Beating the Odds
Wanting Great Things
My family just returned from a vacation on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where we got a close-up of people trying to get the most out of their time away.
Whether it was a walk on the beach or para-sailing over the Sound, these vacationers wanted great things out of their week by the ocean.
This idea carries [...]
Great Players, Failed Coaches
Diego Maradona’s ouster as Argentina’s soccer coach renews the debate over great players and their potential to be great coaches.
As this Sports Illustrated article points out, Maradona’s recent experience as a World Cup coach ended far less successfully than his stint as World Cup player.
And so it is with many athletes. So often the [...]
Results or Reasons?
We just finished a TotalGamePlan volleyball camp with 16 young women at the Verona Community Center in Verona, N.J.
The week went well, except for one drill. No one had any energy. No one seemed to want to improve. So not wanting to have a losing drill, the coaches made it a learning drill.
Calling the girls [...]
In it or into it?
Do you know someone who is totally into what they’re doing? Tell us about it!
Here’s why we want to know. The difference between in and into is the difference between greatness and mediocrity.
You can be in school or into school. You can be in a sport or into a sport. You can be in a [...]
Initial Ability and Final Ability
Sorry to have neglected the blog for so long. Various book projects are taking up time and energy. But today the message is so important that I had to get it out there. Think of it as: How to grow the next Phil Mickelson.
Jeff Beer is the golf coach at the Montclair Kimberley Academy in [...]
What Is Possible?
Today posting resumes after a hiatus to finish a book I wrote with Gary Pritchard, called “10 Things Great Coaches Know.”
It turns out that Opening Day of the baseball season, the final game of the NCAA basketball tourney and an episode of “Dancing With the Stars” all intersected.
And what unites these three apparently unrelated events? [...]
Are You Great?
Spring has brought the usual array of new baseball books, and one of them should catch the eye of coaches everywhere.
It’s called “The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong,” by David Shenk.
The content shouldn’t come as any surprise if you’ve read books like “The [...]
Being the Best
We just finished two weeks of watching athletes who fought to be the best. Now March Madness gives us another example.
Tina Charles recently became UConn’s career leader in scoring and rebounds and stands as quite possibly the best player in the country entering the tournament season.
“She told me when she came to Connecticut, that she [...]
Problems and Possibilities
Every problem disguises a possibility.
And so it is with all the snowstorms, which, among other things, have complicated life for baseball and softball coaches around large parts of the United States.
Fields are covered with snow. One coach in Virginia told me he doesn’t expect to even see green until April.
Even so, the schedule will not [...]
Canada’s New Hero
I first heard of Sidney Crosby years ago when a sports writer friend mentioned a young man who was supposed to be the next Wayne Gretzky. Hockey insiders had even anointed him “The Next One.”
Now, of course, this young man no longer has to be the next Gretzky. It’s quite enough for him to be [...]
