Keeping the Team Focused and Motivated Mid Season - Levi Nelson (PCA), Loren Johnson (Highland Springs HS), Matt Drinkall (Army West Point)

When we hit the middle of the season one aspect to pay attention to is the mental and emotional state of our team. To this point in the season, there’s a range of successes or failures a team may have experienced. Things may be 100% on track for your goals as a team for the season, or the goals your team was focused on may be out of their control.

This is something that my coaching staff and I had to deal with at one of the high school programs I was leading. We hit the midpoint of the season expecting to be doing much better than we did. We hit adversity early and struggled. In our first game, we lost to a team that I scheduled because I knew it would be a challenge and we were looking to push our program forward with a stronger schedule. We won two games then lost a tight game and a double overtime game to two of the tougher opponents in our conference, so we sat at the midpoint with a conference championship and the playoffs out of our control.  

We could see emotionally that our team was drained after an adversity-packed beginning of the season that also included some injuries.

So what we decided to do was restart the season. When our players reported on Monday we said the way we see it is we have a five-game season. The past is out of our control, but we have five games that are in our control. We won four in a row starting with an overtime win over another tough conference opponent, and stood toe-to-toe with our rival losing late in our last game which became known locally as the mud bowl.

The restart gave our players new energy and truthfully it did the same for the staff.

In today’s episode, three coaches talk about keeping the team’s focus through celebrating things outside of wins and losses, focusing on a theme each week, and even outsourcing to the players the vocal messages before and after practice and even on game day

Show Notes:

Levi Nelson -Positive Coach Alliance

He talks about how he used a whiteboard and helmet stickers to recognize and award players for demonstrating the core values of their team and the impact it had on the team.

Loren Johnson, Head Coach of 5x state champion head coach of Highland Springs High School(VA)

Loren Johnson. He talks about how utilizing a weekly theme helps keep the team focused on the game in front of them rather than looking ahead or dwelling on previous games.

Matt Drinkall, Army Co-Offensive Coordinator

Coach Drinkall talks about the two things that do keep a team focused and motivated, but also what he has done to involve the players in leading more vocally and taking that out of the hands of the coaches.

Keeping a team focused and motivated in the grind of a long season whether it is going well or not as planned is important and really starts to come to light at the midpoint. Hopefully, this gives you a few ideas to help your team as you progress through the season. Be sure to check all the episodes of this designed to address the issues and aspects of the season. Go to coachandcoordinator.com for the entire catalog of episodes in this series. For a quick rundown of the ideas shared, sign up for our weekly tips sheet.

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