Mental Thoughts Steve Spavital

by Steve Spavital :: Head Coach – Broken Arrow High School, Broken Arrow, OK

I would first like to acknowledge and thank The Coaches Insider for giving me this opportunity to share some ideas on our Football program. Secondly, I would like to express that my staff and I strongly believe in the ideas and methods I am discussing, which have helped us to be successful over the years.

I was a defensive coordinator for most of my career and developed a mindset full of passion with the purpose of having a great defense. Once I became a Head Coach I realized that I needed to redirect my mindset to benefit the success of the entire team. Change can be very difficult! Most coaches are not fundamentally opposed to change; it's just that change requires effort and causes discomfort. When you get right down to it, we try to avoid discomfort as much as possible. Technology has changed the way things are done and even the players we work with everyday are different from when we first started coaching. As coaches we sometimes take things for granted and expect our players to react to situations similar to what we have experienced.

When we work on practice organization as a staff there are two main goals we try to accomplish outside of our basic fundamentals and schemes. These include the development of a competitive mindset and turning them into action, along with depth development so that every player feels that they have a direct investment in our program. We are very aware of the mental make up of our players and how we need to challenge them to be team competitors.

It is imperative for coaches to incorporate competitive situations during practice with consequences. It is easier today for players to quit than to deal with the consequences, so it is our job to teach them. An example of a competitive scenario could be: Offense; 1 & 10 on the -20 with no time outs and must get a first down in order to run the clock out. Defense; has 2 timeouts and must stop the offense to punt and potentially create a winning field goal attempt. competitive situations not only develop a mindset but forces coaches to have a competitive plan. In this case defenses are usually more aggressive as they need to create negative yardage or a turn over. The consequences for all units are 10 up downs with coaches included.

The consequences you develop should not be punishment related. As a team we have won either way; but there must be a consequence in front of the team so each unit understands the situation. Competitive situation should be created at least 2 times during each practice session with all coaches and players unaware of the situations in advance. As the season progresses, you will find that every player has been exposed and competed in as many game like situations as possible. It is also important that these periods are focused on the situation at hand and not used as a toughness drill. Every situation should have a goal as it may take only 1 play to win or lose the competition. Therefore, how we as coaches and players handle these situation is just as important. Your ultimate goal is to develop players who want to compete in a high pressure situation with discipline on how they handle themselves.

Another concept on the mental approach in practices is to work on having your players feel invested in your program. This is accomplished through practice, coaching and acknowledgment. We will create complete units with our players on both sides of the ball and will hold each unit accountable the same. We will never practice by maneuvering individual players in and out of a unit as I feel this will not develop a team consistency or team unity. We trade complete units in and out to challenge that team, hold them accountable and to take full responsibility of that unit's outcome. This helps or forces coaches to strengthen depth in their position, which I feel is the greatest weakness of most coaches. I encourage all coaches to work on depth development, constantly talk about personnel and create competitive situations. By working with all players in this manner, you will not only keep everyone involved, but you will develop all players to handle high pressure situations, improve your depth evaluation and teach players how to celebrate each others success.

On behalf of Broken Arrow Football thank you for this opportunity – Good luck to all!

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