MOTIVATING A TEAM is one of the most important skills a coach can possess. I’m not talking about pre-game speeches, but consistent year-round motivation. Motivation for the off-season conditioning program and motivation for day-to-day practices are what drives a team to victory.
Here are 7 creative strategies you can use to motivate your team.
Mission Meeting: During the early part of camp, get all your players together and decide what the missions (main goals) for the upcoming season will be. Decide what it will take to accomplish these missions, such as practice attendance, curfews, classroom and field behavior, etc.
Print these on a poster board and have all your players sign it. Make regular size copies and have all players tape a copy inside their lockers. When the players get involved, they usually come up with challenging missions and stricter standards than the coaches would have. This is an invaluable part of the motivation process.
Motivational Climate: The motivational climate is comprised of all the things you and your staff do to provide an atmosphere that will allow the players to flourish.
1 Communicating with players. Look players in the eye, call them by their first name, extend common courtesies (please, thank you, etc.), explain why things are done a certain way (say “because”), provide praise and correct mistakes immediately.
2 Process orientation. Focus on the process of what makes a champion. Don’t grade players only on the success of a block, but on whether they stayed low, kept their feet moving, etc. A detailed process orientation greatly enhances the motivational climate. Focusing on individual improvement and not comparative scores is a very important part of this process.
3 Team building activities. Fun, challenging activities that require a group effort to complete can go a long way to promote a more cohesive and motivated team.
Unity Council: Team captains and one representative from each position makes up our Unity Council. The Unity Council along with the coaching staff will decide what the consequences will be for violations in the rules and regulations agreed upon during the mission meeting.
These players should meet once a week with the coaching staff for a “no-holds-barred” discussion of team issues. Any player or coach can put an issue on the floor and all issues should be brought to a conclusion.
The head coach always has the final say, but you will be amazed at how well the players respond to this type of responsibility. In fact, the coaches must often temper how strict the players can be on themselves.
Charting Practices, Games: Keep charts of both team and individual goals. Team goals are more process than outcome oriented. Instead of tracking wins, losses or scoring a certain amount of points, keep track of first-down efficiency, turnover ratio and big-play ratio.
Certain practice drills are informative to chart. For example, quarterbacks do drills where barrels are placed at points where a fade pass needs to drop and the QB sets goals based on the percentage of throws in the barrel. Each position has two or three drills that could be charted once a week. Your players will become unbelievably motivated to improve their scores.
Discourage inter-player comparison. They will still do it, but if it gets out of hand you will lose the process orientation that you worked so hard to promote.
Quotes Of The Week: Each week throughout the year, post two quotes of the week. During the off-season, these are posted in the weight room and during the season copies are placed in the weight room and the locker room. These quotes stress themes of work ethic, dedication and commitment.
During the season try to match up the quotes with the particular circumstances affecting your team. For example, after camp week, when you’re starting to finalize who will play which position and who will be starters or back-ups, post quotes dealing with accepting your role in life and excelling at whatever that role demands.
Most coaches who post quotes as a motivational strategy are pleasantly surprised at how well players respond to them. But remember they work best as part of a total strategy (if nobody is in the weight room, the quotes won’t affect them much).
Lifting Teams: Assign teams consisting of five players for your summer conditioning program. Attendance is taken on a team basis. Teams with a 75 percent or better attendance record receive a T-shirt that the coaching staff has specially designed and can’t be bought. Teams with 90 percent or better receive a higher quality T-shirt (it’s important that the players consider this shirt more valuable).
Make sure there is at least one senior and get at least one other dedicated player on each team. When you first start this program, it may be difficult to find enough dedicated players, but after a couple of years, players will look forward to accepting leadership positions.
This accomplishes two things. First, it utilizes peer pressure in a positive way. Secondly, when players eventually become one of the group leaders, they rise above doing the right thing because of peer pressure and become leaders who do the right thing on their own as well as encourage others to make better choices in life.
Weekly Themes: These are the finishing touches that can help put your team over the top. When used properly, these themes will give you that final edge.
4 Game dedication. On a sticker placed on the back of each player’s helmet, the player writes the name of the person he wants to dedicate the game to. Be careful with this one; if your players are already nervous going into a big game, this can sometimes over-stimulate them. Know your players and choose wisely.
5 Who will ... This can be a great help to players focusing on the process of going into a big game. You ask, “who will ...”, and then you write on the board: create a fumble, recover a fumble, intercept a pass, etc. Write down the names of the players who raise their hand underneath each category.
6 Team strengths. This exercise is designed to build confidence and promotes team focus. The coach can ask, “Why will we be successful this Saturday?” or “What are our strengths?” or “What are our reasons to be confident this week?”
This can be a great motivational tool when your team needs a confidence boost going into a big game. Lou Holtz always used this technique when going into a big game while at Arkansas.
6 Two positive qualities. Each player writes down two positive qualities about every other player on the team (with large teams you can do this by position). Then pass out sheets to each player with the positive attributes that their teammates wrote about them.
This is another great confidence booster, but save it for late in the season or even post season to reinforce the positive aspects of playing on the team and getting a head start toward next season.
Strive For Success
These seven strategies can act as a starting point to develop a comprehensive motivational plan.
You and your staff will easily come up with more weekly themes, great motivational quotes and thorough communication guidelines.
Remember that everything you do affects your team’s motivational level. Some people think motivation is for game day. Game day is now, because how your team performs on game day is determined by what you do today, tomorrow and everyday.