Leadership

Foundation #2 is Leadership, one of my favorite subjects.  You are being asked to put in writing some practical ways that you can lead.  I have personal experiences when I have been a good leader and other experiences when I have been a bad leader.  The important thing I have learned though is that the process of sticking your neck out and taking a risk regardless of the outcome has caused me to grow.

I have put a copy of the Players Manual online…you can access it by clicking HERE.  Each player and coach in the club should have a physical copy of the manual but it is also online if parents want to follow along or if you want to print a copy out for your own reference.

Keep up the good work on and off the floor!

Personal Declaration and Goal Setting…

Personal Declaration

In our Players Manual (RealEVOLUTION), our first foundation is Goal Setting.  This year though, we have a great activity to get you started before you dig into Goal Setting.  Sarah came up with the idea to have the players do a “Personal Declaration.”  One of the things that we discussed was that so many young people are caught up in believing the things that others tell them.  So, we wanted the players to each have an opportunity to write their own thoughts about who they are.  We described the activity in detail on page 5 of RealEVOLUTION.

Sarah provides you with her example in the introduction to the exercise…but as a family, we had some fun with this activity last week.  I love this time of year because it’s an opportunity to evaluate the previous year and also look forward to the coming year in the way of casting vision and setting goals for our family, for this club, and for me personally.  My children are all younger than the kids in the club (Annabelle will soon be 8, Sam will soon be 6, Andrew is 2, and the baby is due in late February)…but I thought it would be fun to have Annabelle and Sam do the Personal Declaration just to see what they could come up with.  I want to share this list below as an encouragement to think like a child in this activity and don’t hold back…and in the interest of full disclosure, Annabelle did the list completely by herself while Sam had a little help…but I love their Personal Declarations…now it’s my job to continue to speak these things into their lives and help them to understand that they were wonderfully made.  Nobody else’s opinion or negative words can change that fact for my children or for you!

Annabelle’s Personal Declaration (in her own spelling): leader, passionate, joyful, hopful, helpful, blocer, setter, friend, nice, cousen, love-ful, athletec, crafty, running, sport, smart, caring, creatif, orgenized, player, waves washing, done.

Sam’s Personal Declaration (with spelling help): helpful, me, candy, warm, brother, athlete, leader, adventure, sky, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, tender, sincere, passionate.

We also did one for Andrew and for the baby…true, we haven’t met her yet in person but we know her heartbeat already…so we already have a gift for her when she arrives.

Goal Setting – Foundation #1

There is a reason that Goal Setting comes first.  There have been countless studies done that show the correlation between goal setting and success…for me personally, I wish I would have taken Goal Setting more seriously at a younger age.  That is why I am passing this on to all of you…so that you can start this critical skill at an early age.

Here is a glimpse into how I am going about completing this activity (yes, I will be doing these activities right along with you).  I am currently in about the 4th day of my personal goal setting process.  The way my brain works is that I start with a white dry erase board in my office, clean it off, and then start with a blank slate.  Everything that comes to my mind in relation to Goal Setting throughout the day, I write it down on the white board.  Most of my current notes revolve around streamlining some of the processes that we have related to the club and also in our own family so that we can focus on the things that matter the most to us.  In our club, that is the players…if we are inefficient with some of the things we have to do to run the club (which we are in some areas), it pulls us away from working with the coaches and players the way we would like to.  In my personal life, if I am lazy with my work and not organized with my schedule, that begins to negatively affect the time I spend with Sarah and the kids.  That is why focus, preparation, and discipline are some key words I have written down on my board.  I have not yet put them into actual written goals yet but I have begun the process.

Now, it’s your turn.  If you haven’t already, start the process by reading the introduction on page 6 of RealEVOLUTION…involve your parents in this process if you need help (and if you really want to involve them in this process, have them set goals for themselves!).  You will also write 2 action steps underneath each goal…these action steps should be things that you are going to have to do to achieve the stated goal.  Enjoy and submit a copy of your Goal Setting sheet to your coach by January 15th.

Great article…

Check this link: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091023/SPORTS0203/910230345/-1/sportsfront

I had the pleasure of coaching at Penn State and the two best road venues we played in were the University of Hawaii and the University of Nebraska.  Hawaii was special because of the spirit of the people.  They know their volleyball and applaud good play on both sides of the net…same with Nebraska.  Granted, both fans cheer alot louder for the home team but they like to see great volleyball nonetheless and they will recognize the efforts of the opponent if they are fortunate to come into their arena and win.

Not sure how i got on that tangent as it is unrelated to the article above.  The article above is a great illustration of how teams work – and what a great teammate looks like.  Please read the article…if you are a parent reading, have your child read it…if you are a child, have your parents read it.

Revolution Baby…

No, it’s not what you think.  Well, I guess it is..part of it anyway.  Ok, I’ll explain.

For those of you who haven’t seen us or talked to us lately, we are expecting baby #4!  Sarah is due in February of 2010 and, outside of being a little bit on the tired side, she is feeling well.  In case you were wondering, I’m feeling pretty well too.  We are all very excited about the upcoming new addition to our family.

