Archives for the Month of March 2006 on Angelo Mirando's Online Journal
Management in Sports Post 12 Intercultural Relations
When a coach is recruiting a player he/she has to take a different approach to recruiting players from different backrounds. For example when a Catholic kid comes in to take a tour on a Friday and its lent they have to make sure when they bring in food to not have any meat. They have to make ajustments for each potential student athlete. Certain kids who have substandard grades to get in to Case have to be set up with an admissions counsler to give them an extra edge in getting in. Ofcourse not all of them get in but this does help. Kids from different cultures also stay with players from their backround. If an African American student athlete is staying over he will stay with another African American player or someone who has alot of African American friends. Our coaches do this so as to make the future athlete feel as comfortable as possible on their visit. This will also give us another added edge. These are just an example of what our coaches do to make sure the athletes coming in feel like home.
Management in Sports Post 12 Intercultural Relations
When a coach is recruiting a player he/she has to take a different approach to recruiting players from different backrounds. For example when a Catholic kid comes in to take a tour on a Friday and its lent they have to make sure when they bring in food to not have any meat. They have to make ajustments for each potential student athlete. Certain kids who have substandard grades to get in to Case have to be set up with an admissions counsler to give them an extra edge in getting in. Ofcourse not all of them get in but this does help. Kids from different cultures also stay with players from their backround. If an African American student athlete is staying over he will stay with another African American player or someone who has alot of African American friends. Our coaches do this so as to make the future athlete feel as comfortable as possible on their visit. This will also give us another added edge. These are just an example of what our coaches do to make sure the athletes coming in feel like home.
Management in Sports Post 11 Innovation
Football is always innovating and redifining itself. When football first started it was a game where the football was never thrown in the air. It was always handed off to a running back, three yards and a cloud of dust is what they called it. Then Walter Camp brought in the forward pass which revolutionized the game. Now defenses had to defend against the pass and this is where different coverages started to pop up. The shotgun formation was formed in the 50's (the inventor just died several years ago) and it was popularized by the Dallas Cowboys. Now offenses are going to a spread formation. The spread consists of a quarterback in the shotgun position with four or five wide outs running various complex routes. Urban Meyer (an Ashtabula graduate) made it very popular at Bowling Green, Utah, and now Florida. Every year someone has a new formation, new defense, new blocking scheme that helps to make football a constantly changing sport. These innovations make football such a great sport.
Management in Sports Post 10 Safety
As a football coach you have to make sure that your team is safe. Purchasing the right equipment is a crititcal aspect of safety as are many other things that a coach can control. During training camp you are trying to get your team into the best running shape possible so during the game they are not tired. But when you run your team to much they start developing over use injuries. This past year we had seven guys pull their hamstrings because of all the running that we were doing. Our training staff had to tell our coaches to cut down on our running and our coaches finally did. This is one instance where our coaches thought they were helping us but actually hurting us. Our safety was being put in harms way.
Management in Sports Post 9 Leadership
Leadership involves several important and distinct, yet interrelated, constructs, including influence, intention, personal responsibility, shared purpose or vision, followers, and change. (Tucker Ch 11). Playing quarterback involves all of these characteristics. As a quarterback you have to be the first one on the field and the last one off. Showing your teammates that you will sacrifice your personal time to be the best you can be. When you mess up you have to take responsibility for your mistake, not blaming anyone but yourself. The teams visions should be embraced by the QB. In taking this vision onto the field will give a good influence to your teammates that you are a team player. The quarterback is the leader of the team and needs to act like it, act like the CEO of the team. If the team respects you then they will follow you into battle.
Management in Sports Post 8 Developing Professionally
In chapter four of Tucker they talk about how to develop your career. The career that I am pursuing is coaching. To become a coach you have to work your way up starting as a Graduate assistant who is basically a slave to the head coach. But the G.A. spot is one where you can make a lot of different contacts that will help you get a full time job when your two years as a G.A. is up. Being a G.A. is very demanding and your schedule is very busy, going from class, to the football field to breaking down film at all hours of the night. You have to be as professional as possible because this professionalism will show your bosses (head coach and all the assistants) that you are serious about being a coach. A coaches life consists of jumping from job to job to not only learn from different coaches but to advancing your career. You might start at a small Div. 1 school then gradually build yourself to a full time assistant who has a small role (wide receivers coach) to an assistant with more responsibility (offensive cordinator). Then you might get a chance as a head coach. This whole process can take more then a decade.
Management in Sports Post 7 Motivation
In a response to a comment about motivation our coaches attempted to motivate the team about the new training program but were not successful. They brought the team together and told us about how strong this new program would get us. They never gave us examples of people who use this program or showed us gains that people made on it. Our team did not believe in this program because they did not see results that other people had. I'm guessing that if the coaches really believed in the program and had to do it all over again they would have showed the players how much someone increased their bench/squat/clean off of this program. In not doing this some of the team put forth a less then adequate effort.