Both in New York and in New England, we had so many things working well, but we still couldn’t pull it all together the way it needed to be. I was fairly sure I knew what I had right, but what I needed to get was a clear view of what was missing.
It was during this post–New England period of contemplation and reflection that I found myself rereading the works of Coach John Wooden. I had been digging deep into past influences of all kinds, but this was the one that made it all click for me.
Coach Wooden’s career was legendary, and I had read his books before, but something about the experiences I’d had with the Jets, the 49ers, and most recently the Patriots led me to see things in a new way. What especially jumped out at me was how long it took him to really find his groove. After that first title, in his sixteenth season as UCLA head basketball coach, Coach Wooden went on to win ten out of the next twelve national championships before retiring. He fell just one very close game short of winning nine in a row. For some reason, I had never realized it had taken sixteen years to get his UCLA team to that level.
Coach Wooden’s real breakthrough came the moment he had developed his philosophy in a full, complete, and systematic way. Like Marv Levy, who led the Bills to win all those division championships I had seen hanging in the stadium years earlier, Coach Wooden had figured out how to not just win a game or have one great season but Win Forever.
The wealth of detail that went into that knowledge was incredible. He had figured out absolutely everything about his program—his belief system, his philosophy, his delivery, and a million other details that made that first championship possible. He had figured it out so completely that he could re-create it year after year after year. Even more important, he had done more than just become aware of all those details inside his own mind. He had refined them to the point that he could explain them to the people around him. I think a great part of his genius was that he was able to explain his beliefs and tie them back into a clear vision that brought it all together into a single team effort.
This exciting eureka moment of insight I got while reading Coach Wooden’s book was immediately followed by the less thrilling reminder that with two head coaching failures already on my résumé, not only was I unlikely to get sixteen years to figure all that out for myself—I’d be lucky to get sixteen months.
It was time to get moving.
My life in the next weeks and months was filled with writing notes and filling binders. For years, I had ideas about coaching, always challenging the position groups, defensive squads, and teams that I coached to do things in an extraordinary way. But while I had a sense inside me of what we needed, I hadn’t articulated it very well. I didn’t have the details worked out in my own mind so that I could lay them out clearly and convincingly to anybody else. So, in the fall of 2000, I forced myself to go through the process of nailing it down, and it was the discipline of working at it that made it happen. By December I finally had a clear, organized template of my core values, my philosophy, and—most important—my overarching vision for what I wanted to stand for as a person, a coach, and a competitor.
Working to Maximize Your Potential
IF YOU WANT TO WIN FOREVER, ALWAYS COMPETE
If I ever coached again, I promised myself, I was going to build an organization that could win forever. I would build it on the foundation of a single, basic vision where everything we did was centered on wanting to do things better than they have ever been done before. Rather than thinking of different parts of the team as different groups with different styles, cultures, or goals, I wanted this basic competitive thought to be the foundation for everything, from the most high-profile performances to the details that no one but us would ever know about.
I knew that in order for any program I developed to achieve this, it would have to come from within me. It would have to be built on my experience, my core instincts, and my beliefs. So I had to start by looking within myself. As I dove into my past and looked around, I realized that whether it was on the court or on the field, as a dad or as a husband, I was always trying to please those around me. I always wanted to do really well at whatever I was doing. Then it hit me. I had always competed to be the best I could be: a great son to my parents, a great brother, a great friend, a great player, a great team member, and now a great husband and father. When I asked myself when I was happiest and most fulfilled and what I stood for, the concept of competition was connected to every one of my responses. Then, in a flash, it hit me: I am a competitor!
That simple realization had an incredible impact on everything that was to follow. It was a great personal truth for me, and from that point forward, everything started to fall in line. It became a way to define myself and it was clear that I needed to make competition the central theme in my approach.
At the base of the Win Forever pyramid, the foundation is the philosophy. I collected all of the things that I believed were important in my life and in football and from that I derived the philosophy for Win Forever. What Win Forever means to me is aspiring to be the best you can be, or as I like to refer to it, “maximizing your potential.” But Winning Forever is not about the final score; it’s about competing and striving to be the best. If you are in this pursuit, then you’re already winning.
Also at this foundational level, my philosophy has this vision: Do things better than they have ever been done before. This level consists of a variety of philosophical beliefs for any organization I would build. These covered the elements of the game, human performance, and organizational structure that were most important to me. They included what would be the most important phrase in my next football program, “It’s All About the Ball,” and the directives known as the Three Rules:
Rule 1. Always Protect the Team
Rule 2. No Whining, No Complaining, No Excuses
Rule 3. Be Early
I also added behavioral, or style, elements: We would perform with great effort, great enthusiasm, and great toughness, and play smart, all while respecting everything and everyone involved in the process.
On the next level of the Win Forever pyramid I put what I’d come to realize was the central theme of my life as a coach: competition. As I had learned through the process of self-discovery, competition is at my personal core, so it would be foolish not to put it at the core of any program I ran. And if I were ever to find myself in an organization where competition didn’t play a central role, then I should immediately recognize that I was in the wrong place. I knew that any program that didn’t embrace competition had better look for another coach. Other coaches might be successful with an entirely different theme at the center of their programs, but I knew I could only be successful if I focused on what was true to me. My programs would be built on the concept “Always Compete.” In line with this, every member of my program would have no choice but to perform in a relentless pursuit of a competitive edge. That concept would carry over to our practice field, where we would compete to find new ways to raise the level of competition in practice each day. Whether it was through entertainment, practical jokes, or straight-up competition, the program I would lead would always be in a relentless pursuit of a competitive edge.
The third level of the pyramid is about the importance of practice. After decades of coaching football at different levels, I was prepared to boldly state that “Practice Is Everything.” By placing practice on a high level of the pyramid, I was making a statement. We would never accept having a poor practice or taking a day off. There would be no choices. For us to do things better than they have ever been done before, I believed that we had to practice at the highest level, the most competitive level. I promised myself that I was going to be absolutely relentless in pursuing any competitive edge I could. With consistently competitive practices, players would ultimately reach a point where they could perform in the absence of fear, due to the confidence they had gained by practicing so well. Ideally, they would then learn to trust the process, themselves, and their teammates. When a performer has supreme confidence in himself and can trust all the people around him and the schemes they are running, he is finally free to totally focus and become immersed in his performance. This is where great performers and great teams acquire a most cherished characteristic…they know they are going to win. When you know you’re going to win, you don’t doubt or worry. You can actually perform with a “quieted mind,” in the absence of fear. It is my job to orchestrate this “knowing” throughout the entire process in every aspect of my next program—a responsibility I would welcome.