Here is a guest blog post by our coaching friend Bud Leonard.
Being a varsity athlete is a privilege … not a right! People compete for the opportunity to wear your school’s uniform .The level of commitment to training that is expected is high. While you are an athlete, you will be expected to place your participation in third place on your overall list of priorities…
Your Priority List as an athlete!
- Faith and Family
- Education – the successful completion of your Secondary School education.
- An athlete on our school’s teams.
- Everything else – part time job, social events, friends, acquaintances, etc.
You will only have one window of opportunity in your life to be an athlete on your school’s teams. Make the most of it! You will be expected to train twelve months of the year to maintain and improve. Your goal at the end of each season should be to come back in September a fitter, stronger, more skillful, and more intelligent player than you were the previous year! You must aim for consistently high effort on a daily basis and for constant improvement. If you are not working to get ahead… you are going backwards!
You will get as much playing time as you earn and deserve. Playing time will not be promised in this program! Playing time is based strictly on merit! How much playing time you merit will be determined by multiple factors.
- How hard do you work?
- Do you practice hard on a daily basis?
- How athletic, skilled and intelligent are you as a player?
- Are you a leader, and do you make your teammates better players?
- Are you a team player? Is the most important statistic in your game the final score?
- How have you performed in recent games? Do you play hard and smart within the team?
- Are you coachable? Can you accept that coaching involves criticism?
- Are you better able to contribute to the team objective … winning games … than teammates who currently get more playing time than you?
- Are you able to honestly answer question 8?
The bottom line is that you control your attitude and your effort… and little else! Sometimes you must accept that others are currently more ready and able to contribute toward the team’s effort to win the game than you are. If you can accept this and remain positive… while continuing to work hard to improve yourself… then you can always be a valuable team member. If you cannot accept this … and become negative toward teammates, coaches, and staff… then you will become a “cancer”. While there are cures for “cancer”… and sometimes these take time… in the end, if the “cancer” cannot be cured, the only solution will be surgery! The “cancer” will have to be separated from the team.
This article is one of the most amazing articles I have ever read. Most kids do not appreciate the fact that they are even on the team. They just expect to make it and then not have to work hard to maintain there spot. Great article. Thank you
That blog is almost something I would write…I’ve even used the attitude and effort bit when talking to my players in the past…good read.
Very thoughtful words. I always tell my kids when you work hard I promise you good things will happen
Very thoughtful words. I always tell my kids when you work hard I promise you good things will happen, I’ve even used the attitude and effort bit when talking to my players in the past…good read.