How do championship coaches engage players for maximum performance?
Chances are you're among the 120 million fans watching Super Bowl 50 this year. The event's at the "fantastically green" Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. We're inspired by #SB50's unprecedented and ambitious net-positive goal: "actively looking for ways to do good by focusing not only on environmental impacts, but also social and economic impacts to create lasting benefit for the region."
Jim Mercurio, 49ers VP in charge of stadium operations, told SI.com the sustainability mandate came straight from the San Francisco 49ers' York family -- and at no point were they interested in what he terms simply a greenwash: "We actually believe in making a difference and if we can do it in this small park here, maybe we can inspire others, whether for stadiums or in everyday life," Mercurio says.
Impressed by this marvelous vision, and surrounded as I am by devoted football fans, coaches, and players in my circle of family and friends, I scored (sorry) some championship advice for you to use and share. After all, football stars are people, too. Like the rest of of us, they often credit individual and team success to the same factors we all do.
Let's, er, kick off with outstanding leadership.
"Coach Rivera inspires us to be better in every part of our lives." -- Cam Newton, North Carolina Panthers Quarterback
The best team has a great sense of family. The best family has a great culture. Within that culture there is tremendous character. -- Ron Rivera's mantra, which he reportedly repeats to his team every day.
Chain reaction: It follows that Rivera gets his inspiration from his boss, Panthers' owner Jerry Richardson. Even in an epic losing season, Rivera says, "I always had optimism. I always had hope... Jerry told me, 'Ron, don't worry about what anybody says. Nothing is going to happen during the season. Don't look over your shoulder. You just do your job, and at the end of the year, we'll talk about the season and the future. I want you to concentrate on making sure that the team is getting better.'"
It worked, by the way.
Coaching tip #1. Support your star performers by eliminating unproductive distractions when the pressure is on.
Denver Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak says he learned most when he stepped back and carefully watching someone else in his accustomed top spot:
"After being a head coach for so long in this league, I got to sit in the back of that room instead of being the guy up front in the meetings, and it gave me a chance to watch John Harbaugh handle situations," Kubiak said. "You sit there and say to yourself, 'You know, I like that idea, and if I'm a head coach again, I'd probably do this the same way.' I learned watching him each and every day."
Coaching tip #2. Refresh your own game by observing colleagues you most admire. How do they lead?
Boston-born, gotta say my team is the New England Patriots, led by the most intriguing coach of them all, Bill Belichick. Let's pry inside his mind via bestselling biographer David Halberstam.
A key strategy developed early in Belichick's career: know your competition. The opponents' game films are "a ticket into a secret world, in which you could find so much more than what was on the surface... As he broke down game film he saw what others, even more experienced coaches, didn't."
The coach created "a stern, brusque, stoic N.F.L. persona" -- achingly familiar to fans -- that was "an extension of the authority he hoped to exercise.... Knowledge would be his weapon; players would buy into his leadership because he prepared them so well."
Bill Belichick would be, Halberstam writes, "the ultimate rational man."
Coaching tip #3. Prepare, practice, play, win. Prepare, practice, play, win.
Photo: Belichick in his home office a few years ago. (Peter Gregoire/SI)
What are your favorite coaching tips? What lessons have you learned playing sports, or on the sidelines?