REAL LIFE EXAMPLE OF DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN

So I'm sitting there watching the 2012 National Football League's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies a couple of weeks ago.  I am always intrigued by the humanity that comes forth during the induction speeches.  I watch and listen to all with much interest.

One speech in particular caused me to pay extra-special attention.  It was Cortez Kennedy's speech and it framed precisely one of my most important personal coaching philosophies.

Let me summarize this great player's resume.  He was drafted 3rd overall in the 1990 NFL draft and went on to play 11 great seasons as a Seattle Seahawk, being voted to the first-team Pro-Bowl 6 consecutive years, 8 years total, and the second-team Pro-Bowl 2 other times.  He was voted to the All-Decade NFL team for the 90's and finally inducted into the National Football League Hall of Fame in 2012.

In 1992, Cortez was selected as the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year, recording 14 sacks, 93 tackles, 2 defended passes, and 1 fumble recovery.  He was routinely double- and triple-teamed.

Seattle was 2-14 in 1992.  During Cortez's career they were 76-91.

How can a professional football player maintain the focus, resolve, and dedication it takes to win the League's highest defensive honor when his team is LOSING?  If winning is his only motivation--he cannot.

But allow me to reiterate what I said in an earlier post.  As a coach, you must stop talking about winning and losing.  You must instead focus in on teaching your players the absolute necessity of doing their best to DO THE THINGS IT TAKES TO WIN.

I will guarantee you that Cortez Kennedy did not have a satisfying experience for the 1992 season in terms of a won-lost record.  If winning was his ONLY motivation, I would venture to guess his performance would have deteriorated immensely, making the Defensive Player of the Year Award impossible.

Cortez had a much deeper and more personal motivation.  He continually did the things it takes to win.  Mind you, I'm not talking about just games--that's the easy part.  I'm talking about practice (yes, Allen Iverson!) when the only ones who see you are your teammates.

So, here is the lesson:  If a Hall of Fame football player can continue to perform at Hall-of-Fame levels even in the face of losing 14 games in one year and 99 games throughout his career, then maybe winning is less important than doing those things it takes to win.

Did Cortez Kennedy win?  

DEFENSIVE SCHEME

The defensive approach that we designed was based on the fact that we were rarely (if ever) bigger than our opponents.  So we used movement to offset our size disadvantage.  We tried to keep it simple so that the players could use their athletic ability and not be slowed by having to think about a lot of defensive variables.  The potential for getting over-complicated always had to be monitored.

Our base defense was a 4-4 alignment with man cover in the defensive backfield.  The DT’s aligned on the outside eye of the guards.  The DE’s aligned on the outside eye of the tackles.  The 2 inside LBers took the inside eye of the guards.  The 2 outside LBers were positioned head-up on the tackles.  Each CB had the widest eligible receiver to his side.  The safety was assigned either a TE or a back that went in motion.  Since we scouted every team and, in some cases, had several years of tendencies, we could pretty much be specific in assignments to each week’s opponent based on what we already knew of them.

We would stack LBers probably 60% of the plays.  We would put the DT’s head-up on each guard and the DE’s would go head-up on each tackle.  The inside LBers stacked directly behind each DT and the outside LBers stacked directly behind each DE.  We called it the “Monster Blitz” and we could call it “IN” or “OUT”. 

The In or Out call was talking to the linemen.  So, on “Monster Out”, the DT’s made their charge through the outside eye of the guard while the 2 Inside LBers each took a side of the center.  The DE’s went through the outside eye of the tackle while the Outside LBers each took the inside of their respective tackles. 

The “Monster In” call was the opposite.  The DT’s went in while the Inside LBers went out and the DE’s went in while the Outside LBers went out.  On either call, all gaps were filled.   

The only other stunts used were 2 inside LBers shoot or Corner Go where one or both corners shot.  Again, we were mindful of keeping it simple. 

There were specific techniques taught for every stunt.  In other words, the player did not “just go” but were taught specifically what their targets were on each stunt.

Our pass coverage was pretty simple, especially early-on as the younger age groups did not have much of an accomplished passing attack.  We used a man-to-man base coverage or a “Cover 5” zone coverage depending on the opponents, situation, etc.  In certain instances, our defense automatically adjusted from one to the other.  It all depended on our scouting report for that specific opponent.

