven athletes and one assistant coach to lunch.

Usually it was pizza.

The goal wasn't football.

The goal was relationships.

We'd sit around a table and talk.

Questions like:

• What's your favorite movie of all time?

• If you could instantly master one skill, what would it be?

• What's something you're proud of that most people don't know?

• Who has had the biggest influence on your life?

• What job do you think you'll have when you're 30?

At first, the answers were short.

Then the stories started.

Players learned things about teammates they had never known. Coaches learned things about players they would never discover during practice.

Looking back, those Wednesday lunches probably did more for our culture than a lot of football activities.

COACHING TAKEAWAY

Don't make this a one-time event.

Make it a summer habit.

Every week during summer workouts, take 5-7 athletes to lunch. Bring an assistant coach. Ask a few questions. Listen more than you talk.

By the end of the summer, you'll have spent meaningful time with 30-40 athletes and learned more about your team than you ever could from a workout sheet or depth chart.

Relationships create trust. Trust creates connection. Connection creates culture.

The strongest teams aren't always the teams that know the playbook best.

They're often the teams that know each other best.

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Wednesday Coach Report