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The Greatest Athletes the World Has Never Seen
Sports are often framed as the ultimate meritocracy. But long before the games begin, some athletes inherit opportunity while others are simply trying to survive long enough to dream.
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Providing Positive Feedback
When did you last take the time to provide positive feedback to your athletes? Was it last week, month, or year? Have you ever provided positive feedback as you are always “hard” on your athletes? Providing positive feedback, saying great job or thank you to an athlete may just make the difference in their day.…
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Trouble in West Bengal?
What is going on in Bengal cricket? That’s what I want to know… For the second time in a span of two years, I have had to see a veteran cricketer leave the team I love due to problems with a coach or board member. Both cricketers have previously made the state proud by being…
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What is Winning?
A conventional definition of winning is gaining, resulting in, or relating to a victory in a contest or competition. But have you ever questioned it beyond this definition? In the context of sport, what is it? Is it about winning trophies, titles, medals, etc? Or is it something else? What do we learn from coming…
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Assessing Your Team’s Culture
When was the last time that you assessed what was happening in your organization? What did you see? Who did you speak to? Was what you saw and heard reflective of the organizational culture that you want to be involved with? What are you going to do about the leadership and culture within your organization,…
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Athlete Confidence
Yesterday, Bryce Strecker wrote an in-depth and exceptional article about confidence. If you have not had an opportunity, please take the time to read “The Start of the Confidence Rabbit Hole”. Bryce does not discuss about an athlete’s confidence and correlation to their success, but rather the complexities of the many different types of confidence…
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The Start of the Confidence Rabbit Hole
Confidence… It’s something we hear about all the time both inside and outside competitive sports. It’s such a subjective topic that means something different to every person who talks about it, so I want to take a deeper dive into Confidence because it plays such a huge role in an athlete’s success both on and…
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Motivation as a Driver of Culture
Yesterday, Bryce Strecker wrote that “Team Culture Should Be Founded on Motivation”. It was an extremely informative article the dove deep into how a team’s culture is influenced or led by motivation. Many thought leaders discuss different ways to lead or influence culture within an organization, and I have heard very few ever discuss motivation…
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Team Culture Should Be Founded on Motivation
There are a million different ways to ‘run’ a team, a million different ways to lead. No matter your approach to it all, one of the most important factors of the whole situation is motivation. Which can be a pretty broach term, and one that’s thrown around a lot. But at the end of the…
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Something to Look Into: Real Madrid Femenino
Recently, a soon-to-be-former Real Madrid women’s team player and Swedish international, Kosovare Asllani, talked about the “unhealthy and dangerous environment” at the club. This kind of story could be very damaging for a club of Real Madrid’s standards, even if their women’s team hasn’t been as prolific as the men’s team. Real Madrid Feminino has…
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A Shift in Sports Media Coverage
More than 140 days have gone by. A lot can happen in 140 days. Novak Djokovic won the men’s Wimbledon tennis tournament, the Colorado Avalanche won the NHL Stanley Cup, and the WNBA had their All-Star game without one of their All-Stars, Brittney Griner. By now everyone should know her name, do you? It should…
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How Young Is Too Young for Parents to Think About Professional Sports Careers for Their Children?
I was recently speaking to a parent of a very young athlete about the importance of youth participation in sports, specifically team sports. There are many benefits of children participating in sports, to include learning about teamwork, appreciation for sports, healthy competition, self-confidence, resiliency, trust, and supporting teammates are to just name a few. For…
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What if Everyone is Not On Board?
Whenever a team is being run, every member of the organization needs to be able to work together. That means the players, the front office, the coaches, the staff, and anyone else who is needed to keep the organization together. However, what happens if not everyone is on board with the decisions being made? Two…
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There’s More Where That Came From
When a player is removed from a squad through a cut (whether they are released or waived) or trade, it is typical for them to bring up dirty laundry in talks about their former club, especially more so if the split was not done amicably. Su’a Cravens, a former NFL player, did just that a…
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Social media being a toxic factor in football
The power and evolution of social media continues to grow and have an impact on not just football but all sports especially in the last decade. With social media now becoming such a necessity to people of all ages and how popular it has become majority of people use some sort of social media now…
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Alan Pardew: Setting a Good Example
Recently, an incident involving a Bulgarian soccer team showed us what it means to have good leadership, as well as displaying the sad state of affairs in soccer for a country as a whole. Alan Pardew, the manager and technical director of CSKA Sofia, and assistant manager Alex Dyer both left their roles with the…
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Athleticism And Humility At Its Finest, Justin “Jolly” Rogers; True Sportsmanship Leads To A New State Record
Readers, Justin “Jolly” Rogers is a remarkable athlete and person who recently broke the Pennsylvania State Meet AAA record with a vault of 17 feet 3 inches … utterly remarkable. Not only is he talented, but Jolly embodies what it means to respect not only a sport, but also his competitors, his teammates, and his…
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How A Team’s Sports Culture Drives Their Success
It would be foolish for any high level athlete to think that their team is not a business. In terms of the NBA, teams are money making machines, and owners won’t stop for anything if they see a chance to increase their revenue. Every team is a business, we know that, but what makes different…
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LGBTQ in football
Football is a sport that unites everyone and brings all those from different countries, religions, and ethnicities and like any other sport football has the power to unite everyone together within the football community. With all this being said there are still some sexuality issues that remain in football but particularly in the men’s game…
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Graduations, Feuding Coaches & Jerome Bettis Leads the Way
This is graduation season. College and high school graduations are winding down. The spring is a season of transitions and as athletes, coaches, and lovers of sport we are among the most highly motivated by attaining the next level, whether that is making the jump from high school to college, or from college to the…
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Samantha Johnson: Soccer, Support, & Stars of the Future
This week Wes and Mike interviewed Californian soccer player, Samantha Johnson, who has been involved in the game since she was five years old. Samantha came from a culture of team bonding and this she cites as the reason for her positive experiences in sport growing up. Samantha supports the concept of cultivating a network…
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Why Sir Alex Ferguson Is One of the Greatest Premier League Managers
Sir Alex Ferguson is one of the most well-known football managers in the world but in particular in the UK and within Premier League football. This is due to his success as manager of Manchester United for 26 years between 1986 – 2013. In his time at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson won 13 Premier…
