The Gold Standard Coaching roundtable serves as "the coaches' office" here at GoldStandardCoaching.com and a place where we can ask (or answer) some of the questions/concerns that we all have. Or we can just rant, rave, and debate until we get it right. The constant quest for a "better way" is what makes our profession as coaches an ever changing adventure. As long as we continue to grow and learn, the future of sport is in good hands.
USC head football coach Pete Carroll uses the ability to play multiple sports when evaluating prospective recruits. He says,
“I want guys that are so special athletically, so competitive that they can compete in more than one [sport] here at USC. It’s really important that guys are well-rounded and just have this tendency for competitiveness that they have to express somewhere.”
“We want [athletes to] show that it’s really, really important for them to excel and [that] they have that special will and that competitiveness that can really define a desire to be something unique,” Carroll explains.
According to Carroll, the hunger to compete is what gets a player noticed. Being a well-rounded athlete, playing multiple sports and attending combines and camps will make coaches pay attention to your abilities. He says, “All of that is [just] guys looking for a chance to compete and learn, but also show who they are and what they’re all about. That’s why I like to see guys play other sports too, because they want to show off who they are. All of that is what makes them the kind of guy we would want here at our school.”
There was the Amazing Mets motto "You Gotta Believe!" ; Jose Lima proclaiming Lima Time by exclaiming "Believe It"; the Golden State Warriors "We Believe!" and the most famous Al Michael's line at the end of the Miracle on Ice when he's heard screaming "Do you believe in miracles? YES!"
In sports we always talk about what we believe, we can achieve. Every coach, teacher, and parent needs to check out this video and realize how we can make a difference in kid's lives. One statement, one action by a teacher or coach can mean so much and seemingly small moments can help to shape their life’s direction.
After seeing this, I am sure that you will feel pretty good about the next generation.
Here is the text from the speech, and there are plenty of nuggets that should speak to each of us:
"I believe in me. Do you believe in me?
Do you believe I can stand up here, fearless, and talk to all 20,000 of you?
Hey, Charles Rice Learning Center – do you believe in me?
That's right – they do.
Because here's the deal: I can do anything, be anything, create anything, dream anything, become anything – because you believe in me. And it rubs off on me.
Let me ask you a question, Dallas ISD.
Do you believe in my classmates?
Do you believe that every single one of us can graduate ready for college or the workplace?
You better. Because next week, we're all showing up in your schools – all 157,000 of us – and what we need from you is to believe that we can reach our highest potential.
No matter where we come from, whether it's sunny South Dallas, ...whether its Pleasant Grove, ....whether its Oak Cliff ...or North Dallas or ....West Dallas or wherever, you better not give up on us. No, you better not.
Because, as you know, in some cases, you're all we've got. You're the ones who feed us, who wipe our tears, who hold our hands or hug us when we need it. You're the ones who love us when sometimes it feels like no else does – and when we need it the most.
Don't give up on my classmates.
Do you believe in your colleagues?
I hope so. They came to your school because they wanted to make a difference, too. Believe in them, trust them and lean on them when times get tough – and we all know, we kids can sometimes make it tough.
Am I right?
Can I get an Amen?
So, whether you're a counselor or a librarian, a teacher assistant or work in the front office, whether you serve up meals in the cafeteria or keep the halls clean, or whether you're a teacher or a principal, we need you!
Please, believe in your colleagues, and they'll believe in you.
Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe that what you're doing is shaping not just my generation, but that of my children – and my children's children?
There's probably easier ways to make a living, but I want to tell you, on behalf of all of the students in Dallas, we need you. We need you now more than ever.
Believe in yourself.
Finally, do you believe that every child in Dallas needs to be ready for college or the workplace? Do you believe that Dallas students can achieve?
We need you, ladies and gentlemen. We need you to know that what you are doing is the most important job in the city today. We need you to believe in us, in your colleagues, in yourselves and in our goals.
If you don't believe – well, I'm not going there.
I want to thank you for what you do – for me and for so many others.
Do you believe in me? Because I believe in me. And you helped me get to where I am today.
Thank you."
*******************Dalton Sherman
Apparently, this was not Dalton's first rodeo. Here he is from last March.
Coach Ray Lokar is the Director of Gold Standard Coaching and was a long-time Lead Trainer for the Positive Coaching Alliance after a stint as the Head Basketball Coach of the 2002 CIF Southern Section Champions at Bishop Amat High School. He has coached in the San Gabriel Valley just east of Los Angeles, Ca for over 25 years at the youth, high school, and college levels. He is the Director of Basketball4all, ran the Basketball Coaching Education program for the Amateur Athletic Foundation. As a member of the Executive Board of the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association starting in 1991, he served a term as President beginning in 2000.
Lokar also was involved in the business development of the ACE IntelliGym™, a training tool that enables basketball players to improve their game-intelligence skills. Owning Sports'n'Stuff, provides a home base for all of his business activities with access to the latest in uniforms and imprinted sportswear and offering in-house customization.
Now Coach Lokar, or his staff of qualified coaches, comes directly to you via speaking, engagements, consulting, camps, clinics, individual lessons, and the web.
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"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before."