As most of you know, how one handles adversity usually determines the level of success they will achieve. In today’s game, many players tend to take the “easy way out” instead of confronting their issue(s) head-on. Why is that? I feel it is because we don’t do a good enough job preparing our student-athletes for…
Individual Player Development – Developing the Mental Game
As coaches, we must be able to properly translate our knowledge and experience into learnable skills in order to help our players improve. Before any work can be done in regards to the physical side of the game, we must be able to train our players on the mental aspects of the game. Players who…
The Power of Positivity
The image of a coach that yells, curses, makes threats, overreacts and might even throw a ball or chair around is not hard for people to picture. Think Bobby Knight or former Rutgers coach Mike Rice, not to mention many AAU and volunteer parent coaches. But is that the best way to motivate, inspire, encourage,…
Building a Mental Winner: The 8 C’s
One of the greatest things I learned working for Jim Larranaga and his staff at the University of Miami (FL) was how to build myself to be the very best that I could be. They taught me how to wake up on a daily basis with a fire to make today better than yesterday, and…
Mental Edge – Perceived Relevance
Nobody wants to be wrong. Players, coaches, officials or fans. Every person is entitled to their own opinion but yet everyone wants their opinion to be right. Think back to a time when you were corrected on something you cared about. The natural instinct is to rebut to defend your point of view because there…