In the man coverage, the 2 corners each took the widest receiver to their respective side.  To maintain simplicity, they stayed with their assignment even if motion took them to the other side of the defense.  As we got older, we adjusted slightly to motion but, for the most part, kept it relatively simple.

Our safety was assigned the next best receiver based upon our scouting report.  So he might end up covering a back out of the backfield or a back going in motion.  We eventually adjusted to wingback formations by bringing our safety right up on the LOS to offset any outnumbering schemes.  That left our middle vulnerable but not many teams were resourceful enough to take advantage of what we gave them in those situations.

For teams that tried to spread us out with split receivers, we went to what we called a “cover 5” zone.  The “5” referred to the 2 OLBers and the 3 defensive backs.  The 2 OLBers had their respective flat zones and the 3 DB’s each had their respective 1/3 deep zones. 

We used our Inside LBers to cover the short middle zone in combinations.  One ILBer could cover the short middle while the other blitzed or was assigned a specific receiver to cover man-to-man.  In scouting opponents, we knew which receiver needed to be “taken away” with what essentially was a double-team anywhere that good receiver went.

It’s important to mention that we practiced both man-to-man techniques as well as zone techniques.  In man cover, the defensive man keyed his assigned receiver whereas in zone coverage each player keyed  the quarterback along with receivers that might attack them.  It takes awhile to learn where you must place your eyes (i.e. your key) in each of the different coverages.  Again, back to the “skills and drills” part of practice planning.  

We also taught players how to read keys (as was mentioned above).  I feel this one detail was hugely responsible for the great success we experienced as a team.  A defensive player that gets hung up on looking to “follow the ball” is vulnerable to fakes and misdirection.  Consequently, that player will likely be out of position more often than not.

However, reading keys from the offense will put a defensive player in a certain gap.  The only place the ball can move in any offensive system is in the gaps.  If each gap is accounted for, it makes sense that there is no place left to run the ball.  You don’t have to guess as a defensive player—just read your keys and be responsible for your gap.

One example I can give you is that our LBers (both Inside and Outside) lived by one simple key:  If the back closest to you comes at you, step up and take him on.  If the back closest to you goes away, immediately check the other back.

If your LBers will live and die by this one simple read, you will rarely fall for the counter or reverse.  Again, read your key and the ball will come to you.  I am simplifying this concept here but no matter how the other offense lined up or whatever their objective was, this key was extremely effective.

Another example of reading keys was the DB’s in man-to-man coverage.  This one is going to sound pretty ridiculous until you actually see your DB’s using it.  It is:  If your receiver blocks, it’s a run and you fill your assigned gap.  If your receiver releases downfield, it’s a pass and you get to your cover position as taught.    

    

FOOTBALL--OFFENSIVE SYSTEM WE CHOSE

We chose to run an offensive system that would display continuity while giving all of our backs and receivers many opportunities to be involved in the play.  When I say “continuity”, I mean that we wanted certain running and passing plays to look alike so we could take advantage of the element of surprise.  We also wanted counters off of our basics to take advantage of misdirection. 

What formations should you choose?  What sets suit you best?  What plays should you run?  We had one back who was, no doubt, the most talented player but we wanted all backs to be involved and get the experience of running the ball.

We chose to use a full house I formation.  We moved our halfback from side to side, depending on our opponents’ defensive sets, to gain the number advantage.  We had the benefit of having our most talented back at the I-back position so he could use both sides of the field.  We aligned our FB within 3 yards of the LOS to take advantage of quick hitting plays.  We felt this particular offensive set allowed us to be extremely versatile in our attack, while at the same time, it allowed us to get many backs involved in the game.

Our HB was utilized extensively on quick pitches where we blocked down with our TE and pulled our OT to lead the play.  We also got a lot of mileage out of a HB counter where we would send the I-back and FB one way and bring the HB back in the opposite direction, usually with a trap blocking scheme.  We added a sprint draw series that allowed us to fake a block with our HB and then have him run a seam or post or flag once the DB’s began to overplay the sprint draw.

Our I-back ran all of the basic I formation plays from leads and Iso’s to power sweeps, counters, draws, and a sprint draw series.  The sprint draw series took advantage of the I-back’s ability to read blocking patterns and cut back if the defense over-pursued.

We utilized our FB in the power running game with straight dives, slants, and FB traps.  In our counter series we ran FB counter traps off of a quick pitch fake or a power sweep fake.

