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From the Coach’s Bookshelf – Winning Football

by: Bill Ramseyer
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In his new book Winning Football, Bill Ramseyer provides a blueprint for coaching success. Based on lessons he’s learned from his decades in coaching, the book is a complete handbook that examines all parts of the game. Here is an excerpt from his opening chapter.

Elements of Success

    Success can be measured in many ways. If you are a coach, perhaps you measure success by the positive influence you have on the lives of the players you coach – the attitudes they build on and off the field, the percentage of players who graduate, the careers they enter, the relationships they develop. If you are a player, you might measure success by how hard you have worked to earn your achievements or by how much you are valued by your teammates. Many people measure coaching and playing success by the number of games or championships won or the number of winning seasons over a career. Obviously, as long as a score continues to be kept, winning will remain a vital part of success on the football field, but winning should never mean sacrificing other factors that determine achievement.
    An athletic team that wants to compete consistently at the highest level must have an abundance of mental toughness. A main ingredient for producing toughness is discipline – individual discipline, team discipline, and self-discipline. In fact, the longer I coach, the more convinced I am that discipline is the most important factor in football. Yes, Xs and Os are vital, but it’s the players who play the game, and you win with players who are consistent. How do you develop consistency, even under the most extreme adverse conditions? Through mental toughness. How do you develop mental toughness? Through discipline.
    In discussing the importance of a disciplined team, I am not talking about rules. I am talking about the way your team responds to situations based on consistent positive habits. Discipline becomes a way of life, and that leads to success.
    Discipline begins with the head coach. The head coach must be disciplined, and discipline must be an integral part of every assistant coach in order for discipline to be established in the team. If the team is expected to react with confidence, every coach must react to each situation, challenge, or crisis with confidence and positive energy. When discussing discipline, focus on what’s important and factor out irrelevant distractions.
    To be successful in football, you must develop the mind. In the coaching profession, we discover all kinds of equipment, books, and drills to develop and strengthen every muscle group of the body, but we do too little to train the most powerful area of the body – the mind.
    We should spend more time developing the mind than we do developing the biceps, hamstrings, and other major muscle groups. I firmly believe that if you can visualize something, you can achieve it; if you can see it, you can become it. I don’t mean to imply that ability and personnel are not important; of course they are. But we have all seen upsets, games won by the squad with less ability. How do we explain this? The victorious underdog played better as a team, was more mentally prepared for the game, came closer to realizing its potential, or all of these.
    A disciplined team plays each game with consistency and confidence. Disciplined players perform in championship games as though they have been there before. They don’t panic when they are behind in the final quarter. They play with poise. A disciplined team responds positively when they are the underdog, and they play with intensity when they are the overwhelming favorite. Players demonstrate consistency and confidence in their performance on the final drive of the game, when behind, or with the score tied. Simply put, a disciplined team remains focused under pressure during any given play, throughout a game, and from week to week over the course of a season. This becomes reality only when your team has attained a major dose of mental toughness, which is the ability to block out all distractions and focus only on the objective.

Commitment and Accountability

    We expect commitment and accountability of every person involved in our football program. This begins with our school’s administration. Making provisions for an experienced and committed coaching staff and granting the head coach freedom to fill his staff with coaches who share his philosophy are concrete examples of an administration’s intent on excellence. Outfitting every player with the best in protective equipment is another example of a committed and accountable administration. If your team plays in a conference, all the schools in the conference should be similar in size, values, and resources. There should be a sense of mutual respect among schools along with a development of intense but friendly rivalries.
    The coaching staff must commit to doing all in their power to field the most competitive team possible. They are accountable to the people who hired them. They should be involved in their community, conference, and national organizations, taking a leadership role when possible. Coaches should continue to educate themselves in the profession, whether in their first or their 41st year of coaching. By attending clinics and conventions, visiting college spring practices and professional camps, and reading books and magazines, they should stay abreast of the Xs and Os and all the innovations in the game. They should know the rule book intimately and be familiar with any rule changes so they can relay these to the rest of the team.
    When players become a part of a football program, they make a commitment. There is a big difference between a decision and a commitment. A commitment includes taking responsibility. These players are now accountable to their teammates, their coaching staff, and their institution. They understand that they are under a microscope and that everything they do and say can affect the program. u

From Winning Football by Bill Ramseyer. Copyright 2011 by Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.  Excerpted by permission of Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL.  
www.HumanKinetics.com 






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