“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make the level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.” (Hebrews 12:11-13)

This verse reminds me of an oft-quoted adage heard in the teaching / coaching profession: "Don't prepare the path for the child; prepare the child for the path."

When so many coaches (and others) seem to focus much on rankings, seeds, past performances, win-loss percentages, etc., we often lose sight of the fact that sports are a contest of focus and vision, not end-results. Sounds contradictory, doesn't it? Yet I try to keep the bigger picture of life in mind with every decision I make as a coach. 

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine shared a post on Facebook that read, "The reason why people give up so fast is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they have gotten." I found myself referencing this very idea to my students several times as I neared the end of the school year. It is so true. 

Giving up means that we have lost our focus. The vision that drove us in the beginning has faded. Our discipline has faltered. 

Without focus and vision, there is no way that discipline can endure. This is why it is so important for coaches to not only continually monitor our teams' focus and vision, but we need to model discipline by planning.

What I'm talking about is practice plans. I used to never do them. Heck, I had it all up here (pointing at my own brain). For the first chunk of my career as a head wrestling coach, I would rarely have much pre-planned structure, preparation, communication with staff, objectives, etc. My athletes would never know what we were going to do. Essentially, each day was a crap shoot as to whether or not my athletes were mentally prepared for the uncommunicated plans I had in my head. 

That was an utter lack of discipline on my part. For me, planning was painful, so I procrastinated and put it off. Thus, there was no effective way for me to prepare my team for success. I had no set vision, and practice would often be filled with what I now recognize as aimless time-fillers scraped together from last-minute video watching, dredging my memory of past practices, or on-the-spot creativity. 

The result was a repetition of things that may not have needed to be revisited or a general glossing over of things that need to be covered more in-depth. 

I spent many seasons floundering along, treading water with no sense of periodization. 

My advice to coaches of all sports and with all levels of experience: take time to craft your plans. Be purposeful and clear with your communication -- let your staff and your athletes know what's coming up. Who cares if it's a predictable practice plan? What does it matter if one or two kids might see the plan and try to manipulate things so they can get out of the hard work you have in store for them? 

The "harvest of righteousness and peace" cited by the passage from the Book of Hebrews is the fruits of the labor brought on by disciplined dedication and planning. While this may not be what Paul may have intended, but the message is relevant to our role as coaches, teachers, and leaders of young men and women. We must maintain the discipline to plan so that we can maintain the focus and vision necessary for our athletes' success beyond the mats, fields, or courts. 

Moment of Kaizen: 

• In your role as a coach, what keeps you from effectively planning out your practices? 
• How does the way you plan practices align with long-term goals for the team? 
• What input does your coaching staff and team have in the planning of practices? 
• If you are not the head coach, what sort of planning could you contribute to help the program meet its goals? 

Related Passage: “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” (Luke 14:28).

Setting a vision for the week, month, or season is the foundation. To see it through to the finish takes discipline and planning. How can you overcome the obstacles that are in the way of your planning as a coach? 

May 23, 2021

This article is a part of a series of Coaches Devotionals that I will be writing over the course of the next year. Please click here if you would like to receive email notifications when a new devotional is published.