Originally published in an Adam Sarancik Book

Most college coaches have similar goals, philosophies, and priorities when recruiting athletes for their program. In short, they want people, athletes, and players who tangibly have sports skills to improve their team and intangibles that fit the culture of their program. Whether on video or in person, they want to see someone who is or has the potential to be better as a player than what they currently have on their team while at the same time has the character traits to persevere through any adversity on or off the field/court and to synergize the team to be better than it thought it could be.

In the past, this process could be summarized as coaches seeking people who fit who we are and who we want to be and players who feel the same about them and their program. Unfortunately, today, this is not enough. Once coaches successfully recruit players to their program, they must re-recruit them to stay with the program.

Why? The players are allowed to be paid to play, and the services of the players are available to the highest bidder. Players who are not starters will transfer without losing eligibility to a college where they will play more even if they are not paid more or at all. Many players who are starters will transfer simply to get paid more at a program of similar quality.

This monetizing mindset of players begins in their youth. From a very early age, many players obsessively train for and play sports year-round chasing trophies and championships to the exclusion of a balanced life. The priority of athletic skill development supersedes the development in every other part of their life.

Most elite athletes today spend many, many more hours training to be better players in multiple sports than they do studying to be better students in multiple academic and non-athletic disciplines. Most will never hold a regular job nor do charity work on a regular basis. They will certainly pull few, if any, weeds.

When it comes time to choose a college, they will simply participate in tournaments or talent showcases to see what colleges will pay the most to have them play for their program. The amount of money they are willing to offer and the quality of the athletic program are, by far, the most important factors to players when choosing a college. Any consideration of the quality and fit of the academic side of the school are a far distant second, assuming the player has discerned what career they may want to pursue and that they and their parents even know how to properly evaluate a school in this regard.

To be fair, college coaches and private trainers feed this misguided approach by constantly advocating for multi-sport athletes while ignoring the reality that simply participating in multiple sports will not develop most players to be elite. To achieve elite status, most players will need to train regularly as players and as athletes for many hours outside of the sport. Furthermore, most sports programs will require that to be on the best teams a player must participate in the sport in months outside the regular season.

There are only so many hours in a day, but is there a better approach?

What if every year in high school, a student-athlete who wanted to play a sport at the highest level in college trained for and participated in that sport for four months, held a job (3 days) and trained as an athlete (3 days) for four months, and spent an equivalent amount of time in the remaining four months of the year mastering skills in and outside of school in technical areas and the fine arts and doing charity work?

Arguably, if the same dedication, work ethic, and discipline were applied by the player to this approach, they would have both the athletic and sport skills, as well as, the intangibles the recruiting coaches would be looking for. More importantly, the player would choose a college with the proper priority of academic excellence and fit to provide education and job opportunities toward a career of self-actualization and life-long happiness.

The player would also have the most persuasive intangible a recruiting coach could possibly ask for, i.e., no need to re-recruit them. They could honestly tell the coach that whether they start or play at all, they are not leaving the school because they chose the school first as a student.

Coaches talk all the time that they have many choices of players with relatively equal tangible skills, but the deciding factors are the intangibles. Is there a more powerful and potentially decisive recruiting factor than for a player to tell a coach they are not going to transfer no matter what happens in the sport?

Adam Sarancik is the Author of Four Amazon Top 100 Best Selling Baseball Coaching Books:

• Coaching Champions for Life – The Process of Mentoring the Person, Athlete and Player
• Takeaway Quotes for Coaching Champions for Life
• A Ground Ball to Shortstop – How and Why Coaches See Their Game Differently Than Anyone Else
• Teacher, Role Model, Mentor: Lessons Learned From a Lifetime in Coaching

  ]]> https://coachesinsider.com/track-x-country/the-decisive-intangible-for-all-college-athlete-recruits-7/feed/ 0 123797 https://coachesinsider.com/track-x-country/championship-culture-study-excellence-and-mastery-with-kebba-tolbert-harvard-univ/ https://coachesinsider.com/track-x-country/championship-culture-study-excellence-and-mastery-with-kebba-tolbert-harvard-univ/#respond Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:01:22 +0000 https://coachesinsider.com/?p=43756 Watch as Coach Kebba Tolbert explains that if you want to establish a championship culture - you must look to others who have done it. It is impossible to do everything by yourself so study others and take bits and pieces that you can incorporate into your program.

Scott Christensen was previously a coach at Stillwater Area High School (MN).

Click here for Robert Schinke's book, Gifted: 8 Steps to Succeeding in Sport, Work, and Life.

Watch the full presentation with Robert Schinke free here.

Even if the last game of the season ends in a victory, the off-season begins for me after the last out of that game. Next season, I know I must be better and my team must be better. I begin to immediately analyze the ways we met and did not meet our goals for our team becoming better people, athletes, and players. Here are the things I think all coaches should do during the off-season to maximize their chances of having the best possible outcome for the next season. You will note that everything I advise my players to do, I require first from myself.

