Coaching Philosophy: Introspective Look

INTRODUCTION

"You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do." Jerry Garcia. There is no doubt that within competitive athletics, athletes and coaches alike are always striving to be the on the top of their game. This quote by Jerry Garcia defined an essence of what my coaching philosophy is about. While this quote is highly cited by many other coaches among collegiate and professional sports, I believe it defines my drive for excellence in coaching. In a 60 Minutes interview, legendary USC football coach Pete Carroll said

“To be all by yourself out there doing something that nobody else can touch—that’s the thought that guides me, that guides this program: We’re going to do things better than it’s ever been done before in everything we do, and we’re going to compete our asses off. And we’re gonna see how far that takes us.” (Linneweber, 2010).

It is my personal philosophy to best my full potential in any endeavor I undertake. I believe it is important to no only live up to your potential but to find methods and push yourself to surpass personal potential towards perfection.

In coaching I think it is a necessity to strive for your own personal best at everything you do. While perfection remains a figment of imagination or a never ending road, it is important to do everything the best you can at every opportunity. This is the essence of my personal philosophy and it is what defines my coaching philosophy. Doing your best and finding way to surpass your best is what I look to teach my athletes and peers around me. Hurricanes’ head football coach Bill Young said it best when he said “what you see is what you coach”, and I believe in doing my best at every task I approach (Haistan, 2009). If I am seeing something that is below my potential or the potential of another being, it is my responsibility to correct that behavior and accelerate the process towards personal potential perfection.

However in life situations, it may be unreasonable to expect that you will be perfect in everything that you do. I must personally admit that I do not think I would make a great youth or high school coach. I expect too much out of my athletes and my desire to compete at everything is not the ideal learning environment for youth athletes. I can accept this fact but that does not mean that if I was in that situation I would do any less than my personal best. Situations like these are reasons why a coaching philosophy is so important; it provides the guidance and foundation.

Writing a coaching philosophy should be an easy task. Coaches should simply sit down quietly and reflect on how they would like their program to run. I however find myself in a conundrum as a young coach when drafting this philosophy. In my strength coaching profession I answer to many different people who all want different things from me. The problem with answering to multiple people is that each wants a different objective.

The administration will say they define success by GPA and graduation rates. The sport coaching staff defines success by obtaining wins versus losses. Finally, the athletes are looking for an athletic experience that is both fun and rewarding. As a strength coach I must find a balance between pleasing the administration, coaches and the players I lead. Each are as just important as their respective other.

In these situations having a clear and present coaching philosophy is necessary in order to provide guidance throughout an ever changing career. Many coaches say that actions speak louder than words; I believe the same principle applies to coaching philosophies. It is easy to say what you would do or how you would act if a situation occurred, but making those decisions in the middle of a crisis is ever more challenging. Understand that philosophies should change depending on the overall objective for the usage of sport. Within all the different levels of sport, while foundational philosophies should remain, the implementation of others will differ greatly.

OBJECTIVES OF SPORT

It is incredibly important to understand your personal coaching philosophy because it serves as the roadways in which you will navigate your career. Having clear understanding of your coaching philosophy and style is similar to a teacher and their lesson plans; it guides and operates them through every situation minute by minute. A coaching philosophy remains the foundational unit of every good coach’s decision.

Without clear philosophies decisions are often are made on a whim and usually do not reflect the organizational goals initially established. Similar to the proverb “you can not see the forest for the trees", it is difficult to make big picture plans when overwhelmed with the all the short-term decisions. Understanding what the objectives are for the sport you coach remains an important process necessary for developing your coaching philosophy.

As a coach I understand how a hundred little decisions can be made without calling question the overall big-picture plans and objectives. Having a coaching philosophy allows for consideration of the programs goals and will negate most difficult decisions to be contemplated. Within my own profession and coaching experience, I often have to ask myself “what is the goal”, or “what am I looking to accomplish”. Doing this often allows for me to reflect on what is most important to me, the program, and to the athletes I coach.

While the objectives of sport will differ at each individual level as you progression in the career, the goal will remain the same; to educate. Coaches serve as merely educations, nothing more. While the classroom that we operate within differs greatly, the content and purpose of our words and actions remain the same; to enhance and reach the greatest potential of personal success. Whether how one defines success as academically, athletically or spiritually, we can always improve. There is no such thing as perfection; however we must always strive to reach it.

