Journal 17, Week 6

What is one topic from class that you teach to your employees? Why?

As mentioned in previous posts, I work as a high school tennis coach as my part time job. Clearly, this makes me very interested in reading a Leadership book such as the John Wooden one we are studying. The Pyramid of Success is very true to what I do since I am able to teach sports to kids. I read it at the very beginning of the semester & I am concious of the Pyramid on a daily basis at practice & in matches.

One thing that I have found to be very evident in working with kids and coaching athletics is that my enthusiasm level relays directly to my team. On days that I am at a high energy level, we have high energy practices. When I am off a little bit, and it doesn't take much, the practice or match results are fairly predictable.

Yesterday at practice I played a little mind trick on the team. We play Ft Mill HS, a team that we are equivalent to at most matches. I told myself that I was going to get the girls as fired up as if they were going to play a national championship. We talked before and after practice and we did a couple things different at practice.

1) We had the BEAT FORT MILL rule at practice. Whenever myself, or a captain yelled out, "Beat!" the rest of the team would reply "Fort Mill!"

2) We established the BEAT FORT MILL rule for school the next day. The captains & I told the players that whenever they see each other in school during the day, they have to look each other in the eye and say "Beat Fort Mill."

I know that Wooden wasn't one to talk about winning and that he prided himself on continuous improvement over winning. But, my assessment of my team is that they enjoy talking about winning & they have good attitudes about it. We play matches that we are even with our opponent's skill level and some that we are better than our opponents. I tend to use the word "win" when discussing those teams. However, we also play teams that are much better than us at times. My wording has mysteriously changed from "win" to "have success" when we go against those schools.

I am planning on printing out Wooden's Pyramid from coachwooden.com and giving it to each player at the end of the season. I think that after they see it, they will probably understand why I have acted the way I have all season.