Who is your inspiration to try that much harder?

There may come a time in your career that your "Philosophy" will be asked for, most often during the interview process. The following has worked for me. Of course, like a good coach, I got it from another coach, years ago, and I do not remember who - just like you will not remember where you got it. I hope it helps:

Philosophy

The purpose of secondary education is to prepare students to assume a role in the community at large which will promote the general good of the community while allowing the student to pursue the realization of individual career goals. I believe that true success in life is achieved in the pursuit of a worthy ideal that exists for the benefit of others and not at their expense.

The high school football program offers a unique opportunity for the instruction and implementation of this philosophy. Team members, each in pursuit of his individual player goals, are molded into a team that pursues a higher team goal that can only be accomplished through cooperative efforts. No one individual player or coach wins a football game. Success is accomplished through the combined efforts of the coaching staff, the players, the student body, and the community. Just as the altruistic goals of society cannot be realized by individuals, neither can team goals be achieved by individual players.

The football program exists first of all for the players themselves. The program allows athletes to express themselves in a unique way not inherent in the traditional classroom. If it were not for them, there would be no program. The successful coach understands that he is directly dependent upon the players, assistant coaches, school and community. Coaching is the process of guiding players and staff through an instructional program that will develop individual and team talents to an extent that will allow them to compete successfully on the playing field.

This instruction must begin with the fundamentals of the game. It is only through a master of the basic fundamental aspects of the game that players develop the skills necessary to perform at ever higher levels of achievement. A brief summary of said fundamentals would include: strength training, conditioning, stance, start, blocking tackling, offensive assignments, and defensive keys.

While the football program does exist for the players, it does allow us, as educators, an opportunity to provide much needed instruction in the affective domain of educational philosophy. The role of athletics in the educational setting is to broaden and reinforce the overall instructional goals of the school district. It allows us to bridge the gap between the academic atmosphere of the classroom and true-to-life situations of the real world. The future economic, social, and political lives facing high school students today are run by committee. The football team is a committee in the pursuit of a goal that can only be achieved through the dedication, efforts, and commitment of its members.

A successful sports program at the professional or collegiate level translates into a positive image for the city or university that the program represents. Be it right or wrong, this is more often than not true at the secondary level as well. A gathering of the community’s citizens to view the weekly football game is the largest audience the school regularly has to showcase parts of its overall educational program. The football team, the band, the cheerleaders, student body, parents, patrons and fans gather to participate in the educational process. Successful programs require participation, involvement, and support from diverse segments of the general community. The successful coach is one who has the ability to coordinate the efforts of various professional and community organizations in a positive way. It becomes a mutually reinforcing and rewarding situation.

What has to happen for your team to "own the final minutes?"

ON DREAMS

Dreams

“If you can dream it; you can do it. remember, this whole thing was started by a mouse.” Walt Disney

Imagine that you are about to be inducted into a Sports Hall of Fame.

This could be the Hall of Fame at your school, in your state, for a national association, or the World Hall of fame. Write down what you would like to hear people say about you and what you accomplished. Think of the players and people you would want to be delivering your induction speech. What part of your personality would they comment on? What would they say about you as a competitor? What stories would they use to illustrate the strengths of your game? Would they talk about your tenacity, your accuracy, your work ethic? How would they describe your composure, your attitude, your guts? Think of as many details as possible that would capture you as an athlete.

Without being specifically asked, you have described your dreams. This is what you want to accomplish in your sporting career. Go pursue this with a vengeance.

Just as Ben Hogan was responsible for making (and remaking) himself into one of the greatest golfers of all time, you too are responsible for whatever greatness you hope to accomplish in your sports. His dream was to be one of the best ever in the sport he loved. Your dream can be whatever you would like it to be. It can literally be anything you desire. If does not have to be approved by others. It is all yours and no matter how worthwhile others perceive it to be does not mater. In fact, if some people question your dream, it is probably very worthwhile. And if everyone thinks it is a realistic or attainable dream, it may not be grand enough. Think big, dream big. Remember, you only get one shot at living your dreams.

