Coaching Is a Process
ZAK BOISVERT
Coach Zak Boisvert has put together some notes on the coaching philosophy of Alabama Football Coach Nick Saban. All coaches can learn something, regardless of what sport we coach.
PROCESS
•“ We’ re not going to talk about what we’ re going to accomplish; we’ re going to talk about how we’ re going to do it.”
•“ We don’ t talk about winning championships; we talk about being champions.”
•“ I’ m tired of hearing all this talk from people who don’ t understand the process of hard work— like little kids in the back seat asking,‘ Are we there yet?’ Get where you’ re going one mile-marker at a time.”
•“ The scoreboard has nothing to do with the process. Each possession you look across at the opponent and commit yourself to dominate that person. It’ s about individuals dominating the individuals they’ re playing against. If you can do this … if you can focus on the one possession and wipe out the distractions … then you will be satisfied with the result.”
•“ He says‘ the grind’ a lot. The things you have to do so you can do what you want to do. Like play for the national championship. All the workouts. Spring ball. All the practices, summer workouts, and things like that.” – Alabama Linebacker, Eryk Anders
•“ Focus on the play like it has a history and a life of its own.”
•“ Success doesn’ t come from pie-in-the-sky thinking. It’ s the result of consciously doing something each day that will add to your overall excellence.”
There’ s no mention of titles. Instead, his message has been that the way to win a championship is to concentrate on what you’ re doing today, and try to build on that tomorrow.
•“ It’ s not the end result. Don’ t think about winning the SEC Championship. Don’ t think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment.
•“ That’ s the process: Let’ s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”
•“ If you don’ t get result-oriented with the kids, you can focus on the things in the process that are important to them being successful.”
DARE TO BE GREAT
•“ Being the absolute best isn’ t natural. You must bend your entire life around being great. Beat the urge to rest after you’ ve achieved a taste of success.”
•“ Once you get good, you need a total disposition about being better than good. Now the challenge is to be the best and that’ s a never-ending process.”
CULTURE
•“ We don’ t have one individual on our team that can make our team great, but we can have one individual who could destroy the team chemistry by making bad decisions and destroy all the things we’ re talking about.”
•“ Team chemistry begins to surface in the summer. True leaders start to emerge. You start to see the core buy-in that everybody has in terms of how they go about what they do. For the first time, the responsibility becomes theirs instead of somebody else’ s. You start to see what the team might be.”
•“ He does an outstanding job of getting everybody on the same page and making sure that they understand‘ Look, you’ re going to buy in or you’ re going to become irrelevant.’”
•“ You’ ve got to be responsible and accountable and be able to do your job. There’ s a way you have to do it in terms of the effort, the toughness and the intangibles and dependability you have and discipline you have in carrying out your responsibility. And I, quite frankly, think when you have a critical mass of players on your team that think like that, they don’ t really want other guys that don’ t think that way to be out there with them.”
FIVE DAY-TO-DAY GOALS
1. Respect and trust your teammates
2. Have a positive impact on someone else
3. Dominate your opponent 4. Be responsible 5. Act like a champion
PARABLES
•“ If I put a 2-by-4 on the ground and asked you to walk across it, how many
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