We were generally the smaller team and so one-on-one power line blocking was never to our advantage.  Therefore, we taught a system of offensive line blocking that included angle blocks, cross blocks, double teams, trap blocks, and “bump blocks” to the second level.  We believed we could over-power a bigger and stronger opponent if we attacked from the side or used two offensive linemen in a double team.  The “bump block” is very much like the zone blocking schemes that we see so much of today except we eliminated the lineman having to read inside or outside.  It was more of a predetermined assignment but it allowed us to combine a double-team block with a second level block using only two linemen.

We used motion to move the defensive players out of position as well as to set up clearing routes in the flats.  We sometimes ran from a double-split shotgun formation to isolate fast receivers on slower DB’s.  As we spread the defense, it opened up the middle for dump routes as well as direct snap traps to the remaining back.  Because our quarterback was limited in his ability to throw deep, we kept our passing game short—clearing routes, dump routes, short crossing routes and the like.

We scripted our first 15 or so plays.  Our objective was to set up plays.  We would run a TB power left so we could run the halfback counter back to the right later and also run a counter-pass off of that same action.  We would run sprint draw to set up the sprint draw pass.  We would run the quick pitch to set up the FB counter trap.  We would run double splits clearing routes or all go to set up the quick snap middle trap.  It was most definitely fun to let your own creative juices flow as well as to observe the differences in how each coach scripted the plays.

COACHES INTERACTION WITH PARENTS

Parents and how to work together.  We had very few parent problems.  Maybe it was because we met so many wonderful people in our coaching experiences and maybe it was because I was a parent too and I knew what they were going through with their kids.  Whatever the case, here are some of the things we did to make this a team effort that included the parents.

First of all, I made it clear to the parents that my door and phone were always open to them.  I wanted them to tell me what they were thinking, both good and bad.  I made it a point to always have a preseason parent meeting and I always tried to do it at my home for personal reasons.  I wanted them to understand that I was a parent just like them. 

I told them what to expect.  I told them how we planned practices and how we were believed in playing everyone and how we were going to treat their children and why it was going to be so important to be punctual for practice…  I tried to cover all the logistical topics.

Those things are important but here is what the parents really need to consider.  I spent a great deal of time talking about the parent who gets his kid in the car and then complains about the coaches.  I was not concerned for the coaches’ sakes, I was very concerned for their kid’s sake.

Maybe the parent is right.  Maybe the coach has done something wrong.  Let me explain why the parents have to concur that griping to their kid should NEVER happen.  They do nothing but put their kid in a no-win situation.  If their kid agrees with them, he goes against his coach—and that is someone your kid looks up to and hopefully has come to trust and respect.  Now if the parent is asking his kid to question that trust and not respect his coach—he risks losing his coach.  If he disagrees with you, his parent, whom he loves and whose love he cherishes, he risks losing you.

Here’s a better way.  Call the coach.  Express your concerns.  Determine, like adults, what is the best solution.  Above all, don’t make your kid have to choose—he or she loses either way.

One other issue takes up a lot of the meeting.  The parents must understand that, at times, choices have to be made.  Whereas they each love and want the best for their kid, the coach must consider the entire roster and how each of his decisions will impact numerous players, not just one.  Make them understand that those decisions are not easily arrived at and that you take that responsibility very seriously.  But it must be made by one person—and that person is you.

You might also consider doing classes for any parent that wants to learn more about your sport.  We have had some very fun times doing this.  Keep it very easy-going and informal.  It’s a great way to strengthen the bonds with parents and it gives you a forum to clarify your coaching philosophy.

PLATOON SYSTEMS AND PLAYING TIME

Along with my comment that your job as a little league coach is to make them want to play that sport next year, comes your responsibility to let each player play.  We have all witnessed the teams that will only play their best players the greater part of the games and then let the less talented players get an inning here or a quarter there.  Can you imagine anything more boring than sitting the bench every game except for bits of playing time here and there?  Let me ask you, do you not think that kid feels less about himself as a person?

I am adamantly against little league programs that actually cut kids so they can form elite leagues.  You can certainly divide leagues up according to talent levels but you don’t have to cut 8, 9, 10 year old kids.

We played a platoon system in football and a rotational start system in baseball.  I strongly feel that kids need to be involved in the game from start to finish.  I can hear the questions now:  But how can you hide a kid who is less talented??

You don’t.  You coach him.  You teach him.

