View Video- Building True Team Unity

Welcome coaches to Episode #3 of Wisdom on Wednesdays. This morning I would like to talk to you about Building True Team Unity. Little things or big things coaches can do to help bring the team together to where the team becomes a unit.

I bet the Navy Seal Team is a tight, close knit family unit that is extremely focused on a goal. I am convinced the reason why Seal Team 6 is so close is because all the seals that make up the unit have suffered so much together and that suffering together forms and tightens unbreakable bonds. They are the best fighting warriors in the world.

I wanted my wrestlers to be the best fighting warriors on the mat. I wanted my Graham wrestlers to be focused on one goal and that goal was and is simple… to win the State. To achieve this goal, I felt that the Graham wrestlers had to be a complete team, where winning for their teammates trumps winning for themselves. To bring the team together, I wanted them to suffer together.

I genuinely believe that if the coach wants to reach his goals for the team, he must Unite the Team. I think a lot of coaches make a big mistake by favoring or giving special treatment to their star athlete. This crushes Team Unity. A lot of coaches tend to favor their star athlete as well as enable them. They complement them when they do the right things but do not discipline them when they do the wrong things. Do not get me wrong, sometimes the star athlete is the great kid who always works hard as well as gets good grades and of course he is your leader. We all love this type of kid. He is every coaches’ dream. I wish I had 30 kids like this every year. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and your star wrestler is not the leader you want. I have seen coaches cater to their star wrestler and what happens is that the rest of the team loses respect for the coaches as well as the so called, “star”. This really hurts the team unity as well as the chemistry of the team. Never, ever put the star above the other kids, it will create animosity.

I would have all my wrestlers vote on a paper who they thought should be captains of the team. They could vote for 2 kids that exemplified great character and leadership qualities. What I have found out is that kids do not lie when voting. They vote for the kid or kids who deserve to be the captain of the team. I have had multiple time state champs that were not captains. One year I had 4 returning state champs on my team and the captain was one of those state champs with the other captain being a state qualifier.

I want to get back to a word that I mentioned earlier. This one word builds team unity like no other word. This word is called “Suffering”. Some wrestlers hate or fear this word, some embrace it, while even a smaller few love it. The wrestlers who embrace and love suffering are the ones that will take your team to the promised land. In my opinion, the wrestlers who hate or fear suffering, will never reach their potential in the sport of wrestling or life. I love to make my team suffer and I love to suffer with them. It makes the goal so much more important and enjoyable to achieve when everyone suffers together.

I wanted my team to suffer in the offseason by doing team workouts that challenged them for 8 months until the season started the following year. When you truly suffer for months, I am convinced that these types of workouts become the norm for your team. They no longer feel that they are actually suffering.

Coaches might say, “those workouts would make kids on my team quit, I would have nobody left.” My answer to that statement is, “if you build the right relationship with your wrestler as well as the right culture for your team, your boys will do whatever workout you want them to do.” Their goals for themselves and the team would align with the goals that you have set.

Coaches, the more you suffer for your team, the more they will be willing to suffer for you.

Off season suffering does 2 things for my team. #1 it unites my team as a unit, and #2 it sets the standard of intensity that is expected throughout the upcoming season. Sure, lifting weights in the off season helps to build team unity, but that is not really suffering. I am talking about real tough hard-core workouts that create physical and mental pain that the wrestler would not do by himself. But when we put these workouts in a group setting, the individuals will push themselves harder for the team, or the cause, than they would by themselves. Just like the Navy Seals. This type of suffering is what I am talking about that builds True Team Unity. This suffering is what makes the difference in a tight dual meet when your team wins 3 close matches to beat the team that they had no business beating.

A great story that illustrates this is in 2015 Graham wrestled Blair Academy at Graham High School for the National Title. Blair was ranked #1 in the country and Graham was ranked #3 in the country. It was an awesome environment at Graham High School. We had around 2,000 fans in our gym waiting to see who was going to be crowned National Champs.

After weighing in Blair went to their locker room and our team was sitting on our mat eating and drinking their post weigh-in meals. One of my wrestlers, Joey, was not eating and I could tell that he was nervous. I do not know why I said this, but I went over to Joey and told him to come into my office. When Joey walked into my office, I asked him if he was nervous. He responded, “Yes coach, I am extremely nervous. The National Title is on the line today.” I told Joey, “Everyone wants to be a hero Joe and today you are going to be a hero for our team. This dual is going to come down to you and today is your day to be a hero.”

About 15 minutes later the officials for the dual came into to draw the weight class that we were going to start the dual off at. I prayed that they would not pull the 160 lb. weight class because the dual would come down to the 152 lb. weight (Joey’s weight) for the National Title. I do not know if it was divine intervention or not, but the Blair coach drew the 160 lb. weight class to start the dual.

After the first seven matches we took a 10-minute intermission where Blair went to their locker room and we went to ours. The team score was tight, and we knew we had a chance to win the dual if everyone wrestled great over the next seven matches. I told my guys, “We have put ourselves in a position to win this dual. This dual is going to come down to Joey at 152 and today Joey is going to be a hero for Graham. He is going to Step up for this teams.”

Joey was losing going into the third period. With a minute left in the match Joey took his opponent down to tie up the match. Joey immediately cut his opponent and took him down in the last 30 seconds of the and won the match as well as the dual for Graham. Joey’s win also won Graham the National Title.

After it was all said and done, my Graham wrestlers went back to the locker room and got showered and ready to go home for the night. As they would leave, they would each stop by the coach’s office and give me a hug before they left. The last wrestler to stop by was Joey. I told him how immensely proud I was of him. He said to me, “Coach, it sure feels great to be a hero!”

I am convinced that if Joey would have wrestled the same kid a month or even a week earlier at a tournament that he would have lost the match. What happened was, Joey stepped up for the team because it was more important to win for the team than it was to win for himself. That close-knit team unity through suffering together is what won Joey that match.

Coaches, I am going to stop right here, and I want to continue the discussion next week on building True Team Unity. Next week’s episode gets into the workouts that really made my wrestlers and my coaches suffer together to really build TRUE TEAM UNITY. Next week’s episode is titled “The Bike Race”.

Stay Safe and Keep Training Hard.

Remember, “Noah didn’t wait for his ship to come in, he built one”.