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Health & Fitness

Living Trophies

Every season players, coaches, and teams dream of winning trophies and cutting down the nets at the end of the season. The cold reality is that it just doesn’t happen for everyone. If your sole motivation is winning and taking home trophies, you’re in for a lifetime of frustration. In this week’s post we’ll discuss why we should focus on creating living trophies rather than winning them.

In the state of Missouri we have five classifications, or divisions, for both boys and girls high school basketball. That means only 10 teams get to finish their season with a win. The overwhelming majority end with a loss. If a team’s success is solely based upon wins and losses, the big picture isn’t being seen. As Coach John Wooden said, “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best your capable of becoming.”

What kind of world do we want? This is a simple yet profound question. I ask this because in coaching we must keep in mind the profound influence we have over youth. We have an opportunity to help shape the future through what we teach our athletes. If we want a better world, we need better people. In order to do this we must first model the behavior we want from our athletes or that we’d like to see in society. We must also explicitly teach character to our athletes. Our focus should be on building champions rather than winning championships. The wins, trophies, and championships will come.

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