$389 Neill Collins, Former Barnsley and Tampa Bay Rowdies Manager, on Building Relationships, Trust, Values, and Taking the Long View in a Short Term Focused Environment

Neill Collins is a former professional soccer player, with nearly 600 appearances across clubs such as Sunderland, Leeds, Wolves, Sheffield United, and the Tampa Bay Rowdies. As a player he won promotion to the English Premier League with both Wolves and Sunderland, and played under managers such as Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy. In 2018 he became head coach of the Rowdies, and during his tenure reached two USL Championship Final games and was named USL Championship coach of the year. In 2023 he left to manage Barnsley in League One, and was in a 5th place promotion playoff spot when he was fired in April 2024 with one game to play.

In our wide ranging conversation today, we discuss his playing journey and the necessity of dealing with adversity and looking at difficult moments as opportunities, and how that has carried into his coaching career. We discuss how to win in the locker room, first, how important it is to connect not just with your top players but those who do not play much, and how to have difficult yet truthful conversations. It is a wonderful talk with  professional working at the top level of coaching in a very difficult environment ho still demonstrates the need to focus on the person and not just the athlete. 

NEW WOC MASTERMIND AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

As you may have heard, we decided to cancel our 2024 Way of Champions Conference, which opens up the opportunity for us to begin a year long mastermind and coach certification program in the Way of Champions and CTGP materials. If you want to simply take a deeper dive then ever offered before into your coaching and personal development, or work within your school or club improving coaching or transforming the culture, or you want to hit the road as a speaker and presenter working with teams and youth sports organizations, we will give you the tools and support to do so. We are collecting names who are interested at this moment in learning more, you can do so by clicking here and adding your name and email to the list.

PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS! Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Stanford Lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers University, and many other champions are using THE CHAMPION TEAMMATE book with their athletes. Schools and clubs are using EVERY MOMENT MATTERS for staff development and book clubs. Are you?  We have been fulfilling numerous bulk orders for some of the top high school and collegiate sports programs in the country, will your team be next?

Click here to visit John’s author page on Amazon

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Please email John@ChangingTheGameProject.com if you want discounted pricing on 10 or more books on any of our books. Thanks everyone.

This week’s podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sprocket Sports.  Sprocket Sports is a new software platform for youth sports clubs.  There are a lot of these systems out there, but Sprocket provides the full enchilada. They give you all the cool front-end stuff to make your club look good– like websites and marketing tools – AND all the back-end transactions and services to run your business better so you can focus on what really matters – your players and your teams.

Sprocket is built for those clubs looking to thrive, not just survive, in the competitive world of youth sports clubs.  So if you’ve been looking for a true business partner – not just another app – check them out today at https://sprocketsports.me/CTG.

Become a Podcast Champion! This weeks podcast is also sponsored by our Patreon Podcast Champions. Help Support the Podcast and get FREE access to our most popular online courses, a $300 value. If you love the podcast, we would love for you to become a Podcast Champion, (https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions) for as little as a cup of coffee per month (OK, its a Venti Mocha), to help us up the ante and provide even better interviews, better sound, and an overall enhanced experience. Plus, as a $10 per month Podcast Super-Champion, you will have access to never before released and bonus material, including:

• Downloadable transcripts of our best podcasts, so you don’t have to crash your car trying to take notes!
• A code to get free access to our online course called “Coaching Mastery,” usually a $97 course, plus four other courses worth over $100, all yours for free for becoming a patron.
• Other special bonus opportunities that come up time to time
• Access to an online community of coaches like you who are dedicated listeners of the podcast, and will be able to answer your questions and share their coaching experiences