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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Letter From the Publisher

Coach, Scout Thyself...
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Bud Grant, the Hall of Fame coach of the Minnesota Vikings (18 years, 158-96-5, 12 playoff teams and four Super Bowl appearances, all after a successful Hall of Fame career as a CFL coach with Winnipeg: 10 years, 102-56-2, and four Grey Cup championships), was an innovator in the "self-scouting" concept. He was a great believer in "coaching people" and getting to know what made them tick.

Grant was known for creating rules during training camp simply to test his players. He wanted to know for certain which players would play with discipline.

In 1967, Grant gathered his Viking team before they took the practice field and informed them that the groundskeeper had asked for the team's cooperation in keeping off a particular patch of turf. "I made a big deal out of it. I went over the area in great detail," said Grant. "Of course the groundskeeper had not said a word about any turf to me."

After the meeting and the sod warning, Grant hurried to a vantage point to watch what happened. "There were players who would come running up to the forbidden area, recognize it, and go around it," explained Grant.

"There were other players who would run out into the middle of it and then stop...you knew they'd forgotten the warning and remembered after they started across. Those fellows would back up and go around the area."

"There were some who would come running out and go across the sodded area without even realizing it.

"And, finally there were those players who roared across the area in absolute defiance of what I had said," Grant recalled.

Why did Grant do this? He said, "... it is extremely important to find out about your people. Learn which ones will forget what you tell them, which ones will remember what you teach them but just don't buy into your philosophy, and you will learn who does not care... because the same thing will happen in a game."

One common trait that most coaches have in common is that they all watch hours and hours of film each week to determine an opponent's tendencies: how they defense a certain formation, what type of play they run from the -15 in the first half, etc.

But, very few of these coaches spend any "real" time scouting their own personnel and tendencies. How many head coaches can actually say they force their staff to sit down and scout their own team as if they were the next opponent? More importantly, how many assistants, when given this infrequent mandate, actually take the task seriously? Probably less than a few.

Who knows your offense better than you do? As a result, who should be best equipped to know how to stop it more efficiently than your own staff? Conversely, who knows how to attack your defensive alignments and weaknesses better than your staff counterparts?

My point is, for example, if you know how to stop your offense, shouldn't you be able to come up with the perfect counter attack to prevent that defensive strategy from working? You should be able to stay one step ahead of your competition by scouting yourself. But, his type of proactive planning can only come about by "self-scouting."

You've heard it said, "doctor heal thyself." I say, "Coach scout thyself."

Sincerely yours,

Barry Terranova
Publisher






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