As alluded to earlier, sport ultimately serves as an educational tool to prepare individuals for life challenges. Sport is the ultimately life simulator. There are moments in sport that will test self-control, initiative, and intentions. The will be other moments that challenge your desire, humbleness, and leadership capabilities. In the earlier stages of sport development, sport objectives should be focused on creating a fun environment that cultivates fundamental skill development. Winning is secondary to the development of an athlete.

I believe as coaches it is our responsibility to foster the pursuit of excellence in both academics and athletics. Much like Jerry Garcia said, “I don’t want to simply be the best; I want to be the only.” I believe my philosophy serves athletes with similar notions. My coaching philosophy is designed to make athletes avoid mediocre performance, but rather serves to foster being the best and striving further and past the mediocrity. I want my athletes and coaching staff to be the only one who is capable of doing what they do.

I believe it is important to realize that that a great majority of these athletes will not go onto collegiate athletics much less professional sports. For these athletes I aim to cultivate a learning experience that is unlike any else. When athletes leave their tenure at their high school or collegiate level, I am hopeful they will have the desire to rise above meritocracy and only accept their best performance; in athletics, academia, professional careers and in life. I aim to challenge their beliefs of their capabilities are and through relentless coaching and expectations, I hope they become greater competitors and greater people because of it.

OBJECTIVES AT DIFFERENT LEVELS

If it is understood that sport can be used to simulate life experiences and properly prepare athletes for life situations than it is understood that coaches can manipulate the coaching atmosphere to cater to different age levels. Understanding what the purpose of the particular sport context one is coaching in is absolutely important to the style in which a coach will use. There are several differences in the objectives a coach should expect when dealing with different levels.

Sport at the high school level should be engaging but also focused on preparing the athlete educationally for life challenges. While modern society tends to hold competition and winning as a major objective in youth sport today, coaching styles and philosophies should not necessarily hold those objectives as important.

High school sports serve as the optimal learning environment for skill development for young athletes. High school coaches should focus on tailoring practice and competition towards skill development and fundamental movement patterns. This arena and level of sport should have a competition factor but the objective of winning should not be the total outcome. It is in high school that young athletes should learn fundamentals about sport and have an experience to play multiple sports. As a coach I believe in high school strength & conditioning, importance should be made on developing foundational knowledge of exercises without placing much emphasis on volume or intensity. High school strength & conditioning should be tailored to developing proper movement patterns that modern society has replaced for technological advances like video games and computers.

Collegiate sports however require a greater demand on winning and successful performances. The instructional component to collegiate coaching should be heavily on perfecting skill development, but also on drawing out athlete’s strengths to best serve the objective of winning.

The focus in collegiate sports should be about refining the processes that create winning teams. Rather than solely focusing on the one objective of winning. Coaches and athletes should focus on all the little processes that will lead to winning, rather than solely being outcome oriented. By focusing on perfecting the little steps throughout the greater process, through the accumulation of perfection among all the tasks; victories will usually follow.

Sports at the professional level should be about reaching excellence. At this level the competition is so great and the expectation for winning is demanded. In a perfect functional society the athletes competing at the professional level should not need the life coaching that is so prevalent at the youth and high school levels. However, with athletes being fast tracked into the NBA and NFL, these athletes often have missed valuable moments learning about leadership, responsibility, accountability and other positive characteristics.

If previous coaches at lower levels have successfully done their job preparing athletes for the next level of competition, then the professional level of coaching should be more about fostering excellence in skill and less about recreation and teaching life lessons. As a professional level strength coach, it would be my responsibility to serve the head coach’s expectations for the program. At this level of competition winning is vital. While creating an environment that is enjoyable is important to keep athlete’s engaged, the time spent with the strength & conditioning coach is best used by doing drills and performance based exercises. The margin between winning and losing is often so small that every second with the coaching staff should be best utilized by drawing out individual’s strengths rather than improving upon their weaknesses.

ROLE OF WINNING

There are valuable lessons to be learned by both achievement and failure. Some of the most rewarding learning experiences come after a crushing loss. Having the composure to demonstrate sportsmanship and character in times of losses is a difficult task. While losing teaches individuals tremendously about character, winning is a rewarding accomplishment that also serves as an educational tool.

Winning has some important implications at the youth level however winning will not serve as my first priority preparing youth athletes. Winning serves as important validation to youth athlete’s confidence. Winning also serves as a very useful tool in building team cohesion. If you ask any losing team, the team’s cohesion or spirit de corps is much harder to substantiate after a loss.

