This week, my co-presenter the gold medal winning coach Hugh McCutcheon and I continue our exploration of Thriving Teams with the American Football coach Mike Bloomgren.

Mike started his career in 2000 as a graduate assistant and the the University of Alabama..

He then held various assistant roles before starting at the New York Jets in 2007. From there he moved to Stanford under David Shaw where he was part of the coaching staff that won the Pac 12 championship in 2012, 2013 and 2015.

In 2017 he was appointed head coach of Rice University.

Mike has terrific energy and some of the highlights of our interview were:

• His belief that optimism and pessimism are infectious when you are the leader, and they spread more rapidly from the head down than any other direction.
• The structured way he goes about building connection across the 107 players and 50 staff and their families, and the role this plays in building a sense of care across the team.
• His philosophy which he describes as Intellectual Brutality, and the role this plays in unlocking the decision making power of the athletes.

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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