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 a lesson for coaches and student-athletes who want great things in the coming school year. And the lesson is this: It’s nothing special to want great things. Everyone does. Everybody who goes on vacation, everybody who plays the lottery, everybody who plays a game or takes a test wants great things to happen.

But not everyone is willing to do what it takes to make those great things happen. They think that good things will somehow materialize in their lives. It doesn’t work that way. There’s a connection between what you do and what you get.

In our gym, we have a saying: Extraordinary preparation leads to extraordinary results. If you want great results, you better take a look at how you’re preparing. If you prepare in an ordinary way, you will get ordinary results. And if you prepare in a sloppy way, you can guess what kind of results you will get.

For instance, back in June, coaches all over the state asked their athletes do some extra work this summer. Some athletes have ignored it, some have done it halfway, and some have done it to the best of their ability.

What do you suppose it will be like to compete against someone who has done it fully if you have not done it at all?

As you embark on another school year, ask yourself this question: What do I want out of this year? Once you know the answer to that question, you can then challenge yourself with another: Am I willing to do what it takes to get what I want?

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 great coaches and managers are people who had to scratch to survive during their playing careers. Phil Jackson, who recently won his 11th NBA title. He was far from a legend as a player.

Same for Tommy Lasorda, who led the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of World Series titles.

By contrast, it’s difficult to name many superstar athletes who matched their playing achievements after crossing over to the other side of the bench. Joe Torre is one of the exceptions, putting together a stellar managerial career after being a star player.

Those who must work hard to be great managers bring to mind the subject of praise, and how important it is for coaches to focus on the right thing when they praise their athletes.

This article in New York magazine  – it’s called “The Inverse Power of Praise” — looks at the work of Stanford researcher Carol Dweck, who says that praising a child for intelligence can backfire. It’s better, says the article, to praise hard work, progress and achievement.

And that’s perhaps how average athletes become great managers. They understand hard work better than superstars. They must work harder than the stars to progress and achieve. They can never rest, which is good practice for when they coach!

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, we asked this question: Would you rather have results or reasons?

It’s an important question for anyone who wants to accomplish anything worthwhile. Reasons are always easier than results. It’s always easier to find reasons why something DIDN’T happen than to have the toughness to make sure it DOES happen.

You can be sure that fans of the Miami Heat want results now that LeBron James has joined their team. No one wants reasons.

To illustrate the point about results and reasons, we asked the girls at our camp to start listing REASONS why the drill didn’t go well. Here are some of their answers:

It’s too hot.

It’s too hard.

It’s too unfamiliar.

The other girl keeps messing it up.

I don’t like this drill.

I don’t see why this drill is important.

Pretty soon we had filled up the whiteboard with all reasons why we hadn’t done well. There were lots of reasons, and few results.

No matter what you’re doing in life, this question about reasons and results can guide and challenge you. Let’s say you’re a student who has been assigned some summer reading. At the end of summer vacation, will you have results or reasons? How about New Year’s and your resolutions? One week into January, will you have results or reasons?

One other thing: Do you suppose winners have results or reasons?

Coach Tully and Gary Pritchard have teamed up to produce the book: “Ten Things Great Coaches Know.” It’s available at:
http://www.tenthingsgreatcoachesknow.com.

You can be in school or into school. You can be in a sport or into a sport. You can be in a relationship or into it.

You get the idea.

People achieve great things because they are totally into what they are doing.
So tell us. Call this number: (973) 743-4690. You will hear about an essay contest.

You do the rest.

There is no catch, no obligation. This contest is just Dr. Rob Gilbert’s way of learning about people who are into it. Call the number now!

No written word, no spoken plea
Can teach our youth what they should be
Nor all the books on all the shelves
It’s what the teachers are themselves

Jeff Beer is the golf coach at the Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, N.J. His team recently won the state championship. He credits the fact that there is a strong junior varsity team in place at the school. Here is his story:

“The thing that was so satisfying about the season was that of the four top players, three of them really developed their game in the high school years by playing on the JV team at MKA. When I started to coach at MKA, I felt that it was important to have a JV because I hated to turn away interested golfers and because I thought it was important for us to develop talent at MKA.

“The three players who made this dramatic development did so with the help of outside instruction.  Golf is a very technical sport and there is no substitute for a PGA certified instructor.  But I believe that they were motivated to work on their games because through the JV program there was a place for them to play at MKA.

“One of the three was completely unformed as a golfer as a ninth-grader.  When I played with him I was literally afraid that he might hit me with the ball even if I was standing off to the side.  When he game back as a sophomore, after working tirelessly on his game during the summer, I could not believe he was the same person.