Winning also gains one access to rewards and special privileges. At the youth level it is important to create opportunities for similar skilled athletes or teams to compete against each other. Winning against a similar strength opponent builds confidence in perceptual ability.

While winning is important at the youth level, winning is not everything. Losing does not have to be a negative outcome of sport. Losing at the youth level can teach participants skills about overcoming adversity, sportsmanship, and character. To endure losses and have the go-with-all to stand back up and brush the dirt off and compete is a valuable asset to have in this demanding world.

Winning however becomes more important as you progress up the coaching levels. This is emphasized by the short lived but high paying coaching positions that seem to be highlighted on the front pages of sport sections everywhere. The reality is that coaches at the collegiate and professional levels are paid the high salaries in order to put together winning teams.

Winning is obviously important in collegiate setting for a number of reasons. First, alumni and boosters usually come across hard times collecting donations and funding when a team is a losing season. Donations are increasingly important in economic times like America is undergoing currently. Alumni donations help fund parts of athletic programs that a very thin budget would never be able to substantially fund. Without these donations vital equipment and resources that directly benefit student-athletes would vanish due to funding limitations.

Secondly, ticket sales are dependant on the hype and winningness of a collegiate team. USC and Ohio State certainly can create more hype surrounding their football team than North Carolina’s team, as within the last ten years Duke has accumulated more losses than any other Division 1 team with over 85 losses.

GENDER EQUITY

While opportunities in collegiate sports for females have increased, strength and conditioning head coaching positions are rarely held by women. Nearly two percent of men’s teams are coached by women coaches. More disturbing is the fact that only 44 percent of NCAA women’s teams have female head coaches. Since the prevalence of coaches comes from collegiate athletic backgrounds, one would expect that a rise in female participation would account for a rise in female coaches (Acker, 1989). This however is not occurring in our field of strength and conditioning.

The statistics show that most women coaches are neither head coaches nor athletic directors. Women coaches are found majority in division II or III programs and are much more prevalent to hold assistant positions rather than head coaching positions. While there is little research addressing the reasons behind women’s under representation in collegiate coaching, it is the responsibility of those in coaching positions to help excel female opportunities in strength and conditioning careers.

It is my responsibility as a coach to create equal opportunities for upcoming young female strength and conditioning coaches to break into this field. It is necessary early on to dispel the myth that women cannot coach male teams. Despite gender differences there are no reasons I have witnessed why a women could not successfully coach any male team. A matter of fact, I have seen many male coaches within the field act more stereotypically “woman like” than most the women I have encountered in the profession. It is my philosophy that if women are more qualified than men at a position may the best person win. I believe wholeheartedly in competition; it is the essence of my philosophy. If a female strength coach outworks any male strength coach than the female will be hired without any hesitations or judgments of gender.

It is my professional goal to help equalize the decision-making processes when it comes to hiring female coaches. I am approaching this topic from a coaching perspective only because in my field of strength and conditioning, gender differences and roster management does not truly apply. However, within the field of strength and conditioning hiring practices, it is well noted that the field is made from a majority of Caucasian males. As a head strength coach it will be my responsibly to provide more professional opportunities to the female gender.

Not only are female coaches underrepresented within the coaching community, but those of different racial backgrounds are also subjected to the unfair hiring practices established in strength & conditioning.

EQUITY FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR

I again approach this topic from a professional coaching perspective due to a limited role at determining team management. As a strength coach I often do not make a decision about who is recruited on a team. However, as a head coach I will have a responsibility of hiring my own staff. Because of this great professional obligation I need to be aware that it is my goal to create an equal opportunity for people of different racial backgrounds.

If I continue coaching in the collegiate setting, the NCAA does a tremendous job with ensuring the hiring practices of NCAA schools are compliant with the regulations established by law. I believe however that equality is not merely meeting a quota or going through the proper hiring channels. I am a competitor at heart and that competition drives every essence of my decisions. Because of my competitiveness, I believe in fair competition. If an African America is more qualified at a position than any other candidate, then he or she will receive the position. There is nothing to contemplate about the hiring practice. The best will win.

In professional sports, new regulations are laws are now established to help equalize the opportunities within the coaching field. The Rooney Rule in the NFL now requires teams to include minority candidates when coaching jobs are open. NCAA has similar policies but this initiative was a huge step forward for professional sport coaches. To understand the magnitude of the racial limitations in professional coaching, the NFL only has six minority head coaches out of 32 positions (Mullen, 2009).

