The title of this article is a phrase that I first became aware of when hearing Greg Schiano speak at the New York State High School Coaches Clinic in February of 2008. Up to that point, I can honestly say that if a person outside of football were to ask me to describe my job, I wouldn’t have been able to adequately fulfill the request. Since that time, that mantra has been used to help develop and frame my coaching practice and on a macro-level has been something that we have used at Cornell under Coach Archer to develop the program.
That is not to say there have been several bumps and forks in the road towards using those two core words as a foundation for action. It simply means that when adversity strikes as it does most of the time for coaches, reactions and adjustments can be grounded by spiraling back to that which does not change. That is, recruit players that are talented enough to beat who you play and then develop them in all areas to the best of your ability with the resources that you have. This is something that has always been true but it is those ultra-successful coaches like Coach Schiano who not only preach it but live it.
At no time is this more effective than when attempting to bounce back from a loss as we are doing now. As we reflect on the previous game and use what we learn to help defeat the next opponent, conversations centered around “players not plays” are paramount and dominate our discussions. Which players did they have (that presumably we could have or should have had in our program) were the ones that hurt us? Which players did we have matched up against them? What about them innately (recruit) or in our teaching (develop) that failed on that particular play to cause the breakdown that let toward our collective failure? With development in other areas (strength, conditioning, nutrition, affective/emotional) will that player be different in the future, even this coming week?
All of the above and several other angles are what we are attempting to use in order to improve our coaching as we move forward knowing that how we move and interact with the pieces of our own puzzle will determine our fate. In the end, most of us have some fairly decent ideas when we draw the pictures on the board. However, and perhaps much to our own continual chagrin and amazement, it remains all about the people.