Jeff Johnson's 

October 28, 2024

Every high school kid wants to be fitter, faster, and stronger, be respected, and have more friends. Being on a sports team is one-stop shopping."

October 14, 2024

"Hope is not a strategy for success. Hope is not a plan of action. Hope won't get you one inch closer to your goal. If hope is all you got, you have no hope."

September 30, 2024

"Peak season training is like licking ice cream off a razor blade."

September 16, 2024

"If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, then I'm in a great deal of trouble. Lack of knowledge, however, should never stop a coach any more than lack of talent should stop an athlete. Both can make up for what they don't know, or can't do, with effort, enthusiasm, and caring."

September 2, 2024

"It is far better to have a little too much recovery built into your athletes' training than to have too little. With too much recovery, they always feel good and ready for more, and their challenging workouts are particularly crisp. With too little recovery, fatigue builds up over time, their resistance lowers, making them susceptible to illness or injury. They don't feel very good, they don't look forward to their training sessions, and sooner or later, something is going to stop them. Then, they have lost their training consistency." 

August 19, 2024

"Optimal training is your best chance for achieving perfection in your athletes and teams, not more training." 

August 5, 2024

"Runners are naturally independent of their coaches. They spend too much time out of sight of coaches to be otherwise. Teach them what they need to know, then get out of their way. Both coach and athlete will be the better for it." 

July 22, 2024

"Praise people not for doing what they were supposed to do, but for having gone beyond the expected to the extraordinary."

April 1, 2024

"Value intelligent training above hard training. The object of all training is not great workouts but great results." 

March 18, 2024

"Don't expect athletes to win. Prepare them to win, but expect only that they do their best for themselves and each other."

February 26, 2024

"Running can be, and often is, a quest for an organizing principle of life. Training can be, and often is, a quest for discipline and achievement." 

February 12, 2024

"Respecting people for who they are is the first step in influencing them to become something more."

January 29, 2024

"All athletes are great in their dreams. Effort, commitment, self-discipline and perseverance are required to convert dreams to reality but, well, that just reduces the competition."

January 15, 2024

" Human beings are natural runners for whom with a little practice, running is an enjoyable activity. Coaches should establish the joy first, the training second." 

January 1, 2024

"Coaching is the best career I know where you can love what you do, and know that what you do matters in people's lives. Moreover, you witness progress as it happens. You can't ask for better work." 

December 11, 2023

Some Rules for Coaches -

(1)   Be a positive role model.

(2)   Be a servant-leader.

(3)   Be organized and detail-oriented.

(4)   Prepare with purpose.

(5)   Recruit. Be a salesman for your sport.

(6)   Have a vision for your program.

(7)   Have a plan but don't be a slave to it.

(8)   Be curious and never stop learning.

(9)   Educate and inspire.

(10) Academics first. Athletics second.

(11) Emphasize improvement and process over winning.

(12) Have a coaching philosophy.

(13) Be enthusiastic.

(14) Encourage, praise, and celebrate every improvement, no matter how small.

(15) Teach self-confidence, self-discipline and self-discovery.

(16) Set attainable goals. When your athletes reach them, set higher attainable goals.

(17) Create a team culture of traditions and high expectations.

(18) Enable excellence.

(19) Show that you care.

(20) Treat every individual athlete fairly, if not always equally.

(21) Be as dedicated to the development of your pluggers as you are to the development of your super-stars.

(22) Treat your athletes as champions before they are.

(23) Hold your athletes to high personal standards.

(24) Err on the side of under-training.

(25) Introduce new training stresses gradually, and include a bit of every stress (speed, distance, plyos, weights, hills, track, roads, etc.) every season of the year.

(26) Deflect credit. Accept blame.

(27) Coach with a light touch. Don't over-coach.

(28) Never risk an athlete's health and well-being in pursuit of team points.

(29) Believe in yourself and trust your instincts.

(30) Don't take yourself too seriously.

(31) Coaching is not about you. The sport and the team belong to the athletes, not to you.

(32) Never forget that participation in competitive sports is supposed to be enjoyable.

(33) Mentor the next generation of coaches.

