Tip of the Week

We recently heard from the athletic director of Overlake School in Redmond, Washington, that Overlake had been named by Coach & Athletic Director magazine for their prestigious Interscholastic Sports Program of Excellence Award winner. The annual award recognizes public and private high school athletic programs in the United States in four different enrollment categories. Overlake…

Last week’s Tip had to do with the officiating problem in the NFL.  If you didn’t read it, take a minute to read it. The issue remains: what do we do when we find ourselves in games where the officiating is frustrating to us, and where we feel there are a lot of bad calls? …

The NFL has “second string” referees calling the games because the regular officials are on strike.  Some are upset because they think the quality of officiating has been compromised.  A problem every athlete and every coach faces every season (no matter who the officials are) is the possibility and the reality of bad calls.  How…

Last week we focused on teamwork, and provided a quote from Neil Armstrong.  This week we continue with more of what he said: “…you could not tell when quitting time was, because people didn’t leave at quitting time in those days.  People just worked, and they worked until whatever their job was done, and if…

Neil Armstrong died recently; he was the first person to walk on the moon.  There were thousands of people on the team that made that flight successful.  Here’s his description of their teamwork:  Each of the components of our hardware was designed to certain reliability specifications, and by far the majority, to my recollection, had…

Last week we talked about setting goals at the beginning of the season.  We assume that all athletes set individual goals for themselves in terms of skill development, and so we encouraged everyone to consider goals they could set to make the team better, and to improve the relationships on the team – both tenets…

As we begin the fall season of sports, what goals have you set for yourself?  Hopefully, you have set some individual goals, ways in which you can improve your fundamental skills.  But how about team goals – have you set some goals for ways in which you can make your team better?  Have you set…

The Olympics is unlike any other competition in that it only occurs every four years.  Competitors who have a bad day, or who make an unlikely mistake will not get another chance for four years.  This is one of the reasons that the pressure is so great.  Unlike most professional (and amateur) athletes who play…

Ask your team: How are the values of the Code being reflected in the Olympics?  It will be good for your players to articulate the many ways in which the Code is reflected, and for them to hear the things that stand out for their teammates.  It is also good to ask them “what do…

The Penn State punishments have been given.  What will be the result – five, ten, twenty, or 100 years from now?  It’s easy to speculate on the short term damage – the next ten years or so, but harder to know what the long term effect will be.  Will this change the character of sports? …