S B Coaches College - Tip of the Month October 2006




		S B Coaches College Tip of the Month October 2006

Do you have problems with your athletes not working towards their capabilities? Do they complain about having to work? Do they not bring “it” everyday to practice and training?

If you answered “YES” to any of these questions, it’s most likely because your athletes lack DICE. What is DICE you ask? It’s an acronym for the following qualities that make up success:

1. Desire
2. Intensity
3. Consistency
4. Effort

Many people have their own thoughts and beliefs about what each of these qualities mean but let’s look at their dictionary definitions and how they affect success.

Desire
to wish or long for; crave; want.

Intensity
great energy, strength, concentration, vehemence, etc., as of activity, thought, or feeling

Consistency
steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form, etc.

Effort
exertion of physical or mental power

To truly achieve success in life or in athletics we must show a desire to improve ourselves, we need to attack our work with intensity, we need to be consistent everyday, and we have to put forth a tremendous amount of effort towards improving. I often tell my athletes, that they are 24 hour athletes. Meaning that they must do all of the things outside of training to ensure that they will be striving towards success. This means that they have to focus on proper nutrition, getting adequate rest, studying hard to obtain good grades, and treating others with respect.

You can write down all the goals that you want, but if you don’t work towards them with desire, intensity, consistency, and effort you’ll just be wasting your time.
The goal of one of my teams is to get to the NCAA tournament. I asked this team how we were going to get there and these were the following responses:

1. Play as a team
2. Play great defense
3. Out rebound the opponent
4. Train
5. Be Positive

I responded that those are great points, but if you don’t consciously do those 5 things without desire, intensity, consistency and effort you will never achieve your goal. You must get this point across to your athletes and clients if they really want to experience success.

Athletes go through 3 phases as they grow on a team. Those three phases are:
1. They are just happy to be on the team
2. They just want to play.
3. They just want to start.
And finally, if they internalize these 3 stages . . .
They want to win.

If you want to step up your game and take it to the next level . . .
progress through to the next phase from the one you are currently living.