After attending the Win Forever Clinic with Pete Carroll I walked away determined to create a mission statement a message that fit who I was and what I wanted our student athletes to walk away with. We already had a motto for the season. We formed that in January after speaking with our players during off season goal meetings so many of our guys team goal was a Valley Championship our Motto for the upcoming season become DRIVE FOR 9. Our school currently has 8 section titles and our goal is to capture a ninth. But it is not that simple. What DRIVE FOR 9 represents is the approach a champion takes in what they do each and every day that makes them successful. Its the fervor and tenacity a champion approaches his daily tasks with that makes him a champion. In the end it is the process in which we go through in preparing to compete for the championship that makes us a champion not winning a championship itself. This was evident in the Win Forever Clinic that I attended as we watch this video below.
So with a Motto for the year I went to work on a mission statement something that defined what I wanted to accomplish with our team. As a coach for me it has always been important that we empower our athletes. That was a philosophy I really took with me after reading "When The Game Stood Tall" which chronicles De La Salle Football. Next it was always important to me to teach young mean to focus on the things they controlled and find solutions not excuses. This always led me to believe in taking the positive approach looking to the solution not the problem. Lastly growing up watching Jerry Rice I always gravitated how he constantly strived for perfection and constantly out worked all around him this was something I always tried to impart on my teams. From all of this came the mission statement below.
For us practice is so important because it is our opportunity to learn how to work together and become a team. I always felt if we taught our team how to practice winning would be a by product. To me this was the message I wanted our student athletes to carry with them for life that understanding that if you work hard at whatever you do that success will find you. For us it is important that our players feel empowered at practice and take it upon themselves to push themselves and focus. If we have to push them to do that we will not be very good. It is also important that in practice that we strive for perfection focusing on all the little details that make someone successful. Practice is where you work on your craft and improve. Lastly it was important in practice that we out hustle and work. I want to get alot accomplished at practice and in order to do that it requires us to out work and hustle our opponents. As an adult I constantly find myself trying to be more productive or out hustle the competition. These belief formed the four squares you see above in our mission statement as a description of what practice means to us.
A Quick Video by Pete Carroll on Practice
The circle between the squares was what we expect performance to be. This is a John Wooden idea that we must state what we expect the performance to look like. For him that was the top of his pyramid. For us it is the circle in the middle of the mission statement.
Below it was a series of rules or beliefs and these are other mottos we will emphasize such as Control the Ball. or Be the Solution thus focus on solving the problem.
OWN IT! Was to empower yourself take accountability for you and what you do. Be a self starter make the team yours.
Below is a series of other sayings we plan to use with our mission statement. Many I have discussed throughout this post.
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