Coach to Coach

16Do the Work

On Thursday and Friday, the energy on campus began to change. More people were wearing the colors of the university around campus and trailers filled with both alumni and television stations had begun to already appear in the 80,000-seat stadium's parking lot. So it is with the big rivalry games of college football.

During the last two days before the game, Brian was committed to putting all the coaching lessons he had learned from the old coach to work. He also kept his golden notebook in his front pocket and reviewed what he had written over the past few days as a reminder to take action on some of the new skills. He also took the old coach's advice and wrote down his own ideas on coaching when he experienced them. Writing down his ideas really did help Brian to internalize them. It was as if there was a connection from his hand to his brain that was helping him to etch these coaching lessons in his mind.

On Thursday before practice, Brian and Marcus took the other linebackers through the enthusIASM paper exercise. There was so much talk about it, the other players on the team wanted in on it, too. Brian was impressed by Marcus taking a leadership role on the exercise and let him know about it immediately with the five most powerful words.

Brian saw an even increased power with the clarity that the exercise created. Not only did each player become clearer about why they were playing college football, but by sharing their stories with the rest of the team, there ...