A true dream, once you have envisioned it and imagined it, does not go away. You don’t have to remind yourself every day what your dream is. A true dream sticks in your mind like a song that you can’t quit singing. It is there, over and over, reminding you constantly of where you want to go.

Although a dream is always present, always there for you to ponder the possibilities, this does not mean your dream is “set.” Dreams are never set. They may have a dominant theme for many years, but they are always undergoing evaluation and adjustment as necessary. Again, if your dream doesn’t grow some as you make progress toward achieving it, you may need to reevaluate it.

A dream is like fuel, it provides energy - energy for you to withstand the rough times and pitfalls which are inevitable in any long-term pursuit. A dream will keep your motor running when you feel like you have no choice but to pull over and stop. However, also like fuel, a dream can do nothing by itself. You must make the dream, the fuel, come to life. You must drive the car powered by the fuel for it (dream) to become a reality.

Hopefully by now, you realize I am talking about chasing your dreams. Your grandest visions of all the things you love to have happen to yourself. The dreams you dreamed about when you were a kid. Making the shot to win the NBA Championship or the putt to win the Masters. I am not talking about goals that you Hope to check off a list. They are very clear in your mind, but they are so awesome they do not have limits or boundaries which would allow them to be checked off.

It is nearly impossible not to have dreams. As a human, one of the greatest gifts you have is your ability to imagine. You may feel like you don’t have any dreams, but you do. You just may be afraid to let yourself chase them. Don’t be afraid. What is the worst that can happen? You don’t achieve your dream? Wouldn’t it be better to have tried and “failed” than to never have tried at all?

You don’t have to quit your job or change your entire life to pursue your dreams. It is not always possible to make gigantic steps along this journey; I know that. It is possible, however, to plan for the future of your dreams. It may be just small steps that you can take which use only minutes or hours a day. Believe me there is no hard and fast rule about how much time or effort is required to achieve your dreams. Just follow your gut. You will know. If you are finding ways to squeeze out any minutes you possible can to chase your dreams, you are doing all you can. If you are making excuses that you don’t have time to chase your dreams, you don’t have a dream. Instead, you have a wish. But if you do have a dream, an awesome, all-you-can-think-about dream, go get it. If you don’t chase it, you’ll never know if you could have caught it.

Imagine . . . you are the editor for the yearbook and you have been assigned a page that chronicles you and your team’s accomplishments for the year. What would your page say about your season and you? email a copy of you Yearbook 'Dream' Page

Your Dream, Is It Big Enough?

ACHIEVING YOUR DREAMS
By Jim Rohn

While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily working at building and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. And here sits the much larger group, wondering how life can be so unfair, so complicated and unjust. What's the major difference between the little group with so much and the larger group with so little?
Despite all of the factors that affect our lives - like the kind of parents we have, the schools we attended, the part of the country we grew up in - none has as much potential power for affecting our futures as our ability to dream.
Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower any obstacle in your path. To unleash this power, though, your dreams must be well defined. A fuzzy future has little pulling power. Well-defined dreams are not fuzzy. Wishes are fuzzy. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your future plans pull you forward, your dreams must be vivid.
If you've ever hiked a fourteen thousand-foot peak in the Rocky Mountains, one thought has surely come to mind, "How did the settlers of this country do it?" How did they get from the East Coast to the West Coast? Carrying one day's supply of food and water is hard enough. Can you imagine hauling all of your worldly goods with you...mile after mile, day after day, month after month? These people had big dreams. They had ambition. They didn't focus on the hardship of getting up the mountain.
In their minds, they were already on the other side - their bodies just hadn't gotten them there yet! Despite all of their pains and struggles, all of the births and deaths along the way, those who made it to the other side had a single vision: to reach the land of continuous sunshine and extraordinary wealth. To start over where anything and everything was possible. Their dreams were stronger than the obstacles in their way.
You've got to be a dreamer. You've got to envision the future. You've got to see California while you're climbing fourteen thousand-foot peaks. You've got to see the finish line while you're running the race. You've got to hear the cheers when you're in the middle of a monster project. And you've got to be willing to put yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. Because that's how you realize your dreams.