Launch Week

We are going to do the official launch of this blog and website next week! On top of that Eric Van Kley, my new boss gets here and I am assuming we will be getting down to work on getting this team going.
Anyway, next week you can look forward to seeing the following on here.
1 Move of the week.
2 Leadership Skills for Coaches: Sharing your vision.
3 Recruiting and the college athlete.
4 Summer Strength Training
5 Coaches tools for running a summer strentgh program

I am going to forgo this weeks big post in favor of having more content for next week.

Leadership

Developing Leadership

First, read the book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins. It tells how to go from a good corporation to a great one and much of it can be applied to teams and clubs as well. I believe what separates any good organization from a great one is the leadership. The coaches of the Tampa Bay Lightning had their team read the book before they won the Stanley Cup. Yes, it's Hockey and we are talking Wrestling but leadership skills generalize fairly well across sports.

For the most part leadership is the hierarchy that evolves in a community. You need to understand that you want to first develop a community. Build a feeling of belonging and then build a sense of responsibility to the community. For more on this read the article Team = Family. You also want to influence how the community builds. Make it a good one.

Emphasize the wrestler's responsibility to a community. You will have athletes with losing records. A lot of people would not want that in their team (I would love to avoid it) but the reality is we are not all going to be Cael Sanderson. The thing is that the guys that aren't winning the state titles have to put in to the collective effort it will take for your fourteen starters to get there. Let them know that you expect everyone to work hard and push each other and that if they do anything dumb they will be putting a black mark on the team. Look at the situation at Duke. Those guys may very well be innocent but they have put a black mark on the team's record that will be there for many years. The simple way for them to have avoided it was to be more responsible as a team and not have gotten into that situation. Especially, in season.

It starts at the top ­ The head coach does not have to be physically or mentally organized as much as his delegation needs to be. If he can set a model using a management hierarchy and stick to that then he can be scatter brained with things as long as he simply ensures that the tasks he delegated down get done. In college wrestling we are seeing staffs built not just on wresting ability anymore but on management and I think that it is great. The head coach gets the athletes the resources they need and then it works down the ladder. Just like a business.

Always build the guys up. There are enough people and influences telling teenage boys that they are bad and wrong. Trust in yourself as a coach that you can develop them into leaders and be positive about it.

Reward initiative ­ A big part of being a leader is simply stepping up and taking responsibility for something or asking for it. If a kid comes in and starts mopping the mats when no one told him to that is initiative. If an athlete gets a group together to do some extra workouts that is initiative.

Get the athletes to spend time together. You want to create a community. If all of your athletes are only together for two hours two times a week then they are just a team. It is when they start to spend time out together that they become a community. As a coach you can get some parents together and set up a structure of good activities for them to do (Community Service, Rafting Trips, Bowling, Etc.). Be careful here though because there is good leadership and bad and if you don't keep an eye on it there is a chance that negative leadership could become an issue for you.

Figure out what kind of leaders you want and need and talk to them about it. The Marines create great leaders year after year. More Marines are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies then Ivy League MBAs. The Marines have the core values that they believe are common to all marines and as part of boot camp they sit down and they talk about what the values mean as a soldier and as a person. If you want them to be leaders you need to generalize it off of the wrestling mats. To many times the best athletes become captains and the wrestlers follow them balance that with the ones that have taken on responsibility and handled it well. I think that a lot of wrestling teams develop hierarchies like gangs where the toughest kids are the ones that become leaders. There are many great wrestlers that do not make great leaders. Just because you can win a match does not mean people should follow you. A leader has to be able to manage others and himself. If you simply want the tough wrestlers to thump the weaker ones when they don't wrestle up to potential then I don't think you will see a lot of change. If you want the better wrestlers to get on the younger ones, show them what they did wrong and help bring them up to their level then you will see improvement. But at 17 years old I didn't know what it meant to be a leader besides setting an example and that is not even half of it.

Find a Low Ropes course and get your guys out there. These activities like Leadershape are something that colleges are turning to in order to develop leaders and it would give your guys an advantage at the next level. I think that alone would be worth it.

Invite some local leaders (Elected officials, Principles, Business Leaders, Military, etc.) to talk to your team. Banquets and summer picnics are great for this. Talk to your speaker about what you want and then ask them to relate that to the leadership they use in their lives and go from there.

Read some books on leadership styles and then help your athletes to understand how they are developing as leaders. Some people are great leaders when their backs are against the wall and then horrible when things are going well. The corporate world has a set of CEO's that are known as turn around artists and they go from bankrupt company to bankrupt company slashing coasts and saving them from defaulting there are other CEOs that run companies that we have never heard of some are flashy, some are humble. Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Warren Buffet are all effective leaders and they all have different styles.