CUTTING PLAYERS

I believe in Pete Carroll’s philosophy when he said “We’re going to do things better than it’s ever been done before in everything we do”. Cutting players in order to stay competitive is necessity in competitive sports. I do not think people question whether cutting players is necessary. I think people question the reasons for cutting players at different levels. Youth level sports are becoming more competitive every single day and because of this competition, youth leagues are now becoming more selective than ever.

Cutting players and roster management is a necessary evil in athletics. As a competitive athlete, one of the worst experiences a player can endure is being told that their performance in not worthily enough to warrant a position. However, as a coach, I understand that it is unfeasible to include everyone that tries out. As a walk-on athlete who was personally affected by roster management in collegiate sports during 2004, I can understand how terrible it feels to be cut from a team. Six years later and being on the other side of athletics, in the coaching position, I can now rationalize why it had to be done.
It is my opinion that in youth sports cutting players should not be an option. If there are too many athletes than a reduction of team sizes should occur to allow for an expansion team to be created. Youth sports serve as an educational tool and the experiences of sport should not be withheld to anybody for any credence.

This however is not the case as athletes move up to the collegiate levels of sport. Due to regulations of the 1972 Title IX amendment of the Equal Opportunity in Education Act, institutions that receive federal funding must provide equal opportunities or roster spots for female demographic at the university.

PAY FOR PLAY

The youth and high school levels of sport will rarely encounter situations where money exchanges hands due to committing to play for a certain team. However, in collegiate sports there is a growing community of proponents who believe collegiate athletes should be compensated financially for the services they provide to the university through their athletic endeavors. Currently as a collegiate coach I must say that while student-athletes commit a great deal of their time and resources towards athletics, the university as a whole equally commits and fulfill their end of the scholarship arrangement.

Some proponents say that the players are entitled to compensation because of the revenue they bring in and the risk of injury they face. As a coach I believe the athletes are sufficiently compensated by the quality education they are likely receiving on behalf of their athletic capabilities. As the price of tuition is steadily increasing, athletes who manage to earn a full scholarship, including tuition, room, board, and books, need to understand that they essentially are earning 15,000 to 20,000 dollars a year for their athletic capabilities.

As a coach who may deal with these issues it is important to foster an environment where extrinsic motivators like money, fame and attention is not the overall goal. As head strength and conditioning coach it will be my responsibility to ensure that athletes under my coaching know what is personally most valuable to them. I will do my part to create an environment and culture that is about winning with class, and improving towards personal potential perfection. The culture I look to establish is about competing against yourself, your teammates, and your other collegiate competitors – out of the love of the game. The moment I sense that an athlete is competing for other intentions it will be my role to confront the athlete and determine what is best for the team and program as a whole.

I believe that confrontation and excellent communication is vital to the success of athletic programs. As a future head strength coach I will do my part to ensure that athletes remain in the game because they love it. These objectives are the ways I will carry out my coaching philosophy. My philosophy does not differ from my personal ethics. I believe my ethics are in tune with the character and style of coaching I look to accomplish and be.

PERSONAL ETHICS

It is my personal philosophy to create better athletes, better students and better leaders due to my coaching. Like my philosophy statement, “We are going to do things better than it has ever been done before in everything we do.” This means I will not just focus on making better athletes but I want everyone to strive to do better at everything. I believe competition breeds competitions and striving to do better then your personal best is a recipe for success at any endeavor.

I understand that winning is important. There is absolutely no doubt in a collegiate setting that winning is desired among coaches and athletes. Administration will deny it, but if a team manages to create an all-academic team with a losing season, the coach will have a target on his back. However, I think we need to understand that while winning is our desired outcome, focusing on improving “everything” is the recipe that leads to winning. Similar to Coach Wooden’s approach, I believe in focusing on effort, and not winning. If you focus on effort and are doing everything in the present better, all these little changes will lead you into a win, a series, or a championship (Ige).

As a strength coach it is my priority to make sure the athletes are prepared physically for the challenges that they will face in their athletic arena. If I successfully prepare them physically for the field or court I could easily collect a paycheck and be done. However, doing this only represents a small percentage of what a dedicated strength coach “should” do. Due to my personal conversations with strength coach Tim Wakeham, I believe that successful strength coach will do more than just physically prepare athletes for their sport season (personal conversation, January 12, 2010).

I believe it is my larger role to mentally prepare individuals for not only challenges they are likely to face in the arena, but also for the ones they will face in life. It is my responsibly as their strength coach to mentally strengthen their will and fortitude.

