Is that a full-time job?

Playing Santa in the mall is a part-time job. Coaching is not. Yet I'm asked this question almost every time I meet someone new and tell them what I do for a living.

"Is that a full-time job?"

I can't imagine that's common for other professions. Basically they want to know what it is we do from January to July since our season runs August to December.

Like most coaches I love the fall season. The competition, the crowds, the travel, and hopefully the success all make it exciting. But I also really love the "off season." The rewards might come in the fall but the rewarding part of coaching happens in the off season.

The way we structure our year, even though our playing season is in the fall, is to start new every January. I want the players to understand the connection between the different phases of the year starting with winter workouts all the way to the fall season. Our whole year is building toward something. We realize that the incoming freshmen won't be joining us until the fall. That's ok. We have a plan for that.

So what's the focus in the off-season? Pretty simple:

1. Develop the people;

2. Build the team.

The technical, tactical and physical parts of the game are important, but frankly they are overrated. You win with PEOPLE. You win with TEAM. You win with MINDSET. I'm not a big proponent of the word culture. Or pointing to traditions. A topic for my next blog post. But I am a firm believer that you must focus on people.

Our coaching philosophy is an adaptation of Brett Ledbetter's CPR (Character > Process > Results).

People > Process > Performance > Results

Essentially the people drive the process, which drives the performance, which drives the results. While the idea originated from Brett's CPR, I believe our equation is a more thorough representation of our philosophy. Plus I didn't really want a coaching philosophy named after a life saving procedure where 93% of the time it is performed people die (I kid of course).

While we are always emphasizing personal growth with our student-athletes, now is the time of year where a small coaching staff like ours can really drill deep and hopefully help everyone in our program move forward.

That's why this is the most rewarding time of year for our coaching staff.