Here is how I learned that I had no right to look at a 9 or 10 year old kid and determine his or her future in a particular sport.  As a high school coach, I had a young man who was 5’2’’, 125 lbs. as a sophomore.  Big feet, kinda gangly and a bit uncoordinated.  He was a joy to be around—always smiling, funny as heck, and tried so hard all the time!  I had decided not to make any cuts but to stay out until EVERY kid had work.  So, this sophomore played sophomore ball that year. 

By the time he was a senior, he was 6’2’’ and weighed 190 lbs.  He played CF and pitched for us and never stopped being a joy to be around.  He ended up at a 4 year university, throwing 95 mph and was headed for a MLB career with the Cincinnati Reds organization.  Unfortunately, elbow problems prevented him from playing MLB but he went on to become the pitching coach at his alma mater, giving many other kids the benefit of his experiences and an opportunity to excel in baseball.

What if I would have cut him when he was a sophomore?

So, I decided then that I would never make a judgment about a youngster’s future ever again.  I decided instead that my objective was to keep the player interested and coach him.  I was committed to playing everyone.  But, wait a minute, doesn’t that mean more work for the coaches?  Yes.  It does.

Your responsibility now becomes emphasizing (or developing) that player’s strengths and minimizing his weaknesses. 

Maybe you help him perfect his bunting.  Maybe you figure out ways to help him with double-teams on blocking.  Maybe you use a stunt on defense that gives him a two-on-one advantage.  Maybe you spend extra time with him and help him learn how to read fly balls and get a jump.  I don’t know.  Everyone is different with different strengths and weaknesses.  The point is that’s what you signed on for—to coach.  So get to it.

The downside of platooning in football is that your awesome running back may end up as a corner in high school.  Or your chubby lineman may develop into the starting fullback on his high school team.  Both examples actually happened on our teams.

So, you don’t know.  That is why we had everyone work on both offensive techniques and defensive techniques at practice.  We had defense days and offense days.  Not to mention that we had a 2-deep back-up system in place that came in very handy and, more importantly, gave many players a chance to experience the game from the other side of the ball.

To apply the same approach in baseball is less than realistic.  Fortunately we had fewer players on the baseball team and so we actually ran a position by position rotation where we had more than one player.  Our catchers rotated, our pitchers obviously rotated (and played other positions as well), our second basemen rotated, and our outfield positions rotated.  Again, a pre-planned back-up system was essential, especially when various players left for vacation.  So we moved in that sub and rarely skipped a beat.

COACHES' INTERACTION WITH PLAYERS

Now I want to talk about the coaches’ interaction with the players.  We demanded perfection in all of our practice routines from stretching all the way through to sprints.  We set the boundaries early on and we strictly maintained them.  The players were expected to be as intense stretching as they were for hitting or bunting or tackling or pass catching drills.  We wasted little effort in all we did.  For example, when playing catch to warm up before baseball, not only were they given a strict routine to follow for warm up, but the players were also encouraged to throw at a spot on their catch partner.  When, in a baseball game, are you not throwing AT something?  Make it a habit. 

Allow me to address how we corrected players when they were not perfect at practice—yes, they were not perfect all the time.  My coaches were encouraged to be themselves.  I am fairly VOCAL.  Other coaches I worked with were a little more reserved.  We were always conscious of being genuine—no fakes.  But never let it go when a player needs to be corrected.  NEVER.  You are cheating that player out of an opportunity to get better and learn. 

Try to start with a positive—I think we’ve all heard that.  The most important requirement I had of myself and my coaches was that they were to make as big a deal out of when the player got it right as they did when they were correcting the imperfection! 

But most of all NEVER LEAVE THEM DOWN!  If a player had a particularly rough practice, I wanted his coach to have his arm around him as he walked him to his parent’s car.  I wanted the coach to let that player know how valuable he was to this team and how much we enjoyed his spirit, his smile, his humor…  Whatever was true for that particular player.  I have called kids at home in the evening following a tough practice just to tell him all the reasons we love having him on our team.

Now, other than the obvious common human decency and respect every player (person) deserves, let me tell you the result of NEVER LEAVE THEM DOWN.  Every game day, the players that showed up on our teams were confident, proud, full of self-esteem, in a great mood, and expecting only good things to happen.  They were not afraid to make mistakes and consequently were able to play loose and focus only on their responsibilities.  They had a confident swagger—and that reality was not lost on our opponents.