I also have to consider keeping athletes engaged. As collegiate and professional athletes nearly compete and train year round, it can easily become very taxing to be coached by their skill coaches constantly. A strength coach can positively influence their engagement and motivation by creating an atmosphere of training that allows for perceptual control and competence by the athletes.

I approach training athletes with an athlete-centered approach by including them in the decision process. This action allows for the perception of ownership and decision making, and ultimately engages the athletes by involvement. It is my philosophy to be engaging and to spill over with enthusiasm.

I understand that life as an athlete is strenuous and the ability to control your actions are very limited. I base my philosophy around the foundation of being and preparing athletes to be absolutely the most industrious and enthusiastic student-athletes around. Just as I believe that competition breeds competition, enthusiasm and hard work fosters great enthusiasm and work.

My coaching methods vary by the population I work with. I am not going to communicate in the same style with a female as I would a male. I expect to treat a football player differently than a gymnast. However, my underlying principles will remain the same despite differences in the way I communicate my philosophy. How I engage and interact with people differ by their personality differences.

It is my belief to involve the athletes as much as possible when it comes to teaching. As a coach I look for any teachable moments that occur during lifts or conditioning sessions. If there is a moment an athlete is doing something incorrect I will use this as a teaching moment to instruct the entire group or affect those within ear distance. I will not overly criticize the incorrect athlete or draw emphasis to their incompetence however, I will be honest in my observation and will use inspire to moment to team others and improve the team as a whole.

Defining success as a coach can be a difficult task if operating without a clear philosophy of your program. As the strength coach I define success by doing things better than it has ever been done before. If we are running, I am looking to make the athletes run better than they ever have. If it is a movement pattern, I am looking for them to improve and do better than the previous time. If I am training mental toughness than I am looking for them to display an ironclad “I will never fail” attitude every single test of character. It is easy in this profession to get caught up in sets and reps, however, I believe with a philosophy to always improve and evolve; this philosophy of besting your efforts and creating competition will ultimately breed competent winning teams.

I avoid focusing solely on wins versus loses in order to establish a different criteria to grade and judge performance. If I create an atmosphere were success is no longer defined by winning but rather focused on doing things better than they ever have been done before, I will be coaching the process rather than coaching for the outcome. By changing how I define success I will ultimately be teaching that effort and improvement is the most important principles behind a successful career in athletics and life.

It is my responsibility to use team lifting sessions as a means to shape future behaviors. I do this by creating a system of principles and organization rules for athletes to abide by. For instance I believe in accountability and time management. I expect athletes to be ready, on time and concentrating on improving and doing things better than they have ever done them before without any outside distractions. I also hold similar expectations for my co-workers and myself.

While my field of expertise does not have formal practices and games, I make competition out of everything. If there is a weight to be moved, who can move it with the best form? If there is a sandbag to be carried one hundred yards, who can move it faster? These are all questions and instances for competition that I create in order to create engagement from my athletes.

My coaching philosophy includes a well defined set of rules that all athletes must follow. I believe rules give structure to program similar to the bones of a human body. I will often create a leadership group consisting of hard working individual team players to help develop team rules. Creating this leadership group allows for the perception of control and influence and often will help the team buy in to the newly developed rules.

I make no exceptions to the rules. This part is a difficult task for coaches who solely focus on winning and losing. The rules I establish apply to all players, regardless of star power or situational demands. The message I look to make is that no person is above the rules, even if success hangs in the balance.

One of the most challenging aspects to developing an effective philosophy is communicating your philosophy to your athletes in a way that allows them to buy into the principles. Once the philosophy is developed it is up to the coaching staff to use the document in a way that dictates every decision. A successful philosophy is one that is transparent and has clear expectations and guidelines that shape athlete and coaches behaviors (Youth Football USA, 2003).

Transparency of the philosophy is hugely important to successful coaches. By referring to the philosophy statements often and by creating an environment which surrounds the principles established; the athletes know what to expect. Coaches seem to have well established philosophies but the message gets clouded because athletes do not know what the expectations are. It is my mission to ensure athletes under my coaching know what I expect out of them; I expect personal bests.

SPORTSMANSHIP

I believe it is a coach’s responsibility to coach sportsmanship in athletes. It is all too common to believe that athletes should already know what being a good sportsman is. We have a tendency to believe that athletes are instilled with this value. However, if one is present in the coaching environment today, it is easily witnessed how much we have failed coaching this valuable asset.

