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It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one’s hat keeps blowing off. - Woody Allen
There are a bunch of interesting things out there on the web.  Probably the best newspaper coaching story I’ve read was in the New York Times last week.  Unfortunately it’s not publicly available anymore, so unless you are a TimesSelect member, use this link to Deadspin.

The story is about a youth soccer team in Clarkston, Ga.  The team, The Fugees, are a group of three select/travel teams.  What makes the story interesting is that the team is drawn from refugees resettled in a small Georgia town 10 miles northwest of Atlanta.  The personal stories of every player is filled with heartbreak and hope.

The hometowns on the roster reads like a roundup of all the bad news from the past 10 years.  Afghanistan, Bosnia, Burundi, Congo, Gambia, Iraq, Kosovo, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan…  They are all a long way from a soccer field in Georgia.

Things aren’t all rosy however.  Clarkston has become a town targeted for refugee resettlement, which has caused resentment from the locals.  This means the team has to fight for a place to play and acceptance from the town.  You can learn more about the Fugess on their website — fugeesfamily.org

This next story isn’t about great coaching.  In fact it’s about someone always thought of as un-coachable.  "Pistol" Pete Maravich was the original run and gunner.  He never saw a shot he didn’t like and if he liked it, he usually took it…  His statistics are amazing.  He played college ball at LSU from 1968-70 and averaged 44.2 points per game, leading the nation in scoring in each of his three varsity seasons.  He scored 50+ points 28 times and was a three time All-American.  In short, the guy can fill it up — and a new video on Yahoo Video shows him filling it up for over 6 minutes.

But it’s not just Pistol Pete running and gunning.  There is a short clip of a very young Don Criqui (Buffalo native) interviewing Maravich.  Stockton asks Maravich how long he practiced dribbling as a kid.  Starting at 12 years old, Maravich dribbled the ball eight hours a day in the summer and four in the winter.  Yes he was a hot dog, but he spent a lot of time perfecting that recipe.

Enjoy the video — I did…

Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate. - Vince Lombardi

Sunday was an American National Holiday.  A holiday in the sense that the Super Bowl brings families together across generations and makes fast friends out of relative strangers.

The party I went to had my seven year old daughter and my 85 year old grandfather.  Because we are in Chicago, there weren't any Colts fans, but in previous years I always met a new friend rooting for the same team I was — and someone who was passionate about the other side… But that is what makes it fun.  The heights of joy followed by the depths of losing, hopefully capped off with a great comeback.  At the end of the night your team is either up or down but the world is still spinning and life goes on…  Although Chicago will be in a deep funk for at least the next couple of weeks - at least we have our weather…

With all the hype surrounding the Super Bowl, there were two men in the eye of the storm who maintained incredible poise throughout.  The head coaches, Tony Dungee and Lovie Smith are similar types of leaders.  I've written several times about my admiration for Lovie Smith's style.  Where many NFL coaches attempt to instill fear into their team, both Smith and Dungy command respect.

That's what the great coaches do, and the rest of us ask how.  How can a coach get grown men to sacrifice themselves to a common goal.  The cynic would say professional athletes have millions of reasons to want to win, and that's true as far as it goes.  But the crucial difference is that Dungy and Smith (as well as other great coaches) have high, but reasonable, expectations for each player and hold the players accountable to those standards. 

Unlike many coaches, ahem Tom Coughlin, the players are held accountable in the context of the team, not the media.  Rex Grossman cost the Bears some games this year, but you'll be hard pressed to find a negative quote from any Bears player or coach about him.  I can guarantee that doesn't mean it's been sweetness and light at Halas Hall this season.

The same is true in Indianapolis.  My 84 year old grandmother picked up 100+ yards against the Colts run defense at the end of the year.  The toughest thing Tony Dungy said, publicly, about them was "we have to get better."  I'm guessing they got the message in another way.  I'm also sure that because of their respect for their coach, they looked at themselves and held themselves to a higher standard than any coach could rightfully expect.  They didn't want to let coach down, they didn't want to let each other down.  And now they are Super Bowl Champs.

We were lucky to have two role models for positive, constructive coaching in the biggest game of the year.  I live in Chicago, so I was rooting for the Bears.  But going into the game I knew that great coaching would be the ultimate winner.  As a fan I hoped it would be the Bears, as a coach, I couldn't lose.

Congratulations to the Colts, it couldn't happen to a better man — except maybe Lovie

The reason sport is attractive to many of the general public is that it's filled with reversals. What you think may happen doesn't happen. A champion is beaten, an unknown becomes a champion. - Roger Bannister

Coaching, writing, working, parenting; sometimes it they make it seem like Sisyphus had it easy.  But then you get an email like I did last week and perspective is restored and life is great.

I was out of town last week for a conference.  I was actually at Disney World — without my family for the first time.  This did not sit with them very well, even though I told them I wasn't going to the park and wouldn't have much time to enjoy the wonders of Disney World.  The fact was I was going to the Mouse House and they weren't.

The conference was packed with classes and I was running from one thing to the next.  I was only able to squeeze in a couple of minutes a day to check my email.  On Wednesday morning I got an email that someone had sent in a nomination for Coach of the Month.  I don't get enough of these, but when I do I love to read about great coaches and what it is people love about them.  When I opened this nomination I knew the coach was ineligible to win, it came from my son.

HE NEVER GAVE UP ON A KID THAT COULDN'T DO SOME DRILL I SHOULD KNOW HE WAS MY COACH AND HE DIDN'T SAY "WE HAVE TO WIN"

You never know what they pick up on, you just hope it's the good things you do rather that the weaknesses we all have.  Thanks kid, you made my year.

I've been out of town without frequent internet access…  I'm not scouting the next big thing, but there are other things in life…

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. - Henry Ford

I've been very busy lately working on a new project — details to come soon.  I've been pushing myself into areas I never considered before, thinking about things I've often taken for granted.  In the process of doing my due diligence I was looking at websites by other people with the same interests.  Every site I'd visit would lead to more questions or ideas - sometimes both.  Finally I realized that every single site I visited had an About page and every one of those pages had an email address.  Imagine that…

I realized that instead of just reading the site and trying to figure out the details myself, a quick email to the site's owner would be a heck of a lot more productive.  And it was — imagine that…  By reaching out to those people, they gladly shared the wisdom of their experience.  In fact I learned more in an afternoon of email and phone calls than I could have in 6 months otherwise.

The collected wisdom of the western world is at your fingertips.  The Internet can answer questions you didn't even know you had.  But for some things you gotta connect with the person on the other side of the keyboard. 

On this site I've been an advocate of using the Internet to find new drills and practice plans.  The Internet is a great way to find that information — I can't imagine not having it as a tool.  But in your search, don't forget about the person on the other side of the glass.  There's probably a lot more that hasn't gone onto the site.  You won't get a response from everybody, but the responses you do get will be invaluable.

A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice. - Bill Cosby

They say you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.  A hockey coach in Montreal is trying to prove that the same thing applies to hockey goons.

Clint Butler was a professional hockey player rising as high as the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey, a Quebec based minor league.  While playing professionally, Clint didn't make anyone forget Gretzky, Keith Gretzky…  In 67 professional games Clint got both kinds of points, a goal and an assist, for a grand total of two professional points. 

But what he lacked in touch he made up for in touching; usually with a fist, sometimes a stick, a glove or an elbow.  In his short career, Butler managed to spend 542 minutes in the penalty box.  That's over 8 minutes a game!  That's a fighting penalty plus a regular penalty, with a minute left over.  Not included in that total is the 35 game suspension he received just two years ago for going into the stands after a fan.  To be fair it was 25 games for the fight with the fan, the other 10 was tacked on for assaulting a linesman.

Just the kind of guy I want behind the bench of my son's team…  But yet he was coaching his son's Bantam (13-14) team this year. 

Apparently the son was looking to prove another saying — "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" — in a game this week.  During the game he threw a punch at an opposing player.  At that level a single punch is cause for immediate ejection and possible suspension.  Yet Clint didn't like those rules.  He immediately started yelling at the official, then started with the physical abuse.

When Marcotte (referee) then ejected the coach, they said Butler began throwing water bottles on to the ice before pulling plywood from the timekeeper’s bench and hurling it toward Marcotte.

So what does it take to embarass a 13 year old hockey player?

Butler’s younger son reportedly tried to stop the incident from escalating further, grabbing his father’s leg and pleading: "Stop, Dad!" 

Apparently flying construction materials do the trick in the Butler household.  I am glad to see that someone has a sense of perspective, too bad it's the kid who was throwing punches five minutes earlier.

And the award for Understatement So Extreme it Should be British:

"Other coaches have got one or two-year suspensions, but in this case it was more extreme. He amplified things. The plywood — that’s the first time we see this."

 And I hope the last.

Mistakes in themselves are unavoidable. - Ernest Mandel

Last week I did a PCA presentation to a local park district.  There were coaches from several different sports and they all seemed receptive to the message.

The structure of the presentation allows for some participation, but it's usually afterwards that the stories and the true opinions come out.  I spoke to one coach for about 10 minutes after the meeting.  He seemed very excited about the PCA message.  He said he was happy to have the park district sponsor the PCA meeting because of some of the behavior he was starting to see at the games. 

He expanded on a story that was told during the session.  His son's football team lost a regional finals game 2-0 after a referee called holding in the endzone, awarding the other team a 2 point safety.  He said the call was close, but wrong.  However he was shocked at the parents reaction.  They had to be stopped from attacking the referee.  We all get emotionally involved in our kid's activities, and this was a major event - the winner went to Disney World to play for the National Championship.  Losing such a close game to a bad call is frustrating in the extreme, but the loss of perspective is the real tragedy.  The coach hoped that the PCA program would be a welcome reminder to the coaches and parents to regain perspective about their kid's sports.  I hope he's right.

Another coach I talked with after the presentation wasn't too sure about something I said.  One of the principles of PCA is "Mistakes are OK".  As coaches we are working with kids to help them master the sport.  If they aren't free to make mistakes they aren't free to push their personal boundaries and improve.  I related John Wooden's Piggy Lambert story — the team that makes the most mistakes in a game usually wins — and went through some of the mistake rituals coaches use with their teams.  This coach came up to me afterward and said, "I like the stuff you're talking about, but I just can't get my head around this mistake thing."

Accepting mistakes is the hardest part of coaching.  You don't want mistakes, you want you team to execute flawlessly every time.  But you also want each kid to improve and, when necessary, be willing to take a chance.  If a kid isn't willing to risk making a mistake then he won't do either of those things.  Good things happen when we push our abilities, but not always. 

As a coach, how you handle the not always goes a long way in determining how often the good things happen.

Golf is a solitary game, that's why I think it's one of the hardest to coach.  Unlike any other sport I can think of, golf is a test of self.  So a golf coach has to be part technician and part psychologist.

I was reminded of that when I opened last month's Golf Digest.  There was an article about Eddie Merins, the Club Pro Emeritus at Bel Aire CC and former UCLA golf coach.

The article is a wide ranging discussion with a man who has been a part of the game for over 50 years.  He has played with or coached nearly every great player in that period.  It's obvious from the interview he knows the game as well as anyone.  But what struck me was the way he communicated the message.  Every golfer knows not to swing up on the ball.  But as Merins says, it's the most common swing flaw in the game.  Do you think you'd be more likely to cure that problem if your pro gave you a drill or if he told you this:

Now, have you ever stood on the tee waiting your turn to play, and you swipe at a cigarette butt, broken tee or something else just lying there? You have to swing level to hit it, right? Well, that's how you want to hit your driver. Try to knock the tee over with your swing. Just knock it out of the ground. This is how you hit the ball solidly and find the distance and accuracy you've been looking for.

I love the lack of pretention in the remedy.  He sees a problem then explains the solution in a simple manner.  The message is that you are already doing the right things, just in the wrong context.  Here is the correct context.  Makes all the difference in the world.

Merins was the golf coach at UCLA at the same time some guy named Wooden was running the basketball team.  He tells a revealing story about both Wooden and the PGA.

I'll tell you why we're losing the Ryder Cup. Years ago John Wooden came by and gave my UCLA golf team a lecture. He spoke for an hour and 20 minutes, and not once did he mention the word "winning." All he talked about was preparation….  The U.S. team is obsessed with winning, about getting the Cup back. It's all the players talk about. Somehow they're focusing on the end result instead of what they need to do to win. It's distracting and adds to the pressure. Tom Lehman talked with Coach Wooden, but the team never realized that winning is a reward, not a goal.

Winning is a reward, not a goal.  I think I've found a new credo.

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself. - Walt Whitman

Christmas is always busy, there are hundreds of things to do on top of the thousands of things you already do everyday.  But every once in a while there are moments that cut through the fog.  I was lucky enough to have one of those moments while wrapping presents with my young daughter just before Christmas and it taught me four lessons:

• Neatness is over-rated
  I've never liked wrapping presents.  I get worked up trying to make the corners neat and the sides match perfectly.  It's almost enough to make me swear off buying odd shaped presents, except my wife likes odd (and small) shaped presents…  It was great seeing the joy my daughter got out of covering a box in wrapping paper, regardless of how the edges match up.  She realizes, maybe without knowing, that the wrapping is temporary.  Concentrate on the important things and let the little things slide.

• But a plan is necessary
  My daughter showed me not to worry about getting everything perfect, but it helps to have an idea about the general size and shape of the gift.  Your practice doesn't have to be perfect, but you do need to have an idea on what you want to accomplish.

• Presentation is important; The littlest gift looks better when it's wrapped
  As we were wrapping presents I realized that even the stocking gifts, that were rolled more than wrapped, added to the holiday feel.  The gift may have cost $3.27, but add wrapping paper and a box of Altoids becomes something special.  Add a little something different to the everyday things to give your team a fresh sense of perspective.

• In the end, it's for the kids…
  My daughter loves wrapping presents, I don't.  My daughter gets a kick out of the entire process, I'd like it to be over as quickly as possible.  I get more out of coaching, but nothing compares to seeing the smile on my kid's faces.

My favorite post was one of my first, and also one of my favorite coaching stories.  In fact I had this story rattling around in my head so long I had to build a website to share it…  Originally posted August 3rd, 2006, it's:

The First Rule of Soccer

By : Coach Bigs

Kids even find joy in things that annoy adults. Allen Klein

"What's the number one rule of soccer?" I ask the six year olds assembled on the elementary school yard. It's the first day of practice and for many, the first organized practice ever. They fidget a bit, picking the grass around thier spot, each unsure of themselves. I could see a few thinking "Is this a test? No one said there would be a test!! I'm only a kindergartner, there aren't any tests in kindergarten!"

Sensing their anxiety, I try to coax them into an answer by prompting them, "I'm sure some of you have played before, and some of you have an older brother or sister who has played. So, what's the number one rule of soccer??"

Their courage is raising, I can see a few faces brighten. Then one meekly answers, "Don't use your hands". The others nod in agreement, they would have said it if she hadn't said it so quickly.

"Noooooooo!!!" I say in mock exasperation, "The number one rule of soccer is 'Don't pick your nose!!!' The number TWO rule of soccer is don't use your hands…'"

You know, I don't think I've ever had a kid forget either rule…