What about the less talented individuals who seem to lack self-motivation? Do you just cast them aside? Maybe they just haven’t connected to their have-to or want-to. Can you help them discover one? Can you help them find a place in the team where they can make a unique contribution?
There are very few “10s” in any area of life. There was only one Pelé. There is only one Messi. There is only one Cristiano Ronaldo. These players are the elite. Mia Hamm is the name from my generation in women’s soccer that jumps out at me. We recognize them in other sports. Michael Jordan and LeBron James in basketball. Michael Phelps in swimming. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Annika Sorenstam in golf. Jackie Joyner-Kersee in track and field. Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter, Mike Trout, and Bryce Harper in baseball. They call Tom Brady “the G.O.A.T.” (the greatest of all time). Some would call these players “special.” Even at the highest levels of business, academia, and athletics there are only a few of the elite. They can seemingly will your team to win at times. Having one of these players can lead a team to the top echelon of your sport. There are very few of these players in the world, and you may never coach one.
Then there is the next tier of very good players, who have either strong talent or a strong work ethic or some combination of both that has brought them to this level. They produce consistently good performances and sometimes great performances. They can take you a long way and transform a team. Having a few of these players can make life easy for a manager or coach.
Then there are the contributors—the role players. And you need the contributors. Your team needs the contributors. Remember I said that there are very few elite players in the world and you may never have one on your team? You’ll probably have many more very good players. With some dedication by the player, committed coaching, the proper environment, and the right opportunities, these players can have elite level performances at times. But in all cases, the elite and the very good need the help and the contributions of the role players to win and be successful.
Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time. In order to be honored with that moniker he needed the help of his US swim teammates in relays to win 12 of his 28 medals. He holds the all-time record with 23 Olympic gold medals, and 10 of those were won with teammates in the relay events. All of the elite golfers mentioned had coaches. And every one of them had a caddie on their bag for every single one of their professional victories. To win those NBA Championship Finals trophies, Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen. LeBron James had Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. In all the championship stories on ESPN, you always hear the story of the contributions of the role players in their victory seasons.
Tom Brady is the winningest championship quarterback of all time, winning six NFL Super Bowls. Throughout his NFL career, though, he is also considered to have had maybe the greatest football coach of all time coaching him in Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick has eight Super Bowl rings as a coach in the NFL. Many people say the most impressive part of his job with the Patriots is bringing a new group of players together year after year and motivating everyone, from the stars to the one-season role players, to align on a singular mission and getting the best out of every player, whether on the field for one play or sixty plays.
So, this is the question for you, Coach: Can you tap into the less talented role players and turn them into productive contributors? Do you have a formula or methodology to help you be consistent in tapping into your players’ full potential, or are you just winging it?
CREATING FIRSTS
I’ll share a story from my first season as the boys’ head varsity coach at The Kings Academy, a small Christian high school in West Palm Beach, Florida. In one of our first games of the year we were playing American Heritage of Delray. Talented players. Many of them were playing for what US Soccer calls the development academy (D.A.). To make the D.A. in an area you pretty much need to be the best of the best, and they had many of those elite players and top players from other top club programs. I didn’t know this at the time, but in our school history our boys’ soccer team had never defeated American Heritage. They had entered our district I think a few years prior, and if you looked back at their history, they had several state championships and state runner-up appearances and a track record of being really good. Not just good, but great.
On my team that year I had only one true forward. A forward is generally your goal scorer in soccer, your frontline attacking position. I could shape out the rest of the team, but I had no other forwards. So I took three or four kids who had never played forward. Most of them were defenders, and I think two of them had barely played organized soccer in their life. I told them I was going to train them to be my forwards. They looked at me a little baffled, as did the other players on the team, and I just said, “Let’s work at it. I don’t expect you to play sixty minutes a game or even score goals, but I know you can give me five, ten, or twenty productive minutes a game that can help the team.” They had some athletic ability, and best of all they were willing to do whatever I asked of them, even if they didn’t quite understand.
I explained to them what I needed them to do. Being the top line attackers, there was no expectation on them to score goals, which is different than what you might tell most strikers, but I knew that wasn’t their strength. Asking them to do it might have been too much pressure and hurt their performance. Their job was to run. Run and pressure the other team’s defenders relentlessly. Since I was playing with only two forwards and I had four or five of these guys, I told them, “Just give me your all and run and pressure until you can’t run 100 percent anymore, and I’ll sub in the next guy.” And they did. In that first game against American Heritage, a converted defender, a midfielder, and two guys who had barely played soccer were my forwards. Every 10 minutes or so I’d sub them, and they’d run. In doing so they never allowed the other team to have a good staging area to build an attack. Our opponents were positioned into hitting balls at us from 40 yards out, which played to our strengths because we had a goalkeeper who went on to be a United Soccer Coaches All-American that season. We scored on a corner kick midway through the second half and held on for the win.
Afterwards, the coach Jonathan Frias, whom I’ve come to know and respect and who was also coaching his first season with American Heritage, came over to congratulate me and say that his boys were shocked by our performance. They said we looked different. It was pretty much the same team, but we were now getting more out of every single player, and it took that to win.
American Heritage went on to beat us in the district final, and the next season they went on to win the state championship with that same team. Our ability to have a victory against such a strong team was predicated on the ability of our role players to contribute in ways they didn’t even know they could. We established that we were willing to give players the opportunity to contribute even in the big games and were willing to invest in them to get more. This was the start of our journey of eventually winning the district championship in our third try against American Heritage.
We live in a world that is now constantly competing for the attention of our youth. Coaches are going through the motions and have become unengaged and lack passion. Are you willing to be inspirational? Your players need visionary leadership and a compelling mission. Can you give that to them, Coach? Are you willing to?
GET MOR3EE: REMEMBER YOUR MOTIVES. OWN THE STRUGGLES. KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE. ALLOW ACCOUNTABILITY TO FUEL YOU, NOT LIMIT YOU. LET IT ALL EMPOWER YOU.
SCOUTING REPORT LESSONS
u You have to recognize where you are but not lose the vision of where you want to go.
u To inspire means to breathe life into another person.
u Get to know your players. Develop the relationship.
u Understand how powerful have-tos and want-tos can motivate an individual. Help your players discover their have-to and want-to motivations.
u Help them see how their have-tos and want-tos can align with the organizational goals.
u Motivating the elite and very good players can be easy. How do you include and motivate your role players?
COACHES’ BOX: GET MORE WITH A QUESTIONNAIRE
I give my players a questionnaire