MAXIMUM USE OF VALUABLE PRACTICE TIME

MAXIMUM USE OF VALUABLE PRACTICE TIME

Which brings us to Practice Organization.  You have already done the most difficult part of drawing up practice schedules when you completed your lists of skills and drills.  So now it is a matter of which skills are taught in what order.  Most of those decisions are pretty much common sense.  However, you will no doubt be tweaking your order as you get into actually implementing those drills.

Several basics need attention.  Nothing bugs me more than to watch 1 or 2 players actively involved in a drill while the 20 remaining players stand around and watch.  That is absolutely a waste of valuable time, not to mention complete boredom for the 20 players forced to stand and watch.  It is absolutely imperative to involve as many players as possible at every minute of practice.

We had several assistant coaches in football, each assigned a position.  Sometimes group drills were necessary when teaching skills everyone should learn.  In our form tackling drills, for example, instead of 2 lines facing off where only 2 players went at a time, we instead spread everyone out into 2 parallel lines.  One side was the tacklers and the other side ball carriers.  On command, ball carriers moved forward to the left, or to the right, or straight ahead.  The tacklers had to “settle up” (shorter steps with widened base and weight on inside balls of feet and in “striking position”) and then move in and up with head in front of the ball carrier’s movement.  The coaches were spread out up and down the 2 rows to monitor the perfection in technique.  On each command, all 24 players were involved!  If a player needed extra instruction, the coach took the player aside while the remaining players continued their perfect form tackling drill.

When position work was needed, we broke up into position groups.  As always, coaches were expected to maximize the productivity by involving all players in drills at the same time.  As head coach, I floated and handled the players who needed the extra work or I concentrated on techniques that might require a little more expert attention.

               In baseball, we practiced the same way.  Even though you don’t have the same advantage of position group breakdown, we nonetheless organized what we referred to as a clinic practice.  What we mean by that is that we set up several stations specific to whatever skills we were working on that day.  The players were split up at each station and each player had a designated role to play when not the “featured” player.  We then rotated stations depending again on what skills were being drilled.

So, for example, on hitting days we might have a tee station, a short toss station, a bunting station, and a live hitting station.  Each station had particular goals that we expected the players to accomplish and coaches were there to monitor each station.  All players were busy and working every valuable minute we were at practice.  Compare that to a team with one player hitting and 18 players standing around bored to tears, wasting valuable practice time while learning nothing!

Our goal was to make maximum use of practice time.  It’s obvious that you accomplish much more crucial teaching but you must also tune into the attention span of your players.  You could be out there 3 hours but they will only tune you in 1/3 of that time.  Get there, tune them into to the technique work scheduled and let them know the expectations while they’re stretching, and get to work!

BEHAVIORS IT TAKES TO WIN

So…  That begs the question, WHAT ARE THOSE BEHAVIORS IT TAKES TO WIN AND HOW DO YOU TEACH THEM?

First of all, stop talking about winning and losing.  Change your focus to each player DOING HIS/HER BEST at practices and in games.  Do you see how this can be accomplished by each and every player in spite of talent levels--no matter the score?  

Next, sit down and make a list of ALL the skills you want your players to exhibit--one by one and be specific.  Have a brainstorming session with all of your assistant coaches.  Do this very early on, like several weeks before your first practice.  I promise you, it will not be your only session.  That list will change over and over and over.  It will change from year to year and it will most definitely get tweaked from game to game.

One thing I found to be extremely fun and actually very gratifying was to invite some of the local high school coaches to lunch.  Explain to them that some of your players will be involved in their program and that you want to pick their brain for skill sets that are specific to that coach’s program.  My invitation was never turned down and I ended up picking up some very productive drills in addition to other skill sets.

OK, now you have your skills list.  Now what?  You will take each skill listed and devise a drill (or several drills) that you believe will help teach that skill set to your players.  Now, with the Internet, you have unlimited access to drills in every sport.  It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to develop your own drills.  Just make sure the drills are teaching what you want.

Once you have devised one to several drills per skill set, you now have your daily practice schedule.  Huh?  Yes, there it is right in front of you.  All you have to do now is prioritize those drills so there is some logical order.  In other words, you will want to work on gripping the baseball before you work on throwing drills.  Or you will want to work on the lineman’s stance before you work on blocking drills.

Once that prioritized list is completed, you will know what you will be doing each and every minute of at least your first few weeks of practice up until your first game.  Not only does that ensure you will have covered everything and left out nothing, but your players will know before each and every practice what will be expected of them that day.