Much inspiration of mine is driven from legendary coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. There are four foundations that represent what I believe sportsmanship truly means. Wooden cited poise, confidence, self-control and intentness as important foundations of sportsmanship (Wooden 2007).

There are differences as to how to show poise in the coaching atmosphere. While coaching it’s important to be authentic to yourself and calm in your surroundings. Often novice coaches get caught in the dynamics of coaching at it distracts them from their philosophy.

Remaining confident is about respecting your abilities and making crucial decisions without fear. Confidence comes from within by knowing you have done everything you could and are completely prepared.

CONCLUSION

It should be quite evident that I admire coaches like John Wooden and Pete Carroll. These are individuals who seem to put together winning programs by affecting the culture and environment around the sporting context. By creating an environment that is shifted away from winning and focused on doing all the little things better, they have collectively managed to create back to back championship seasons.

When Pete Carroll was presenting at a business lecture he asked the audience to recite their own personal philosophy in under fifty words. As I approach 6000 words I have often asked myself if I could have wrote this in fifty words or less. My coaching philosophy is as follows. “I am going to do things better than I have ever done them before every single time I try. I will never fail because losing is never a failure if it is always a learning lesson. I will always compete because I am comfortable against my toughest opponent – myself.”

Throughout this philosophy I discussed how I felt the objectives of sports differ between youth, high school, college and professional levels. I talked about the differences of winning and losing and expectations and fundamental practices at each level. It is my belief that as an athlete progresses up the levels the emphasis should climb from enjoyment to skill development.

I discussed the different objectives at different levels throughout my philosophy. I wrote about how youth and high school sports should focus on engagement and fundamental skill development while collegiate and professional sport coaching should focus on creating winning teams by casting the right individuals’ strengths at appropriate team positions.

The philosophy discussed the roles of winning and how winning becomes more important as you progress through the levels. It is easy for academia to believe that winning is evil and should not be the end all outcome of sport. However, in the collegiate and professional setting winning becomes the benchmark of success for evaluating a coaches’ performance. If a collegiate or professional level coach cannot produce wins then they will surely be replaced regarding in the athletes are enjoying their time or earning high GPAs.

I discussed briefly the role coaches have in ensuring gender and racial equity in the hiring practices of coaches. While sport coaches may have to deal with these issues from a player standpoint, as a strength coach I will likely face these issues from an administrative aspect. It will be my role as a coach to ensure that the best person receives the position, regardless of gender, race or sexual preference. I am a competitor and I believe the strongest, fastest, and smartest competitor should win – regardless of external physical attributes.

I discussed how cutting players and pay for play are two hot button issues that seem to be creating problems for coaches at all levels of sport. I wrote how strength coaches rarely have opportunities to cut players but I rationalize the thought process and support the notion in order to create an equal opportunity for females. Roster management remains necessary in collegiate and high school sports due to NCAA and federal Title IX regulations that dictate equal opportunity for both male and female participants.

Pay for play was briefly discussed and I shared thoughts about how I believe universities are already providing sufficient financial compensation for student athletes. While proponents will say that these athletes are the life blood that keep channeling money into universities, I remind them that these athletes are receiving expensive tuition, room, board, books and other equipment as compensation for their services at the university.

Lastly, I discussed my personal ethics and what sportsmanship means to me as a coach. I shared how I plan to conduct my coaching practices and how I will hold all my staff and athletes accountable for their actions. I shared how my coaching philosophy and ethics are dictated and how they evolved from Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success.

Ultimately I provided an exact recipe of the coaching philosophy I currently use in my coaching profession. This is the manual in which I conduct my life, my coaching and my personal philosophy. I have shared how I plan on treating my athletes, treating my employees, and treating those I come in contact with in my life.

References

Acker, J. (1989). Doing comparable worth: gender, class, and pay equity.

Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press.

Dettmer, H. Leadership in complex systems, Retrieved January 15, 2010.

Ige, C. How to coach teams in business the John Wooden way, California State

University.

Haisten, B. (2009). Cowboys’ defense moves past meltdown. Message posted to

http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/article.aspx?subjectid=387&articleid=20090917_93_B1_OSUdef334781

Linneweber, C. (2010, January 13). The greatful dead, Mark Sanchez & Pete Carroll,

Bleacher Report. Retrieved January 16^th, 2010 from

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/325332-mark-sanchez-pete-carroll-will-both-thrive-in-the-nfl

MHSAA. (2003). Good sports are winners. [Brochure]. East Lansing, Michigan: