one of the best platforms to seize a player’s undivided attention. When your players are with you at training or games, they enter a world free of the distractions of cell phones, television, and other devices. There may not be another human being in this person’s life who commands as much quality, focused, undistracted, and undivided time as the coach.
But isn’t it the coach’s primary role, you say, to teach the game? To show the player how to properly shoot a free throw or the proper technique for holding a tennis racquet? Isn’t it his or her ability to draw up Xs and Os and create suffocating defensive schemes? To teach tactics and formations?
Renowned sports psychologist Bob Rotella shared this thought in the book Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect: “The more I coached, the more convinced I became that the Xs and Os that obsessed many coaches were rather less important than the attitudes and confidence they instilled in their players.”10
I’ve observed many great coaches with limited understanding of the game they were coaching turn their teams into winners and get more out of their teams than the person who played for 15 years, because they understood how to motivate their players. The players already knew how to play the game or would discover how to do it better than the coach could teach them, but the coach provided the environment for the players to play, compete, and discover their ability to win. The coach saw the embers glowing, gave them some oxygen, and then stoked the flame—and then the players threw gasoline on it. So we start with motivation.
I share this quote of mine with you in a few different chapters throughout the book because I believe it speaks so loudly. It also is relevant to every property of the GET MOR3EE formula:
Power comes from the vision, not the volume. How much you say and how loud you say it will never be as inspiring as what you say. How much you say and how loud you say it will never be as inspiring as the vision you cast.
A compelling vision calls out much louder than you can ever speak. When you are able to communicate a clear and compelling vision, people rise up on their own to follow it. They are self-motivated by the mission to invest their time, expertise, and energy towards the cause. The motivation is no longer about you and the length of your conversation or volume of your speech but about the vision you have for them. You can make mistakes and be wrong on occasion, as we eventually will be, and it won’t matter, because your players are focused no longer on you but on the vision you have for their lives. They become committed to it, and thus to you and the team. They give more and risk more than you can ever ask of them because they are empowered by the rewards of the vision. They let you lead them. They follow you because you gave them the power to see and believe in the vision you set before them.
I’ve known a good friend of mine for almost a quarter century, since our days at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Our wives use to work together, we were business partners at one time, and now we both coach for The King’s Academy High School in West Palm Beach, Florida. Jake Webb is the head varsity boys’ lacrosse coach at The Kings Academy, and I coach varsity boys’ soccer. Jake didn’t play a lick of lacrosse as a kid, but Jake is a competitor. We used to play intramural sports against each other in college, so I know. Many times in coaching I’ll lose a battle to win the war. Jake is going to try to win all the battles and the war.
He probably never played soccer as a kid. I’ve been playing all my life. The first year my son was playing pee-wee soccer, we were in the playoff finals of five- and six-year-old coed soccer. I’ll never forget it, because it was so fascinating. Our teams were in the finals, and I had a good team. They had been fantastic all season. I think the only time we lost was when we were missing players and playing down a man. We were in this championship finals game against Jake’s team. Now again, we are talking about mostly five- and six-year-olds, so this was like super fun, and we were just having a great time of it as players, coaches, and parents. There were some rules on substitutions, I think, at the time, or maybe we had our own internal rules—can’t recall exactly—but what I remember is his strategy. Every time I subbed a couple of my better players out, he would immediately sub all his best players back in. I mean, I noticed this within the first couple of times it happened. He had scouted us and worked out a strategy, a winning strategy, in five- to six-year-olds recreational soccer to win the championship in a sport he never played. It still makes me laugh.
Fast-forward ten years, and Jake becomes the lacrosse coach at The King’s Academy, probably a year or two before I’m hired, having never picked up a stick, or whatever they call it, until maybe his kids got interested and started playing. Jake is coaching against former Division I and professional lacrosse players now turned coaches at schools with very deep lacrosse programs and a lot of financial support. In 2018, he takes a team of freshmen and a couple of soccer kids from our team who had never played lacrosse and goes almost undefeated. I think it was 17 wins and 2 losses in his third season coaching lacrosse. The team he lost to twice was the number one ranked team in the state by Maxpreps at the time and finished the past two seasons as the number four ranked team in the state. Again, he has never played this game. This past season he goes across the state and defeats the IMG boys’ lacrosse team. IMG kids are paying thousands of dollars—sorry, tens of thousands of dollars—a year to be trained by the best lacrosse coaches in the country with the idea that they can get into the top D1 colleges and play professionally, and they probably will. Jake’s kids win!
What I observed in Jake years ago is that he understands how to motivate kids and he’s passionate about doing it. He makes sure that they take ownership and responsibility for their actions on and off the field; models respect; and keeps his eye on the prize. He’s a massive encourager, keeping players accountable, and empowers the kids to get more! He’s obviously learned more about the game and prepared himself further through study and the people he brings in around him, but he has to empower and inspire those people to be creative and imaginative and achieve more because they play the game better than he ever has. He wins more because he gets more out of his talent than the coaches with more talent. I’ll say it again. He wins more because he gets more out of his talent—his players—than the coaches with more talented players. IMG should technically have a team with more talented players, more resources, and more time to develop their athletes. Give Jake a competitive synchronized swimming or water polo team or ultimate Frisbee team, and I think he would create winners in those sports too because he builds the people within whatever the program is.
COACH ROB MENDEZ, ESPN HERO
I recently read the “Dear Football” letter written by Coach Rob Mendez in the ESPN The Magazine Heroes edition.11 It is a worthwhile read for everyone, but especially for coaches. Coach Mendez is the 2019 recipient of the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance. Born without arms and legs, Rob Mendez has always been fascinated by football and in his first head coaching position led the junior varsity (JV) football squad at Prospect High School in Saratoga, CA, to an 8–2 record.
Coach Mendez’s letter is inspiring, and the first thing that jumped out at me was that in his freshman year of high school, a coach invited him to be a part of the team. We can’t look back and see whether or not we would be reading this letter from Rob Mendez without that coach’s invitation. I’m sure he would have found his way here. It’s obvious though that the coach’s invitation was a monumental moment in his life and that he was thankful for it.
I think the athletes we coach are always looking for an invitation. Not just to be a part of the team, but an invitation from their coach to pursue dreams and excellence. An invitation to invest everything and fail miserably, laugh it off, learn, and go again. It’s just sport, right? Right? They are looking for an invitation to be a champion on and off the field and to know that someone believes in them.
Coach Mendez found that his belief in his players translated to his players’ belief in him, even though he had physically never played a down of football in his life. He can explain Xs and Os from