We also wanted to share with you that Revolution has a baby as well!  We are all the proud parents, sisters, friends of Estefani Janneth Vega Izaba from Nicaragua.  Last week, Sarah was in the car and listening to the radio and an organization called Compassion International was asking for listeners to sponsor a child in Nicaragua.  Sarah did some research, checked out their website and discovered one child from Nicaragua who liked volleyball.  Seemed like a perfect match.  Here is Estefani’s picture and a description of what she likes to do and what our sponsorship will do for her.  Estafani – Welcome to the Revolution Family!  You were “born awesome.”

Estefani makes her home with her father and her mother. Running errands is her household duty. Her father is employed and her mother maintains the home. There are 4 children in the family.

As part of Compassion’s ministry, Estefani participates in Bible class. She is also in primary school where her performance is above average. Volleyball, playing ball games and bicycling are her favorite activities.

Because of your sponsorship, Estefani will have new opportunities to learn and grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. Thank you for your concern and prayer.

Update…

We are in the process of doing some major planning for the upcoming season.  We will have tryout information posted soon as well as costs, coaching assignments, and other updates.  We wish all club members and others who have tried out in the past the best this high school season.

Also, i want to give a big thank you to Trevor Roberts, Joel Davis, and Joel Hudson at Cross and Crown for their cleanup of our website.  The cleanup was the result of me thinking i knew what i was doing and making some changes on my own.  Lesson – let the professionals handle these things.  These guys are true professionals, have great hearts, and are doing some great things not only for this community but for people around the world.  We are fortunate to have them working with us.

Also, for anyone interested, i have started another blog that digs a little deeper into some of the things i believe.  It’s not necessarily related to the club but it may give you a glimpse of why we operate the way we do.

Thoughts…

One of the websites i check regularly is espn.com.  No surprise…i’m a big sports fan…always have been and always will be.  I have an uncanny ability to remember useless facts about sports and my mom still says that i learned to read from looking at baseball cards.  I’m on a tangent, sort of…i was talking about looking at espn.com.  A big part of my love of sports is that it is such a reflection of life…maybe saying it is a reflection of life is not completely accurate.  It might be better to say that it teaches you alot about life.

I wanted to share this article with everybody about a college basketball player from Duke that most sports fans, especially our 17′s coach Jason Leppo who lives and breathes Duke basketball, will recognize.  Here is the link: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=nolan   First, my heart aches.  I have a hard time thinking what my life would have been like to grow up not having my dad…but i love what happened next.  A group of men saw a need and they did everything that they could to help raise this boy. 

Nolan will never have his father back and i gather from the article that he would give anything to have him here.  Nobody can relate to how Nolan feels when he goes back to his room after a game, only wishing that his dad was there.  What a great testament to Derek Smith though that his peers took it upon themselves to step in and try to fill a void that can never be filled.  Thankfully, i never had to deal with a loss like that but my heart goes out to those who have.

My goal is to build something that teaches kids about life through sports…more than just doing the right thing.  But doing great things, things that have an impact on others, on the community around them, and on the world.  I have been telling my kids lately, specifically Annabelle before she gets on the bus, “change the world today.”  Let’s keep working on that one together!

Awards…

Let me tell you a story about awards.  I remember it like it was yesterday…25 years ago, I was 12 years old and the biggest thing in my life at that time was that i was a pitcher and shortstop for the Latrobe Little League Indians.  I played for Gary Giaccobi, Bill Cesarski, and Chester Giaccobi – Gary’s dad.  I don’t know how i was so fortunate but from the time i was very young, i always had good coaches.  Gary was probably in his mid to late twenties at the time and he was very knowledgeable about baseball.  More importantly, he treated me and all of the other kids very well…like we were his own kids.  Mr. Cesarski (i could never call him Bill and i probably wouldn’t call him Bill now if i saw him in person) was a former minor league player who stood about 6’4″ – i could be wrong on that because as a 12 year old, he seemed more like 7’4″, especially when he pitched batting practice to us.  The older Mr. Giaccobi was quite a character and was known for saying things on the bench like, “he couldn’t hit the water if he fell out of a boat!”  You should have heard what he said about the guys on the other team.

They were great coaches who i was fortunate to have for 3 years…they demanded that we hustle on and off the field, while we were running the bases, and that we were always talking.  We won our fair share of games in Little League and i was proud to play for the Indians.  At the end of the season, we had a banquet where all of the players, coaches, and parents got together…it was in some smoky old Moose Lodge or American Legion.  During the banquet, they handed out the annual awards and i ended up leaving the place with 5 trophies in my hands.  I’m not sure what they were for but i’m also sure i wasn’t the only one walking out of there with 5 trophies.

When we got home, i remember thinking about what i was going to do with all of my hardware (do they call this bling now?).  I hardly had enough shelf space in my room.  After arranging the trophies the way i wanted them, i went downstairs and asked my Dad if he ever got any trophies.  After he informed me that he had some trophies when he was younger, i asked the obvious question: “Where are all of your trophies Dad?”  He answered with an answer i’ll never forget…he said, “I threw them away.”