(34) Reserve time and space for yourself and for your family.

November 27, 2023

"Indoor track lap racing is like racing in a bathtub, except in a bathtub you can always count on banked turns. If you learn to handle yourself tactically racing indoors, you can handle yourself tactically anywhere." 

November 13, 2023

"It is just as dangerous to hold onto past successes as it is to hold onto past failures. What you have to do is simply forget and move on. Work as if no future success is guaranteed, because it isn't. Work as if what you did last year will in no way help you this year, because it won't."

October 30, 2023

"The purpose of the coach goes beyond guiding athletes to mastery of their events. The purpose of the coach extends to guiding athletes to mastery of themselves."

October 16, 2023

"Life is a privilege. Opportunity is a privilege. Competing is a privilege. The Big Stage is a privilege. Pressure if a privilege. Take it all in. Enjoy the privilege. Then justify it.

October 2, 2023

"Patience is power. With proper training and time, the novice becomes the champion."

September 18, 2023

"Over-training is over-stress. Over-stress is a stress level that exceeds the athlete's capacity to adapt and improve. Over-training is training too hard, or too frequently, or with inadequate recoveries, or sometimes all three. An athlete performs below his ability. He feels weak, flat. In extreme cases, he can do permanent damage to his endocrine system. Do not over-train your athletes and do not let them over-train themselves." 

September 4, 2023

"It is a mistake to think that girls can't train as hard as boys, once you correct for size, strength and speed.  Athletes are athletes." 

August 21, 2023

"Teach your distance runners the aerobic value of a ten mile run, and you will have at least one hour to focus on your sprinters, jumpers, and throwers." 

August 7, 2023

"If you teach your young athletes only one thing, teach them that discipline and fun can co-exist and that work and play need not be mutually exclusive."

July 24, 2023

"I was just on the treadmill, with NFL Live on ESPN keeping me company.  

"Hosting the show today--which included numerous ESPN heavy hitters —was Victoria Arlen, daughter of Jaqueline Oscroft, 1977 Exeter (NH) HS cross country, Class I Champs, 3rd place team in the New Englands.  Victoria—who hit it out of the park today, coordinating numerous ESPN stars—has an incredible story..  At the age of 10 she suddenly fell ill with 'asthma, pneumonia, fainting spells, ear infections, flu symptoms and more'.  (I am getting this from the jacket of her book, Locked In.)   'Over the course of three months, she lost her ability to speak, eat, walk, and move, and she slipped into a vegetative state.  Victoria became locked inside her own body—able to think clearly and to hear and feel everything—but no one knew.  She could not move or communicate and no one could hear her cry for help…..Her doctors wrote her off as a ‘lost cause’, convinced her survival was uncertain and recovery unlikely.  So Victoria remained a prisoner in her body for nearly four years. 'At age 15, she woke up, but could communicate only through eye blinks.   …'she gradually regained her ability to speak, to eat, and to move her upper body.  But because of damage to her spine, she faced permanent paralysis from the waist down….she began swimming for therapy, and then competitively.  And in 2012, just two years after coming back to life, she won a gold medal at the 2012 London Paralympics Games as well as (setting) multiple world, American and Pan American (paralympic) records….The rest of Victoria’s journey has been a story of surpassing the odds: winning multiple medals, becoming one of the youngest on-air personalities ever hired at ESPN, and finally—after nearly ten years of paralysis—beginning to walk again and even competing on Dancing With the Stars.'

"Thinking about this more, the strength and toughness this young lady showed is beyond my imagination.  To lie, unmoving, for nearly four years, unable to communicate and entirely cut off from any kind of mental stimulation (conversation, reading, writing, TV), presumably with her eyes closed the entire time) yet otherwise being able to hear and understand the “lost cause” hopelessness of her doctors, yet be able to come out of it with her sanity intact, is unimaginable.  Prisoners in solitary confinement begin deteriorating mentally in just a few days.  Then, I think of the hole in her education from age 10 to 15.  No 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grade.  How does that get fixed, even if she has a brain left after nearly four years of being “locked in” her own mind?  This woman is a giant. 

