My Principles
My principles are the foundation of how I approach coaching, how I coach, and how I program. Everything that I do is rooted in these principles, and they were chosen because they help me fulfill my mission of developing champions of life and sport.
Love Tough
Often, when people say they show tough love, they are tough and forget the love part. All this does is create an environment where those we are coaching do not understand our true intentions and do not place their complete trust in us. I always coach to bring my athletes closer to their goals while making them better people for their families and communities. I do this through loving them first and being tough on them second; love tough. Showing them that I care by asking how they are doing, hearing them when they are talking to me, and showing them respect creates the culture I want. Once this culture is established, I can be tough on them and push them to even greater limits. If I were to only be tough on them, they would still get better, but not by the same amount and not with the same passion. Loving tough is about showing our athletes that we are still human, that we care about them, and everything we do is rooted in wanting them to succeed.
Purpose
When I was at Springfield College working as a graduate assistant for the Strength and Conditioning department, I had a partner for football that would always ask, “what is our purpose for this?”. He did not like adding things into programs to meet the hour that we had with the team. Instead, everything that we did had a purpose, and if our lift that day was 45 minutes, that was okay. The extra 15 minutes we had were then used to allow our athletes to stretch, roll out, grab a meal, decompress, etc. I have adopted this principle because time is precious. Adding extra movements to fill up time adds additional stress that their bodies do not need, especially in a competitive season. If I can train a team, meet all the training goals for the day, and target potential injury areas, I have accomplished my goals. That extra time is up to the athletes to decide on what to do, and if they need help, I will always be there to lend a guiding hand.
Train the Athlete and Teach the Person
When I train a team, I am training the athlete, but I am teaching the person. This means that I will push the athlete to be better and help prepare them for the challenges they will face. But I will teach the person how to move well, take care of their body, and be self-sufficient. Sports do not last forever, but health and fitness do, so if I can teach the person how to do everything we do in the weight room, they can continue to be the best they can long after their sports career ends.
Ownership
I do not believe in setting up or tearing down a weight room for my teams. This ties into my previous principle of training the athlete and teaching the person. If I cannot teach the person how to set up for an exercise while they are with me, how can I expect them to set up any exercise when away from me? To train in a collegiate weight room is a privilege, not a right, and I instill this idea through making sure the athletes treat our equipment with respect, leaving the space better than they found it, and knowing where everything is stored. This is their room, they worked hard to get where they are, and if they want to be the best, it starts with ownership and taking responsibility for the time they are in there.
Every Athlete is a Son or Daughter
I adopted this principle from Dr. Brian Thompson at Springfield College. When they drop their child off at college, every parent is placing their trust in us to take care of them, elevate them to their true potential, and help them be successful. Making them do dangerous exercises and pushing them to their limit every day is not fulfilling those promises. I will treat every athlete as if they were my son or daughter, which means not asking them to perform dangerous movements, performing movements they are not ready for, and backing everything I do with science and reasoning.