Delegate, delegate, delegate ­ When you start to recognize who your leaders are becoming start to give them something to do. Any community has leaders and they can be good leaders or bad leaders. Don't let their hands go idle. Make a list of chores and tell your captains to make a plan to get it done. Make it clear that they shouldn't do it all themselves and make it clear that they shouldn't dump it on the freshmen. When they get it done look it over give them feedback and if it is not what you are looking for then have them do it over. I have a boss and if he does not like my work he lets me know and I make the changes that incorporate what he is looking for. That is another part of leadership Following.

My final suggestion is just to pay attention to the community. If you the coaches set high expectations and then hold your athletes to that standard you will get great things done. If you can build a supportive community where the athletes are working toward common goals that don't include negative things the leadership will come out naturally and you will just have to guide it to being the leadership you need. I am of the opinion that leadership is making sure that the ones below you are taken care of and people respect the leaders that will get their hands dirty. Get in there and erase the lines between the coaches and the athletes, have some fun, and build your team up. If you go in and crack skulls and you look for your leaders to do the same you are going to chase away athletes that in four years could have made a huge impact on your team. Build a community where leadership means that the good wrestlers work to bring the lower guys to their level and the lesser wrestlers work to push the great wrestlers to get even better.

Waterloo... Wrestling: Dutch Style

I am in Waterloo for the Great Plains tournament to get a look at some high school guys and work on recruiting. Central has 2 guys competing in this event and I am proud of them for signing up to take on such a tough field. The NCAA says I can't coach them now but they will be much improved wrestlers next year for the work they put in.
On this note I want to emphasize the importance of practice partners. It is rare that you will ever see just one wrestler on a team that is good. They usually come in atleast a pair if not more. Why? Because steel sharpens steel. Good job!

Kolat - Back Flip

Here is a clip of one of the greatest. This is not the way to counter for everyone but it is impressive to see Kolat back flip, and score in such a funky manner.



We have some down time here during the day. Our guys are getting ready to hit the road and wrestler up at the Great Plains in Waterloo. I have to finish up some work and then I will go up tommorow to watch them and the high schoolers.
I have my USA Coaches card but I can't get into the corner. Thats fine with me, I will just enjoy watching the best guys in the country compete and take notes on what they are doing so that we can consider bringing it back here.
Good luck to the Dutch Wrestlers as they head up there. I am proud to see that they have made a commitment to year round training and while I can't coach them I want the to know that I appreciate everything they are doing to get better. It wasn't long ago that I was a mat rat, just tryingto get as many matches as I could and learn as much as I could.
One final note. I want to congratulate Nate Engel. Last weekend he won University Nationals in Greco and he graduates from Missouri Valley College this weekend!

Gardner over Karelin

This is the video of what many people believe to be one of the greatest upsets in the history of Olympic Competition. An unknown American, sets a goal, beats a guy that many considered the best heavyweight Greco wrestler in US history, and goes to the Olympics with a goal to do what no one says he can.
Gardner over Karelin

NCAA Highlights

The thing about Champions is that they succeed in spite of circumstances. A lot of people can give you reasons why you can't do something but not as many can ever, or will ever give you reasons why you can. Coaches are usually the ones that can tell you why you can. People told Mark Cody that he wouldn't win at American University, Brian Smith was told the same thing at Mizzou, Tom Ryan at Hofstra, J Robinson at UM. But they didn't listen. Who would have ever thought that some of those programs would become as great as they have?
The moral of this is NO ONE! NO ONE, has a corner on the market when it comes to achievement. Each year we see champions crowned who know one would think could win. I am excited by the guys that have committed to us here at Central because they all believe in themselves and believe that we can win!
People thought Dan Gable would never lose. People thought no one could stop Iowa from winning TEN NCAA Championships in a row, no one thought Rulon Gardner could beat Karelin and in the end.... The truth came out, No one, No one owns success. There were times people thought Ford would always be the world's largest auto maker, IBM would be the only computer company, and Lance Armstrong would never recover from cancer.
Seeing this every year is exciting to me because I have thought that we can win at Central since I came to interview and I want to start winning soon.
Here are the highlights of the last two NCAA tournaments, look at how many top seeds go down, look at the matches that are won by the guys that want it more. That is the fire and desire I love to see on the mat and it is an important key to winning!

2007 NCAA Finals Highlights


2006 NCAA Finals Highlights


Gable V. Owings
Just to illustrate my point that no one owns achievement

Mean Gene the Pinning Machine!

There are some moves taht I think are keys for an athlete to master in this sport of wrestling. I think that a front head lock is up there but I also think the sweep single is as well. A lot of takedowns are about made effective by the angles you create.
Here is Gene Mills teaching his version! It is about 20 years old and it is still great...