"Beyond amazing."

Victoria's Victory Foundation     https://www.victoriasvictory.org/

Project Walk Boston   https://pwboston.com/

July 10, 2023

"Each workout that you ask your athletes to perform should have a specific purpose, and you should know what that purpose is. If you can't explain the purpose of a workout, then your athletes should not do it......and you should tell them that. An athlete's question about a workout represents a 'teaching moment' as well as an opportunity for the coach to partner with the athlete as they begin to take ownership of their sport."

June 26, 2023

"Don't underestimate your kids, and don't short-change them. Almost every kid came out for your sport because they wanted to. It was their idea. They want to make friends and have fun, but they want to be challenged too. They want to improve, and they want to be successful. If you can show them how to do that, they will believe in you, and they will follow you."

June 5, 2023

"Coaches can't make athletes do anything, but they can teach athletes why they should want to."

May 22, 2023

"As an ideal, competition has nothing to do with quality of performance. It is all about who got the best out of themselves."

May 8, 2023

"The coach's role is to teach, mentor, and advise, not to encourage a dependence of the athlete upon the coach. An independent athlete will be a more committed student and a more reliable competitor."

April 24, 2023

"Athletes must see that their hard work is paying off, and nothing demonstrates that better than the coach's acknowledgement and appreciation of every improvement."

April 10, 2023

"The subtle distinction between teaching and coaching is that teaching tends to be more lesson-oriented while coaching tends to be more people-oriented. The two come together in their intended result: the merging of lessons and people into one."

March 27, 2023

"Don't be afraid to make mistakes (of the non-lethal and non-catastrophic kind; lethal and catastrophic mistakes you can and should be afraid of). Mistakes are opportunities to learn."

March 13, 2023

"Create an environment of challenge, support, success and celebration."

February 27, 2023

"People rise to the level of expectation set for them by their leaders. If they are expected to accept great challenges and to succeed at them, they will rise to that level, too."

February 13, 2023

"I do not have faith in you. I have belief in you, a belief founded in who I know you to be and what I know you can do."

January 30, 2023

"For the coach, the potential of every athlete is a sacred trust, and not just their athletic potential."

January 16, 2023

"To coach athletes with attention, commitment, and caring is to motivate the athletes to respond with their best. Give so much of yourself that they never want to let you down."

January 2, 2023

"It's not what coaches know that differentiates their programs, one from another. Rather it is who they are, and it is how they inspire and communicate with their athletes that they differentiate their programs. So coaches should not be afraid to share their knowledge with other coaches, if they want to advance their sport; everything they know, and everything they think they know."

December 19, 2022

"To acquire influence, begin by giving opportunities to others; then, continue by encouraging them, inspiring them, building their self-confidence and celebrating successes."

December 5, 2022

"Success doesn't test you; you have already won. Failure doesn't test you, your competition is completed. It is adversity that tests you, when events seemingly conspire to remove you from the contest altogether. Now your education begins."

November 21, 2022

"Indoors, there is a surprising tendency, even among experienced runners, to treat the last lap as they would the last lap outdoors, namely, as if there is the same space and time to overtake and pass. Many victories in indoor lap races can be cheaply earned in the penultimate lap. (This is especially true in the 800 - 1 mile range.)"

November 7, 2022

"The more your athletes know about their sport - its history, its records, its personalities - and the more they know about their training and opportunities, the more enthusiastic they will likely be. The more enthusiastic they are, the more attentive they will be to their sport's nuances, and the more diligent they will be to their sport's demands. the more attentive and diligent they are, the more successful they will be. Give your athletes knowledge. If you don't have knowledge, get it, however you can."

October 24, 2022

"Athletes generally want to succeed. It is the coach's job to convince them that they can succeed."

October 10, 2022

"Individuals and teams with low expectations are seldom disappointed."

September 26, 2022

"In case of failure or defeat, first find the humor, then build from there."

September 12, 2022

"Coach as you are inclined to coach, with your own instincts, your personal style, methods and philosophy. You will be more successful by being 100% yourself than by trying to emulate the practices and behaviors of seemingly more successful coaches. Learn from other coaches, but adapt rather than copy. Who is better being you than you?"