It will also serve as a checklist for you.  What areas need work?  Where were our strengths?  Where were our weaknesses?  What needs to be covered again?

OK…  Now a very important message about those drills you devised, found online, or gathered from other coaches.  YOU MUST DEMAND THAT THE DRILLS ARE DONE PERFECTLY IN PRACTICE!  YOU MUST NEVER SETTLE FOR ANY PRACTICE PERFORMANCE LESS THAN ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!  If the drill is not done perfectly, repeat the drill until they do it perfectly.

Another point…  Make sure your players UNDERSTAND WHY they are doing that particular drill.  In other words, set up a game situation where the skills from that drill will be utilized.  This helps them refer back to that skill and how they learned it when they come upon it in game conditions.  Don’t leave your drills in a vacuum.

SO...YOU WANT TO COACH, HUH?

Why are you coaching?  Listen, there is nothing more thrilling than the accomplishment of designing a program that results in success.  However, let’s discuss what “success” means to you and what it means to your players and their parents in regard to your being a little league coach (or any level coach, for that matter).

Ego.  It can be good or it can be devastatingly bad.  It is defined as the “image of oneself” or “self image, self esteem”. 

Why do I bring that concept up here in this article?  We all have an ego.  Your ego can make you or break you.  I think you’ll agree that this issue has a big flashing neon sign all around it when it comes to coaching kids.  I will be the first to acknowledge the thrill of coaching.  But I will also be the first to ask you the source of your ecstasy—which part thrills you?

I have a philosophy in which I very strongly believe.  For me, it was the ultimate issue that I had to resolve before I could relax and approach coaching in a manner suitable to my conscience.  It took an unforgiveable mistake (on my part) to help me determine exactly what was that philosophy.

I want to be perfectly clear as sometimes my words are misinterpreted and I leave confusion rather than clarity.  The issue with little league sports is how to marry the competitiveness (winning/losing) with training, education, learning, and enhancing a player’s self-esteem.  Here is where the sport offers the young athlete training that he or she can get nowhere else; and you, as the coach, have an awesome opportunity to provide your players (and the parents) that learning.  It is truly humbling!

Why are you coaching?  Let me suggest an answer for you to digest.  You SHOULD BE coaching to stimulate your players’ interest in playing NEXT YEAR.  Yes, you read that right.

How does that happen?  How do you, as the coach, have that power?  Here is where confusion sometimes begins.

I want you to make the experience fun for your players and for their parents.  Understand that there can be many levels of “fun”.  I know there are some of you reading this right now that are interpreting what I just said to mean no work, no correcting them, no stress…  You can have fun at a picnic.  You can also have fun accomplishing a goal.      

So, work them hard.  TEACH them the sport.  Correct them when they do it wrong and celebrate with them when they do it right—just as passionately in both cases!  Do not be afraid to be yourself—don’t play the role as coaches in your past have done.

What about winning?  Isn’t that what it’s all about??  No, it’s not just about winning.  And those of you that concentrate on winning are in for a huge let-down and so are your players.

Now, I’m about to say something that will make you think I’m nuts.  Let me assure you, I may be varying degrees of nuts but I am very clear on this, the crux of my philosophy.  Winning is much more fun than losing.  DUH.  However, please allow me to suggest the appropriate way to bring winning into your program.

Convince your players (and instruct their parents) that your concentration MUST BE ON DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN.  I repeat, you should be emphasizing DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN.  How do you convince them?  You live it on the practice field, during games, and in all of your dealings with players and parents.  Think about it…  If you’re always doing what it takes to win, the winning will take care of itself.

What if you don’t win?  WINNING wasn’t your goal anyway.  Doing what it takes to win is your goal.  Sometimes, even when you are doing what it takes to win, you will end up on the wrong side of the score.  Isn’t that a part of it too—to learn to come back and continue to work on what it takes to win?

Notice that I didn’t say “sometimes you’ll end up losing”.  If you accomplished your goal of DOING YOUR BEST TO DO THE THINGS IT TAKES TO WIN, you didn’t lose—you won!

There is a very fine distinction here and I hope I’ve explained that distinction.  Athletics are inherently competitive and it is impossible to legislate the competitiveness out of athletics.  But set your players up for enhancing their self-esteem.  You don’t have to always be on the long end of the score to do that.