DRVIN Fosters Personal Responsibility and Accountability

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At some point in the 1990s, I was in a group of reporters when Julie Foudy was asked a simple question. Foudy, the co-captain of the U.S. Women’s national soccer team for 11 years, rarely gave simple answers. Her replies usually contained insight, humor, self-deprecation, a smile, or some combination of all of the above.

But if there ever was one, this question was a prime candidate for a simple answer. She was asked, “What sacrifices have you made in your life to become an elite athlete?” The reporter’s intent was to get a list of things other teenagers were able to do that Foudy was not because she was traveling the world playing soccer for her country.

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DRIVN Has Created a Sense of Community Within my Program

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In the past, I have written about how DRIVN has helped my football program at Greenwich High School with communication and accountability. In this column, I want to explain how it has helped develop a sense of community among my players.

Now that we have mastered the basics tools DRIVN allows, we are going to do much more with it. We are always finding new ways to use it, and sometimes we discover that it has improved a situation we didn’t think it would. [Read more…]

Why South Carolina Doesn’t Treat All Players the Same

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Here’s the problem with rules: if you have a rule, there has to be a consequence for breaking it.

And, of course, there has to be team rules. As much as chaos can be fun, it’s never going to be helpful to your players and never going to be part of your team culture. So, at the start of each season, you explain the rules and make sure your players know you are fully capable of enforcing them.

The punishment for breaking a rule, though, is usually left undefined, and the answer to a question about punishment is often, “I’ll decide.”  

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