Coaching and leadership.

In my long, diverse, and very mediocre athletic career, I have had the pleasure of experiencing many different styles of coaching, but it wasn't until I recently read three books on the subject that my wheels really started turning.

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I started with a pair of books on four high school football coaches. A Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx focuses of the achievements of Joe Ehrmann and Biff Poggi at Gilman HS in Baltimore, MD while When the Game Stands Tall by Neil Hays dwells on the incredible string of victories recorded by Bob Ladouceur and Terry Fidson at De La Salle HS in Concord, CA.

All of these coaches understand that football is a tough combat sport that requires a unique mindset--the kind that motivates young people to run full speed through a brick wall over and over for about 90 minutes.

Most former football players would agree that some coaches can be called antagonistic. As a high school player, nothing could get me hotter under the collar than doing something wrong and then trying to apologize to my coach.

I'd say, "But, Coach, I thought ..." and he'd always bellow: "Don't think! You're not quipped for it."

Bob Ladouceur, who won more consecutive games (151) than any coach in history, is cut from another cloth. He considers his football players winners whenever they grow up in their sport and become better people.

He encourages them to bond with one another and verbalize their "love" for their school and each other.

Joe Ehrmann, a former star for 13 seasons in the NFL, has a similar approach to coaching at Gilman HS. Guiding his players to become successful in life is his ultimate objective in coaching.

One of his standard question-and-answer sequences is unique:

"What is our job as coaches?" he asks.

"To love us!" the athletes yell in response.

"What is your job?" he asks again.

"To love each other!"

Coach Poggi tells his athletes, "In case you haven't noticed yet, we are training you to be different. If we lose every game this year and go 0 and 10, as long as we try hard, I won't care. You learn this lesson and you're going to go 10 and 0 in the game of life."

Don't sissies like this get torn apart on the football field? Not the last time we looked. They were Conference and State champions, with plenty of undefeated seasons thrown in for good measure.

In fact, in between 1992 and September of 2004, Ladouceur's football teams went 151-0. That also included 12 undefeated teams!

Coaches are leaders and the most effective leaders look at the big picture. All of the literature on leadership addresses the concept of long-range planning. Authors use different words to describe the concept: vision, long-term goals, beginning with the end in mind. For our football coaches, their long-term goals are a bit more long term than planning for one, two, or three seasons.

Coach Poggi responded to one inquiry about how successful his team was going to be with, "I have no idea. Won't know for 20 years. I'll be able to see what kind of fathers they are. I'll see what they're doing in the community."

Coach Ehrmann's goals include teaching his players what it means to be a man, to give them a code of conduct for manhood, and to help them figure out what their unique, transcendent cause is. All of these coaches believe short-term success on the football field is but a by-product of the journey toward life-oriented long-term goals.

Code of conduct for manhood? You gotta be kidding me, what are the parents for? According to David Blankenhorn in his book, Fatherless America, fatherlessness constitutes the most harmful demographic trend and the source of our country's most urgent social problems including crime, adolescent pregnancy, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence against women. So, really, these coaches are on the right track, and more of us should be following suit.

I suppose it's important to look at the big picture, but isn't it a bit overzealous to be looking 20 years down the road? Stephen Covey, author of Principle Centered Leadership, describes the parts of life that we have control over as our Circle of Influence. Coaches have a large Circle of Influence! We are more than human illustrators of sport technique and competitive strategy.

After reading about these coaches, I had to ask myself an important question: Am I preparing my athletes for the game of life?

Then there's the other side of the coin. In H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, it's obvious that football is as important in Odessa, TX as it is in Concord, CA or Baltimore, MD.

Head coach Gary Gaines would find "For Sale" signs in his front yard if and when his Permian High School Panthers lost.

Throughout his book, there is never any mention of anything beyond the relatively short-term goals of winning football games, of how to be a man, or why it's so important to be a good man.

Gary Gaines himself seems like a decent man who was pressured more by the lofty expectations of overzealous parents and community members than anything else.

So, what's my point? Coaches should become students of leadership. Begin by reading the material listed in the bibliography of this article. That will give you a great start. Many coaches have had formal training, but continuing to improve your leadership skills will allow you to continually improve the magnitude of influence you exert over your athletes.

Think about the lessons you want your athletes to gain from their experiences with your team. Win or lose, many life lessons occur in athletic competition. It is imperative that coaches remain positive!

As stated earlier, begin with the end in mind. So, forget about short-term goals? No, short-term goals are an excellent tool with which to challenge athletes. The De La Salle football team uses it on a weekly basis. Each player shares his goal for the upcoming game with the rest of the team and another designated player assesses overall success. This simple to implement method can be used for any sport.

Coach Ladouceur's former player, Jonathon Kirkham, gave his Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal to the De La Salle coaches on Thanksgiving, 2002 and wrote:

  "Throughout my playing days in college and most recently my
advancement in the Marine Corps, the life lessons you taught me have
continued to lead me in doing what is right, just and selfless. Being
placed in a position of leadership, I fall back more and more to the
model you presented to me as coaches than any military lessons I have
been taught. If I maintain half the integrity, discipline and tenacity
that you men represent I'll consider myself a success.
  So, on this day of giving thanks, I thank you with a by-product of
your guiding hand in my life and the success it has brought me. I
present this to you for your role in my life and the effect of your
guidance beyond the field of play."

Ladouceur's response? "Everybody talks about our victories, well, we got a victory today." Leadership experts suggest that outstanding leaders are easily recognized because of the success of their followers. It is obvious that Ladouceur, Eidson, Ehrmann and Poggi are outstanding leaders. Are you?

Sources

Bennis, W. Nanus, B. 2003: Leaders: Strategies for taking charge. New York, NY: Harper Collins. * Bissinger, H. 1990: Friday Night Lights. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press/Perseus Books Group. * Blankenhorn, D. 1995: Fatherless America. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. * Covey, S. 1991: Principle Centered Leadership. New York, NY: Fireside/Simon & Schuster. * Hayes, N. 2003: When The Game Stands Tall. Berkley, CA: Frog, Ltd. * Kouzes, J. Posner, B. 1987: The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. * Marx, J. 2003: A Season of Life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

By John Amtmann, Professor/Department Head, Applied Health Science Montana Tech of U. Montana, Butte, MT