August 29, 2022

"In the presence of meticulous preparation, extreme confidence, courage, positive energy, and a powerful will to win, seemingly miraculous performances may occur."

August 15, 2022

"Good coaches have a vision of what is possible for their athletes and teams. They share that vision, and communicate what it will take for its realization. Then they raise the vision to the level of shared expectation. Finally, good coaches inspire their athletes to go to work."

July 25, 2022

"You are the sum of every person who has told truth or told lies to you; the sum of every person who has encouraged or disheartened you; the sum of every person who has praised or disparaged you. As the scales tip, so do you become; and as you are to others, so do you weight each of their scales."

July 18, 2022

"Desire in an athlete is atavistic, primeval. The athlete either has it, or doesn't. You cannot coach desire. You can only guide it to its ultimate destination."

July 4, 2022

"Don't take anything for granted. Ever. It can all be taken away in an instant. Do what you need to do now. Say your 'thank yous', 'I'm sorrys', and 'I love yous' now."

June 13, 2022

"If you coach every athlete as though they are potential gold medalists, more of them will find gold than you could have imagined."

May 30, 2022

"On the final days before a major event, athletes almost always experience some measure of self-doubt. This is normal. Coaches should counter athlete anxiety with confident messages of readiness, and closely monitor their remaining workouts against over-training."

May 16, 2022

"The most difficult task coaches face in preparing athletes for a major competition is relieving the pressure so they can perform to their abilities. If you can focus their minds on the 'execution' of the event (their pre-event preparation, their race plan, the specific challenges and opportunities provided by the competition, the course, etc.) and keep their minds off potential outcomes (winning, losing), you're halfway there."

May 2, 2022

"If talent is the bus, then enthusiasm is the driver. The most powerful force in human endeavors is enthusiasm. If you instill it, people will follow you anywhere."

April 18, 2022

"Moderation in training is a principle and a virtue, but don't overdo it. Your athletes should be intimate with effort, and on good terms with discomfort."

April 4, 2022

"Every athlete should be motivated by the belief that they can grow and improve themselves. Demonstrate their growth and improvement to them at every opportunity, as well as your satisfaction in their progress."

March 21, 2022

"Life is short. That is the lesson, evidently, of the unseeded heats of the girls' 3200."

March 7, 2022

"It's much easier to run efficiently at fast speeds than slow speeds. Fast running irons out your biomechanical wrinkles. Elite, speed-trained runners, even if they are running at a slow, easy pace, are immediately distinguishable from joggers running at the same pace, because speed-training has made their biomechanics so much better. Train your runners to run fast before they pick up bad habits from running too slow. Don't let them plod."

February 21, 2022

"Courage is born not from security but from risk, not from living in ease but from surviving adversity."

February 7, 2022

"Ability to concentrate... Belief in yourself...Caring...Celebration... Character...Clarity...Communication... Conditioning... Creativity...Credibility... Culture...Decision Making... Direction... Drive... Duty... Empowerment (of your assistants, of your athletes)... Encouragement... Energy... Enthusiasm... Excellence... Expectations... Fairness... Fundamentals... Improvement... Individuality (of athletes)... Influence... Inspiration... Integrity... Judgement... Leadership... Listening... Love... Maturity... Mentoring... Moderation... Motivation... Opportunity... Organization... Ownership... Participation... Passion... Patience... Perception... Persistence... Perspective... Planning... Praise... Preparation... Pride... Process... Purpose... Quality...Recovery... Repetition... Respect...Restraint... Role Models... Safety... Specificity... Spirit... Sportsmanship... Standards... Success... Support...Teaching...Team... Thinking... Tradition... Trust... Using your time well... Values... Vision... Work...is EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING is up to you."

January 24, 2022

"Praise reinforces achievement, but encouragement motivates it."

January 10, 2022

"The science of coaching requires knowledge and planning. The art of coaching requires imagination and philosophy."

December 27, 2021

"What was impossible yesterday is possible today thanks to people who were impractical, unreasonable or who didn't know any better."

