4 Strategies to Create Relentless Competitors.
Some teams appear on your schedule every year and you know that team always pose a challenge. Those programs are well-coached and are always difficult to beat. Those teams tend to be relentless, gritty and punch above their weight all the time.
It is always one of my goals that my team is one of those teams.
A team filled with relentless competitors can be a component of a successful culture. It is also a reflection of the coach or the athletes on the team that year. Some players come to the team as fully formed, relentless competitors while others still need to develop that skill. Coaches need to be able to assess where their athletes are.
My team has really struggled with our level of competitiveness this year. We work hard but don't always find the extra gear we need to make up for our shortcomings. We finally found it in our last game and I am hoping that it has set a standard of performance that we can recreate in the last month of our season. It has led me to wonder why it has taken us three months to bring that fight.
I have not done enough to create a culture that encourages competition. My athletes have not been able to hold themselves to the standards that we have set and our coaching staff has not held them to the standard either. We did not adjust quickly enough to the fact that our athletes needed more work in this area.
A big part of my practice planning over the next month will be making sure that we are competing every day.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't be tweaking our level of compete in the middle of February but better now than never.
Here are five strategies that you can use to bolster competition in your athletes. Some are small and some require a massive investment in time and energy.
- The Competitive Cauldron
Anson Dorrance has been the head coach of the Univerity of North Carolina Tarheels women's soccer program since its inception in 1979. His teams have won more than 50% of the NCAA championships that have been awarded (21 of 51).
Dorrance builds his team around the concept of the Competitive Cauldron. Everything is has a score and is tracked by managers. Every drill, training rep, scrimmage or team meeting results in athletes getting a score. The players with the highest score in their position group start without exception. There have been many players capable of playing at the National level who have not done enough in practice to start for the Tarheels.
Each day the spreadsheet is updated so everyone knows where they stand.
Dorrance is very clear about his philosophy so anyone who signs to play at UNC knows that this is how playing time is determined.
There are some pros and cons to this strategy. It instills a competitive environment. Players must compete every day if they want to see the field. It rewards the players who are always at practice and work hard consistently. It eliminates questions about playing time and in theory would reduce parental complaints. If they want their child to play more they need to play better in practice.
A coach must be highly organized to make this work. It requires a few managers at practice everyday to keep track of winners and score all the drills. Having time to study the video of practice would also be a must to ensure accurate scoring. I also wonder if it makes athletes tentative in practice because they are afraid to make mistakes. Practice needs to be a safe space to experiment with new skills and techniques.
I tried using the Competitive Cauldron one season and just did not have the staff to do it justice. This is an all-encompassing philosophy, you either are all in, or it doesn't work effectively.
I find that running a modified version of the Competitive Cauldron is more effective.
Rather than tracking individual wins, we keep track of team results. We divide the team in two (as evenly as possible) and have a monthly award that is on the line. For example one team has to serve the other team a pizza lunch. There have been times when this competition gets heated which is the whole point.
It's my job in those times to make sure that the competition remains intense but light-hearted.
2. More Game Like Situations & Competition in pratice.
Over the last five years I have really tried to have practice resemble games. After all we are preparing to play basketball games. The same logic applies for instilling competition. If I want competitors I need to make sure they have lots of opportunity to compete
One alteration that I have made that is to create constraints and scoring that heightens competition. Most of our scrimmages are scored to 3 or a maxmimum of 5 so that every possession in the drill or scrimmage matters.
Also, competitive games like 3v3 or 4v4 with three teams has been effective (essentially cuthroat). We often set the constraint that a team cannot play offense until they get a stop on defense. If the opponent scores they keep the ball and the next team comes in on defense.
Ultimately, the more opportunities for competition in your practice the better.
3. Holding players accountable to the Standard
This is where my team has fallen short.
We worked very hard at the start of the season to come up with 5 standards to guide our season. I know that everyone knows and can recite our standards. Two areas have undermined our level of competitiveness. The first is that our coaching staff has not been firm enough in holding the line and resetting behaviour and performance when it does not meet our standards.
We needed to really draw the line on what is and isn't acceptable and not move on until the behaviour is in line with the standards.
Compounding this is that my team this year is young (only three seniors) and they are still developing their leadership voices. This leaves my assistant and I as the only voices holding them accountable. They are not comfortable holding each other to the standard. Teams that have a culture that prioritizes this type of accountability will have a significant competitive advantage over those that do not.
One of our standards this year came from Jay Bilas and his excellent book Toughness. We want to be easy to play with and hard to play against this is all about our compete level. It requires that teams do all the little things necessary to be hard to play against. A high compete level is vital to being hard to play against.
We are continuing to work hard in this area but we still have a way to go.
4. Clearly defined roles
When players have a clear role of what they are expected to do it will allow them to really invest in that role.
Regardless of the sport, every athlete wants to be the leading scorer on the team. Championship teams need someone to do the dirty work. A coach's job is to convince every athlete to forego what they want in favour of what is best for the team. Coaching is important. Athletes who know what their job is are going to be more secure. Psychological safety comes from knowing your position on the team. Defining the roles of all the members of the team allows them to hone in on that specific task. It also allows the coach to see who thrives in what role. If the player assigned to guard another team's best player does not compete they will not last long in this role.
The added benefit of defining roles is that if an athlete is not satisfied with their role on the team it is easy to map out what they need to improve on to fill the role that they want. This will create competition in practice. Sport is a meritocracy and most coaches are going to play the athlete who is the best at what they need.
We have these conversations in private first, highlighting the role they need to play, and what to improve to fill the role they want to play. Then we have conversations as a group explaining what everyone's role is and what strengths they bring to that role. The goal of this conversation is that everyone knows what is expected on a personal level and what their teammates' primary role is as well.
It is not always an easy or fun conversation but I certainly find that it brings the level of competition up in practice.
Recommended Resources to help you create a competitive environment.
There are a lot of great resources on creating competitive environments. Here are a few I would highly recommend.
Books
Win Forever- Pete Carroll
The Vision of a Champion- Anson Dorrance
How to Develop Relentless Competitors- Jeff Janssen
Toughness- Jay Bilas
Podcast
The Vision of a Champion- Anson Dorrance
Nervous System Mastery- A Cohort Based Course
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Thanks for reading and have a great week.