YOU WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!  You threw them away!  I didn’t say that but i’m sure i was thinking that.  My dad was a great athlete in his day – i’m sure he was a better athlete than he ever indicated.  Humility is one of my dad’s greatest traits.  He was a soccer and baseball player at Slippery Rock University from 1964-1968.  I’m sure he received his fair share of awards, even though he played in the days before EVERYBODY got a trophy.  Sometimes i’m tempted to call some of his college teammates to see how good my dad really was because i don’t think he has ever been completely honest with me about his accomplishments.

Funny thing is though – that’s not what he remembers and it was certainly not why he played sports…and that was his lesson to me that day.  It’s not about the TROPHY.  It’s about relationships…it’s about the team…it’s about all of the things that playing a team sport can teach you – sacrifice, hard work, competitiveness, dealing with adversity, success, celebration, joy…you get the picture.  If my kids asked me today where my trophies or rings or medals were, my answer would be “I have no idea.” [i do know most of them are in the trash...but i have no idea where the others are].

This is why i abhor individual awards, team trophies, all tournament teams, etc.  Some may argue that these awards promote the sport and honor individual and team accomplishments.  There is undoubtedly truth in those arguments and i am certainly not being critical of those who receive awards or honor people for outstanding performance.  I just choose to not worry too much about medals, trophies, or awards…I know where they are going to ultimately end up.

To all of the Revolution Families…I am so proud of the way all of you have represented our club so far this year.   We will continue to practice hard, play hard, and strive to be the best.  I hope that you all know how much you mean to us.  We look forward to the rest of the season…and remember, it’s not about the trophy!

These are a few of my favorite things…

I was inspired by an email Abby Leonard (great coach and even better person) sent to her Revolution 16′s Team asking them for some contact info…she threw in a couple of other questions like what is your favorite movie/favorite food…so i’ll play along:

My Top 5 Favorite Movies (i’m guessing the 16′s team may have some different answers):

1. Hoosiers

2. Sandlot

3. Gladiator

4. Cinderella Man

5. Cheaper by the Dozen

My 5 Favorite Foods

1. Pizza

2. The cookies Sarah just made

3. Anything at the Chinese restaurant right across the street from the Radisson in Minneapolis

4. Grilled Cheese

5. Lasagna

The 5 Most Influential Books I Have Read:

1. The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne

2. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden

3. The Shack by William P. Young

4. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

5. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

The 5 Places I Want to Visit That I haven’t Visited Already

1. Italy with Sarah

2. Lunch at Hamilton Heights Elementary with Annabelle

3. Wrigley Field with Sam

4. Any aquarium with Andrew (he even liked looking at Sam’s dead fish in the fishbowl)

5. University of North Carolina basketball game

Andrew is 1…

For those of you who played in our club last year, you will remember that Sarah was pregnant with Andrew for the parents meeting but he decided he wanted to see tryouts so he decided to meet all of you at our first night of tryouts.  I really hope that he doesn’t remember the fact that we dragged him to the gym less than 2 weeks after he was born…although he didn’t complain, so i guess that was ok.

Here is some video of Andrew eating cake and doing alot of smiling…

Tryouts…

My dad was a high school boys’ volleyball coach at Derry Area (yeah, we never got heckled for that school name!) for over 30 years.  He was the best coach i have ever seen in terms of getting the most out of the hand he was dealt.  Not to say that he didn’t have some talented players over the years but his teams always had two things in common…1) The sum was greater than the individual parts…and 2) They were always better at the end of the year than they were at the beginning.  To me, that is coaching.  So, what does this have to do with tryouts.

As good of a coach as my dad was, he was an even better man.  He had a great heart for kids.  In his very first year as a coach (he started the boys vb program from scratch), he decided to cut two players.  That was so hard for him that he decided to never cut a player again.  He stuck to it and in some years, there were close to 50 boys involved with the team in some capacity.  I can remember him having the varsity team, the jv team, an “A” team and undoubtedly “B” and “C” teams as well.  It was pretty common for us to eat dinner after 9:00 in our house and i can still remember the phone number for Hotel Loyal Pizza in Latrobe (724-537-3741 in case you want to test me).  Looking back it now though, i am so thankful that i got to watch my dad coaching all of the kids who came through the Derry Volleyball program.  It was a big part of our lives growning up.

Running this club, i must say that the toughest thing that i have to do is cut players…kids who want to be part of our program.  I take tryouts seriously and as i said at the parents meeting several weeks ago, we will give everybody a fair shake.  We will do our best to fairly evaluate all of the players who take the time to try out.  That is the promise that i will make.  There will undoubtedly be some tough decisions that we have to make and that just comes with the territory.  While i wish that we could keep all players who want to be part of the club (hopefully someday we can do that), we just can’t do that at this time.  So, if you (or your child) make a team, congratulations…we will do our best to help you grow as a player and as a person.  If you (or your child) do not make a team, just know that these decisions are not easy for me or for the staff.

Saying all that, i can’t wait to get started.  We had the 14′s tryouts in Chambersburg last week and we are excited for the young kids and families that we already have involved…looking forward to the tryouts in a couple weeks for the older age groups and for Revolution North as well.