Every Coach Needs A Coach

Every moment matters by John O'Sullivan Mirror processing - why we smile when others smile or yawn when they yawn. When you watch someone you care about participate in something, your neural decision making areas disengage , and you inferior parietal lobe uses mirror processing , and your brain reacts as if we were being fouled or having a goal unjustly called back.

From page 7 of 'A Game Plan For Life'  "We all share that same responsibility because each of us has gained a different perspective from our individual circum-stances. Knowledge is nothing unless it is shared. I know that knowledge for knowledge's sake is a wonderful ideal, but in re-alit, it is the transmission of understanding that is the very basis of civilization. It's what allows human p...

a lesson I learned from a walk on the beach on vacation

Fable: DON'T ARGUE WITH DONKEYS The donkey said to the tiger: - "The grass is blue". The tiger replied: - "No, the grass is green." The discussion heated up, and the two decided to submit him to arbitration, and for this they went before the lion, the King of the Jungle. Already before reaching the forest clearing, where the lion was sitting on his throne, the donkey began to shout: - "His Highnes...

We need some adversity to help us go farther. Lessons from a golf ball.

My priority shift during soccer, and this podcast tends to take a backseat. For consistency sake, for my sake, and for your sake, I will continue to record episodes every day, but forgive me for the lack of introduction and outro, music, and lower quality audio.

Confidence comes from the struggle

The sweetest sound to Any person in any language is the sound of their own name. Challenge you to learn a new name today, and use it.

Video analysis of our games just for a few days has increased our kids engagement, and understanding of tactics and strategies. Add another layer to our culture and language

What are you willing to fail over and over again ?

If you could go back and give yourself advice during your freshman year of high school, what would you say? My bet is that you should still follow this advice to this day

I have implemented appreciation Wednesday with our team this year, where every Wednesday we call someone we love and tell them we appreciate them. It’s been tremendously powerful. I challenge you to make it your own and implement it with your team

Offer your kids a chance to play and explore during practice(sandbox) , and a chance to compete for playing time (War times)

Lead Em Up exericse- speed mentoring.  Our big takeaway from our seniors was to stop caring what anyone thinks of you. That was a great lesson for our freshmen to hear and great for me to be reminded . 

I had the opportunity to give a talk to our youth recreation coaches in town. They have to go through a safety training, and as a physical therapist, I'm qualified to offer that to them. It helps that I coach high school soccer, and can offer them safety tips on things to look out for as far as injuries and field conditions. I managed to show them a handful of drills, reminding them that they can...

A few days ago I gave you my three rules to live by. Rule number one is to have fun. I was in a coaches webinar with the lead him up Community a few nights ago. One of the tips that Adam Bradley gave us, was to lean into the fun. We've all been there in serious moments with our team, and without warning, something funny happens. Maybe somebody's voice cracks, or two kids have been staring at each...

A good friend of mine unfortunately is suffering from long Covid. Given that the virus has only existed for just over two years, we don't know whole lot about it. She wanted to know if there was any exercises she should be doing to help facilitate her recovery. This was back in maybe May. So because I wanted to help her, I went down a rabbit hole for several hours a day for about a week, subscribi...

Tonight my nephew reminded us to listen to the crickets. It’s a good reminder to me to stop at halftime and look at each of my kids. To stop and appreciate loading up the bus, or stretching after practice. I challenge for you is for you to ask yourself what are your crickets? And are you listening to them?

There are some philosophies that I’ve adopted over my years that kind of shape my identity and guide my decision-making. They are my ‘north stars’ that I use to answer questions when I’m facing a decision. Some of them are do all the good you can with all the time you have ‘beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself’ be bold It’s a game, they are kids. What goes around comes around I s...

I like to end practice with celebrations, that's a tradition that I took from PGC, and my own experiences playing for my former coach. A few weeks ago one of our seniors celebrated a freshman who is continuously dripping sweat, asking for feedback, and clearly wanting to get better. The senior celebrated her for being an example. After we were done clapping, I threw that back on that senior, and s...

Have fun We’ll both work hard to get us better No horsing around/falling If we’re not having fun, what are we doing here? They don’t want to come, I don’t want to see them, and our progress is limited because there’s unnecessary tension . We’ll both work hard to get you better. If you give me 100%, I’ll give you 200%. You gotta be all in. Let’s be safe. We can have fun, we have to be safe.

You learn more about a person in an hour of play than you do in a lifetime of conversation. Yesterday we lost 3 to 2 in an overtime, golden goal game against a good opponent. It was a physical game, and fair. The two referees we had, we're older gentleman, each with 20+ years of officiating soccer at the college level. These guys knew what they were doing, and they were courteous Before during and...

What was the last thing you googled? What was the last thing you googled ‘how to do’?. I bet you learned something. Maybe you were sitting on your couch on you phone. Maybe you were putting up a fixture in your house. Maybe you were putting gas in the lawn mower or changing the ink in in your printer. Whatever it was, I BET YOU LEARNED SOMETHING by doing it. What’d you learn in 10th grade algebra...

All the villagers decided to pray for rain together one morning. On the day of prayer, everyone showed up , but only one little boy brought an umbrella. That is faith. Last year in basketball, we were positioned so that by our last game, if we lost it , we’d tie for 1st place, and if we won it, we’d win the conference. It was a game we should win, so my dad and I got t shirts made up designed that...

It's really easy to get frustrated when a player shows up late, especially when they haven't given you a heads up that they're gonna be late. The same can be said for kids showing up to class late. I've been guilty of showing up to church late. And I think this is where I heard this phrase. Rather than getting annoyed, or judging that person, or scolding them in front of the group for being late....