December 13, 2021

"An 'expert' coach, at the very least, should be counted on to have teams of fit and enthusiastic athletes with few or no injuries. Whether such coach has any star athletes is more a matter of genetic fortune."

November 29, 2021

"Beliefs are the weight-bearing walls of life."

November 15, 2021

"The coach's enthusiasm keeps athletes focused on the next positive step. How often have you seen football coaches greet their players on the sideline, clapping their hands enthusiastically after a missed field goal, a lost fumble, or a drive-killing penalty. It's all showbiz, but it keeps everyone looking forward instead of crying over their misfortune." 

November 1, 2021

"Embarking upon new ventures, your confidence is highest when you know the least about the challenges ahead. With knowledge comes doubt, raising questions you must answer, along with fears that must be ignored for as long as the answers justify your confidence."

October 18, 2021

"Don't worry about what might happen. Don't worry that you aren't up to the task. If it is necessary and important work that someone needs to do, and there isn't anybody else, you do it." 

October 4, 2021

"I tell my slower kids that they are my favorites because I am able to enjoy watching them run for so much longer. They smile, because they know that I mean it." 

September 20, 2021

"There may be no completely new ideas. But there are always traditional ideas in the drawers and dustbins that can be fractured and reassembled in new, more productive ways. There may be nothing new to see, but there are always new ways to look." 

September 6, 2021

"To make a decision is an experience of personal empowerment. To live with the consequences of a decision is an experience of personal humility. You will find that, going forward, events mostly proceed without you." 

August 23, 2021

"By daring greatly, you might get chewed up; success may elude you. But your wounds will heal and you'll attack readily next time, and next time again, until success is won." 

August 9, 2021

"As a coach, I recognize that my athletes, my champions, often stand in for my own athletic dreams, not so much dreams unrealized as dreams unrelinquished. When they win, I feel their joy; when they lose, I feel their sadness."

July 26, 2021

"Even when you are no longer an athlete, it is good to live like one."

July 12, 2021

"Decisions are not difficult if they are necessary and your values are clear."

June 28, 2021

"The best leaders serve and proudly represent the people who follow them, planning for and facilitating their success."

June 14, 2021

" Coaching, at its best, is teaching. Losing, at its best, is learning. Coaches can use a loss as an opportunity for learning much better than they can a win. Why did we win? Who knows? Maybe our opponents were unprepared, or just didn't compete well. Why did we lose? No doubt about that. We weren't good enough to win. Now what can we do about that?"

May 24, 2021

"Coaches say that champions are born, not made. Training helps, but the necessary elements of courage, toughness, and will were already there long before the coach came along. To develop a champion is either easy or impossible." 

May 10, 2021

"To be a coach is to provide a youngster with an opportunity to realize his physical and emotional possibilities, to build his self-image, his self-confidence, and to appreciate his potential to adapt, to grow, to be responsible, to be accountable, to rise to the occasion, to assert himself, and to endure. To be a coach is to join with parents, teachers, and spiritual leaders in influencing strong, healthy children to become strong, healthy adults." 

April 26, 2021

"To have unfulfilled goals is essential to your health and happiness."

April 12, 2021

"History goes unnoticed as you live it, becoming history only in hindsight. Save those mementos which will recall your history, and they will surround you in old age like children who never aged, all of you forever young and impassioned."

 March 29, 2021

"Humor is a response to suffering. There is a direct correlation between the sarcasm of your athletes and the length of your workouts."

March 15, 2021

"Greatness knows what it is doing, and dares to go beyond what it knows. Greatness plans carefully, executes flexibly, and keeps an escape plan in its pocket. Greatness risks failure. Greatness sets new standards. Greatness motivates others through its own passion, trust, love and example. Greatness creates opportunities. Greatness is a super-hero, inspiring others to super-hero status, thereby achieving immortality." 

March 1, 2021

"The best people are failures because they have accepted every challenge, including those that would defeat them. In their secret hearts, almost every man, no matter how successful, considers his life to be a failure, if not a complete disaster."