“Another one of the players was also completely clueless as a freshman.  He barely knew how to address the ball on a putt.  This same player shot a 1-under par 35 in windy conditions, at a very challenging course in a dual match.

“In the case of these players, I truly believe that the fact that we had a place for them to play on a JV team made all the difference in the world, and they accomplished something over the course of four years that no MKA team has accomplished since 2002.

Coach Beer is raising a profound issue here. If you want to have a great program, you must attract as many people as possible, then give them opportunity and direction. You never know which of them will become a great player. Initial ability and final ability are not closely related.

In too many programs, the junior varsity is a throwaway program, and by far most of the attention goes to the varsity. Instead, stop thinking about JUNIOR varsity and start thinking about the FUTURE varsity.

Thank you, Coach Beer. You did a tremendous job of motiving young people.

“But that was only warmup,” she said.

Only warmup?

What could be more important than a strong warmup?

Warmup sets the tone — physically, mentally and emotionally — for what will come in the rest of the practice.

If your warmup is sloppy, chances are the rest of the practice will be, too.

If the warmup cuts corners, or lacks attention to detail, then what are the odds the practice will get any better from that point?

On the other hand, if you approach practice with a will and an aim to improve, you increase your odds of achieving that improvement.

“I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough,” basketball Hall of Famer Larry Bird said. “I still wonder if somebody — somewhere — was practicing more than me.”

But it was more than the AMOUNT Bird practiced that made him great. It was the WAY he practiced. He never gave away a single shot. Never allowed himself to get sloppy.

And you can bet that included his warmup.

You’re closer than you think.

In a very real sense, everyone is living a version of “Dancing With the Stars.”

Just consider the format. The dancers get a certain period of time — one week — to prepare. Then they must perform and get judged.

Isn’t that just like life? In school, you get a certain amount of time to study, then you take a test. In sports, you get a certain amount of time to practice, then you play a game.

It all comes down to what you do with the amount of preparation time you’re given.

On “Dancing With the Stars,” you get a glimpse of how the couples spend their practice time. Sometimes they argue, sometimes they cooperate. Sometimes they focus well, sometimes they don’t.

But here’s the key. The preparation time is entirely in their control. It’s a matter of decisions that they make, and the commitment they show toward getting the job done.

What if your practice time was on television? What kind of reality how would that be? Would it be a comedy? Or would it be a documentary on how to excel?

Remember, it’s your choice.

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? Tommy Lasorda does.

Lasorda, former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and now a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame, used to say this about the baseball season:

No matter how bad you are, you’re probably going to win about a third of your games. And no matter how good you are, you’re probably going to lose about a third of your games. It’s that middle third that separates the winners from the losers, and that middle third depends on habits and attitudes.

This principle applies whether you’re dancing, playing basketball or baseball, or whatever. Attitude and habits win.

When Gordon Hayward’s shot at the buzzer barely missed, allowing Duke to beat Butler in the NCAA final, Coach Mike Krzyzewski owned his fourth national title. You can draw your own conclusions about the attitudes and habits in his gym.

As for baseball, no one puts much emphasis on winning on Opening Day, because there are 161 games to go. And the correct attitude is to be ready for all of them. Baseball players try never to get too high or too low because there’s always another game for which to prepare.

And on “Dancing With the Stars,” I’m fascinated by the fact that all the contestants have the same amount of time — one week — to rehearse. The team that gets the most out of practice wins.

“What is possible?  What you will,” said  Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, in “Guesses at Truth,” by Two Brothers, 1827.

Same way with you. What’s possible in your life depends on what you will.

Ron Lundy, a legendary New york disc jockey for decades, died earlier this month at the age of 75. Lundy was renowned for a sparkling, cheerful drawl that warmed all his listeners.

One day in my college years, back when I aspired to be a DJ, I had the chance to visit the WABC studio and watch Lundy do his show.

Three impressions remain:

First, it was not a big or fancy studio. In fact, sitting there it was impossible to believe that this little room produced all the music that entertained millions of people across several states.

Second, Lundy had fun recalling the Top-40 radio formula taught to him years earlier. “Light, bright and tight,” he kept repeating to those in the studio while he was not on the air. “Light, bright and tight.” In other words, be cheerful and efficient with words.

Finally, the formula comes in threes: “Light. Bright. Tight.”

Putting this together for anyone who is a leader, it means that your facility need not be fancy. It merely needs to stand for something, to have a formula. Can your team philosophy be easily expressed and understood?

And finally, it helps to think in threes. Three objectives. Three points of emphasis. Three of anything.
Ron Lundy. He was a daily touchstone and a role model. Wo knew that one day he would be a coach?