My dearest Avaleigh,
First, let me begin by saying that we just had a great Christmas. It was your second Christmas and it was so much fun. The toys, the family, the look on your face when you saw what Santa brought you…but this is more than about Christmas.
These letters (or this blog) are supposed to be about lessons that I want to teach you as you go on your journey through life. I have been reminded over and over the past few days about what my coaching philosophy was and what I tried to instill in the young men I coached.
Everything I did as a coach was based off of one of these three thoughts. I hope you use them to guide you on your journey. They are:
1. Winners act like winners before they are winners.
Avaleigh, it’s simple. You want to be great, then you have to take on the characteristics of those who possess greatness. Those who have achieved greatness developed certain characteristics that “winners” have. It could be work ethic, it would be an insatiable hunger for success, or it could be a passion for learning new things. But before you can excel in your chosen field, you are going to have to start taking those characteristics and make them your personal habit. As a principal, I have struggled in a few areas. I am working towards improving those. I wanted to be a more reflective thinker, so I have developed this as one of the tools I wanted to try to get more into vision and developing my personal philosophy, so I am reading more books by great leaders.
It’s a simple concept, but one that isn’t followed by many. If you want to be great, you have to do things that will make you great first. If you stink at something, you aren’t going to wake up one day and just magically be better. You are going to have to start doing those things that will make you better.
2. Teach/learn/develop good habits.
This was one of the unspoken rules that I think made me a good coach. I showed them how to dress, how to act, how to do a lot of things that didn’t relate to baseball, but it related to how to do things right. Personally, I believe it carried over the field. I wanted young men I could count on to do the right thing on the field, so I had to teach them the little things in life that would make them successful. Hence, success off the field begets success on the field. Showing up on time, taking care of grades, putting in a lot of time into perfecting your craft….it all carried over to the field and impacted our team and our program’s culture in a positive way. That is something that you can’t lose sight of…never. Learn to do the things that matter and learn how to do them well.
3. No excuses, no explanations.
This is a big one to me.
I challenge you to take complete responsibility for your decisions. I want you to do this because I think it will make you great. In life, people often make excuses for our bad decisions. We explain away our behavior so as to justify it to ourselves and others. Own what you do. There is no faiures, rather only lessons learned. Live the words of Jesus, “The truth will set you free.” Only when we stop blaming others and take responsibility for every aspect of our lives can we really be happy and free.
I’m sure this is years away from making sense, but I hope one day this is one of my letters you spend a lot of time reading and thinking about.
I will love you today, tomorrow, and forever,
Daddy
Dad of Girls 