February 15, 2021

"Create enthusiasm among your athletes. Fortify them with encouragement, elevate them with praise, gift them with your best coaching, and their development will be assured." 

February 1, 2021

"For the athletes, the most fun is probably the competitions. For me, the coach, the most fun was practice, preparing to compete. I didn't particularly like the competitions. I dreaded them as one would dread a test that he wasn't fully prepared for. I used to think of that as inadequacy in myself, until I realized that each of us, athlete and coach, was having the most fun in that situation in which he felt he was most in control of the outcome," 

January 11, 2021

"There is more life in giving than in keeping, and more life still in giving of yourself." 

December 28, 2020

"Coach your athletes the way you, yourself, would have liked to have been coached."

December 14, 2020

"A coach is a missionary for the competitive life."

November 30, 2020

"Coaches teach young people perseverance, patience, discipline, teamwork, and the value of hard work. Coaches prepare the foundations for successful adults. Theirs is serious business."

November 16, 2020

"The real value of effort is found in its enduring effects, not in the moments when a record is broken or a competition won. The real value of effort is in the athletes' victory over themselves and in the motivating effect it might have on others." 

October 26, 2020

"Teams of people working to achieve a goal have power. Enthusiasm unleashes that power. Enthusiasm marshalls resources, creates strategies, works hard, solves problems, overcomes obstacles, survives setbacks and seizes victory against all odds." 

October 12, 2020

"If you are an idealist, if you believe strongly in your personal values, if you want to contribute to building a better world, either join the clergy or coach."

September 28, 2020

"Coaching is not all about competition and performance. A lot of it is about comedy, and theater, and teaching things unrelated to the immediate task. Coaches need to be curious and to inspire curiosity and learning in their athletes such that sport takes its complementary place in the larger realm of normal life."

September 14, 2020

"Unless your athletes believe in themselves, they will not accept challenges and not set meaningful goals. It's not a bad idea, at first, to set a low bar for success. When they achieve that standard, the germ of belief is born, their faith grows that success is worth the price, and they will have the momentum for the next step. They will raise the bar themselves." 

August 31, 2020

"The purpose of a liberal education is not so much to instruct a mind as to prime it, to prepare it for operation. The purpose of physical training is not so much to strengthen a body as to prepare it for performance."

August 17, 2020

"Growth is not possible without action, effort, discipline and risk. Even plants send down roots and bend their branches to the light. Nothing grows passively."

August 3, 2020

"You may be full of good ideas and good intentions, but unless you take action nothing happens and life gets away from you. The world is full of people who meant well, but who never had the courage or the character to act. You never hear anything of them, but they are there."

July 20, 2020

"The most effective coaches are not necessarily those with the best credentials, but the ones who give the most of themselves."  

July 6, 2020

"We cannot create champions. We can only create the opportunities for champions to create themselves."

June 22, 2020

"Find something positive, share something useful, close with something encouraging."

June 8, 2020

"Unless it is recklessly dangerous to life, do what scares you. If it goes wrong, your pride will recover, your ego will heal. If it goes right, you may alter your life."

May 25, 2020

"To empower a person, you show them what to do, you teach them how to do it, then you enlist them in the doing while you fade stupidly into the background. A person once empowered is a person forever empowered."

May 11, 2020

"A person who values a life of ease and comfort above effort and discomfort discovers, prematurely, the effort and discomfort of frailty and old age."

April 27, 2020

"It is not the situation that is positive or negative; it is your attitude toward it. The situation is neutral; it is just what it is. Be conscious of your attitude, and keep your thoughts positive."

April 13, 2020

"The reward for a life of comfort and ease is insignificance."

March 30, 2020

Every day challenges us at least twenty times to be better people than we are naturally inclined to be."

March 16, 2020

"Challenge is opportunity. The most meaningful victories in life result from the acceptance of challenge, refusing to flinch, refusing to yield, and persevering to resolution." 

March 2, 2020

"Children who are shielded from the disappointment of losing in sports will never make the effort required to win."

February 17, 2020

"Devote your energies toward developing champions, not recruiting them. Seemingly ordinary talents will continually surprise you, and there is greater satisfaction in the developing." 