1. Ensure there is balance in your life. One of my favorite quotes about coaching is, "Your family loves you not your job. Be sure they are getting the best of you, not the rest of you." The personal lives of many coaches suffer because during the season and in the off-season, the coach does not devote the same amount of time, energy, and effort toward the success and happiness of their family as they do to their team and sport.
2. Recruit more qualified assistant coaches and get to know them on a personal level.If the head coach is going to maintain a balanced life, they need to be able to delegate coaching responsibilities to other coaches they trust to have the same coaching ability and philosophy as their own. A head coach must not only get to know what and how their assistant coaches teach, but they must also know generally about their family life and their personality so they can effectively collaborate and communicate with them during the season.
3. Make yourself a better athlete and a better player. In amateur athletics, telling is not teaching. If your players are going to learn and improve, you and your assistant coaches must be able to demonstrate what you expect them to do. And this includes the athletic skills, e.g., dynamic movement and stretching, running, Plyometrics, etc., as well as, all of the sports skills.
4. Go watch other elite coaches in your sport and in other sports coach at practice and in games. When you study other successful coaches, you will see that while their personalities may differ, their methodology in establishing a winning culture and in teaching will have many similarities. You will be able to borrow and adapt what makes them successful to help you be more successful. Ask yourself; in what ways do they work to make the members of their team better people, athletes, and players? Do not watch the game as much as watch them coach. Do not watch the ball and the result of the play as much as what happens off the ball and the process of achieving the result.
5. Get better resources to improve your coaching methodology. Every day, read books and articles, watch videos, and listen to podcasts produced by the most respected people in coaching and in leadership generally. Do not simply do what every other coach does. Be better and be better for good reasons, your reasons. However, always remember, "Master teaching what you know before expanding what you teach."
6. Get more proficient at technology. In most sports, technology can provide valuable coaching tools to improve your team members as athletes and players. Technology may be the best way to connect and communicate with your players because they have been proficient with technology before they even began school. There are many technology programs and devices used in almost every sport. Coaches need to learn which ones are the best for their players and team. The head coach and/or the assistant coaches must be proficient at using them. Just be sure not to overuse technology to the point it replaces your eyes and what your coaching experience and your relationship with your players tells you. Technology can also be overused to the point where players cannot think or feel for themselves during competition.
7. Get to know your players on a personal level. It is essential that if you are going to train your team members to be better athletes and develop them as players, you must connect, validate, and support them as people so you earn their trust to coach them during vulnerable and difficult experiences. Meet with returning players socially outside sporting venues to get to know them. For new players, talk with their prior coaches about the personalities, the learning styles, and the personal challenges of those players.
8. Train your players to be better athletes and develop their individual sports skills. One of the primary goals of every athlete during the off-season should be to get bigger, stronger, faster, quicker and more agile. This will take months of work in a gym and at home (e.g., nutrition, hydration, rest, quality sleep, etc.) tailored to the individual's needs and not just from a white board in a P.E. class. The off-season will afford you much more time to develop the sport skills of the player than during the season.
9. Set SMART goals for the upcoming season for each member of the team and for the team itself. SMART = Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Trackable through Time goals. It is essential that these goals include all three of the Champions for Life categories: better people, better athletes, and better players. Better People = Better Athletes = Better players/Teammates = Champions for Life.
10. Prepare practice plan templates for the upcoming season. Do not wait until the week before the season begins to develop your practice plan templates. You and your assistant coaches should prepare, analyze, and revise them many times before the season starts. Of course, the templates will need to be adapted and revised as you get to know your team and how the season is progressing, but you need to have concrete plans for how you will make them better people, better athletes, and better players. Remember always, "We coach people not sports – it is the quality of the person, not the player that is the most significant outcome." Use quotes, acronyms, role plays, and guest speakers in your practice plans to be sure you are connecting the sport experiences and lessons to the other areas of your players’ lives now and in the future. "We coach life lessons proactively within the game for beyond the game."

Adam Sarancik is the Author of Four Amazon Top 100 Best Selling Baseball Coaching Books:

• Coaching Champions for Life – The Process of Mentoring the Person, Athlete and Player
• Takeaway Quotes for Coaching Champions for Life
• A Ground Ball to Shortstop – How and Why Coaches See Their Game Differently Than Anyone Else
• Teacher, Role Model, Mentor: Lessons Learned From a Lifetime in Coaching

  ]]> https://coachesinsider.com/track-x-country/the-ten-most-important-things-a-coach-should-do-in-the-off-season-3/feed/ 0 122997 https://coachesinsider.com/track-x-country/inclement-weather-coaching-tools-folding-chair-hurdles-with-shelton-ervin-summer-creek-hs-tx/ https://coachesinsider.com/track-x-country/inclement-weather-coaching-tools-folding-chair-hurdles-with-shelton-ervin-summer-creek-hs-tx/#respond Tue, 07 Oct 2025 20:10:11 +0000 https://coachesinsider.com/?p=122593 Watch as Coach Shelton Ervin discusses tools to continue training in inclement weather. Folding chairs can be used and set up to act as hurdles for hurdle mobility and turnover drills. Doing these drills allows practice on mechanics and hurdle mobility even when outdoor spaces aren't available.