February 3, 2020

"Before telling an athlete to do one's best, be sure the athlete knows what to do."

January 20, 2020

"When adversity strikes - losing, injuries, terrible weather, whatever - recognize that your attitude to it all is of critical importance. If you can maintain your optimism and enthusiasm through the tough times, your team has its best chance to maintain theirs. Find the positives and broadcast them. That's leadership."

January 6, 2020

"It s not what the coach knows that matters. It is what the athlete learns and how inspired they are that matters." 

December 23, 2019

"Never underestimate your athletes, either as athletes or people. And if you do, never give voice to your misgivings. Instead, encourage and praise. You will be pleased at how often they will surprise you. "

December 9, 2019

"Create a team environment where excellence is expected. Many kids will be experience that for the first time. Self-discipline, responsibility, accountability are all elements of excellence." 

November 25, 2019

"Don't despair of an athlete, no matter how untalented he may be, if he is sincerely trying to improve. The striving may not produce the athlete, but it will produce the man." 

November 11, 2019

"Never ask an athlete to do something he doesn't have the ability or fitness to do. One of the worst things a coach can do is have an athlete 'fail' a workout. The athlete will either start doubting himself, or he'll doubt you as a coach."

October 28, 2019

"Athletes inspired to train hard and compete at their best own advantages for life that non-athletes may never have." 

October 14, 2019

"What is it that drives people? Success? Wealth? Fame? These are the obvious answers but late in life one looks back and sees that the driving force was always fulfillment: The knowledge that, with your life, you were able to achieve something or contribute something of value."

September 30, 2019

Fallacy #3: You must force athletes to do what they don't want to do.

Coerced athletes don't stay around. Keep training moderate and satisfying. 

September 16, 2019

"Fallacy #1: If a particular training plan worked before, someplace else, it will work here now.

Training plans must be flexible to circumstances of place and personnel."

September 2, 2019

"At the beginning of every season, clarify your expectations for your athletes. Expect enthusiasm, you will get enthusiasm. Expect leadership, you will get leadership. Expect teamwork, you will get teamwork. There will likely be some attrition in the first few weeks, but the athletes who remain will respond to you. Generally people are eager to learn and to better themselves, especially if they are having fun doing it." 

August 19, 2019

"People rarely ask enough of themselves though they are willing. They require only a leader with an expectation."

August 5, 2019

"Athletes perform up to or down to the expectations of their coaches.  Your expectations establish the direction in which your team will go."

July 22, 2019

"Excellence is a learned skill, not a natural one. It is the outgrowth of intense awareness, lofty intention, planned direction, conscious effort, skilled execution, and a consuming attention to detail."

July 8, 2019

"To be an example is your most forceful influence, so be a good one.  In all matters, strive to talk your talk and walk your walk. Don't be a situational good example."

June 24, 2019

"Teaching may suggest what should be learned, but example determines what is learned."

June 10, 2019

"Athletes of meager talent nevertheless share equally with abundantly talented athletes that which is most valuable in sport: the striving, the effort, the adversity, the discomfort, the anxieties, the setbacks. Spare no athlete the length and breadth of your coaching capacity. For every athlete experiences sport the same."   

May 27, 2019

"Enthusiasm starts with the coach. If the coach is enthusiastic, the athletes will be enthusiastic, too. If the coach is not enthusiastic, he's in the wrong business. All our knowledge as coaches is useless without infecting our athletes with the enthusiasm to work." 

May 13, 2019

"Education should result in a freedom from the isms and dogmas of the world, and a passion for learning and truth. If it doesn't, it was not an education. It was brainwashing."   

April 29, 2019

"I find it a simple and useful principle to treat every person I meet as a customer of what I do not know, nor does it matter, but a customer, nonetheless. That doesn't mean I try to sell him something, only that I greet him with respect and try to provide him a valued service." 

April 15, 2019

"Confidence is a fragile state, never to be taken for granted in even our most 'solid' athletes. Coaches must constantly attempt to reinforce confidence if their athletes are to maintain a consistently high level of performance."