You might think that football is merely a game and the lessons that apply to playing this game might not have much to do with the “real” world. What does a touchdown have to do with life off the football field? My answer: a lot. Maybe not the touchdown itself, but what it takes to make a touchdown—all the hard work, all the practice, and the dedication to perform at your best—is as valuable off the field as on.
I am very lucky that I have a job I love doing and am so passionate about, but I also realize that I am still part of a larger world. How I interact with that world—with my family and my community—is very important to me. I want to be someone who competes just as hard to be a best friend, loving husband, caring parent, and active community member as I do to be an excellent football coach.
About seven years ago, in 2003, I was driving into work along the side streets of south Los Angeles and I heard on the radio that another young kid had been slain in gang-related violence, bringing the total to eleven homicides for the week. I work with young men, some of whom easily could have fallen into the cycle of gangs, were it not for their talent, or, more important, support from their families, teachers, and coaches. So news of that kind struck close to home for me. That day, for whatever reason, it hit me especially hard, and I decided to call my good friend Lou Tice.
Lou is the founder of the Pacific Institute, a self-empowering educational program. He and I had been talking for a while about finding a way to make a major impact in the community. The timing then felt as right to him as it did to me. We started mapping out an organization that would eventually be known as A Better LA.
Our mission would be to save the lives of young children and reduce gang-related violence in Los Angeles. We would do it through community building, youth empowerment, and professionally trained prevention and intervention workers.
I have been overwhelmed by the dedicated work of these incredible heroes who have affected me with their life stories. My closest friend from the neighborhood, Bo Taylor, was a strong, humble, and caring father and leader on the streets of LA. Bo taught me about the work that needed to be done and introduced me to people across the city in hopes of reaching communities in need. The unsung heroes are intervention and community outreach workers, and they live deep in my heart for their courage, leadership, and willingness to protect the communities they love. Bo passed away in 2008 but through his inspiration, the communities have accomplished extraordinary feats, and with continued support from the mayor, law enforcement, and local neighborhoods, the work continues. Strong leadership continues to prevail from within the community thanks to the dedicated work of outreach workers like Aquil Basheer, Cornell Ward, Gary Robinson, Reynaldo Reaser, and so many others. A model for sustainable change has been created and we are reaching out to more neighborhoods to increase the impact.
Seven years since our inception, gang violence is still an issue, but the city of Los Angeles has seen an unprecedented decline in homicides and aggravated assaults, particularly in the areas where A Better LA has concentrated its efforts. The cooperation of local communities, government, law enforcement, and the private sector has been exceptional. And while I love coaching football and watching my team win, I have to admit that the work of A Better LA and the influence it has had on these communities is, in the long run, more important. It has also been very gratifying to witness my daughter, Jaime, help carry out the vision of A Better LA with peace rallies, fund-raising efforts, and annual community events. I am proud not only of the work she does, but of how much of her heart and soul she puts into it.
The power of affirmations is incredibly strong. Because I have always believed that what you expect is usually what you get, what you focus on is what you draw to yourself. We have the power to create our own reality and through a vision of hope, that concept is constantly at work for all of us. Our plan at A Better LA is to inspire that in one person at a time. Living and working in the greater Los Angeles area, as well as representing USC in general, has provided me countless opportunities to reach out to organizations, schools, and businesses. I am often asked to speak about the success of our football team and how our philosophy might apply to an individual or group.
One such person is Andy Bark, who has become a good friend. I was introduced to Andy about the time I accepted the job at USC. Back in the late 1980s, he had founded a company called Student Sports, a leading digital media company revolving around high school athletics, and had operated camps and clinics with corporate giants such as Nike and EA Sports. Andy had his finger on the pulse of thousands of high school athletes, but more important, he had a great understanding of the landscape of college football—which, after all, was what every high school football player had his eyes on. A ball boy for USC and UCLA during the John McKay and Dick Vermeil eras and a wide receiver at Cal in the early 1980s, Andy clearly understood the development necessary for an athlete to succeed in college.
After talking about the history at USC and college football in general, I asked Andy if he would be interested in hearing my philosophy, because I thought it might be helpful to him and his company. After more than two hours of talking, I learned that Andy had sold his company in 2001 and had been unhappily watching it slow down in his absence. I could relate to his frustration, and we spent quite a while talking about the situation.
A week later, Andy called me with exciting news. He had decided to not only buy his company back but also reorganize its structure and start an athletic training business. Based on our conversations, he also decided to formulate a philosophy based on Win Forever principles and to create a vision for the new era of Student Sports.
By creating his own version of the Win Forever philosophy, Andy didn’t just revitalize his organization; in 2008 he sold it to ESPN, which renamed the company ESPN RISE. Furthermore, his other training company, SPARQ, was bought by Nike in 2009.
Another lesson depicting how broadly the ideas that have been developed for coaching football could be applied elsewhere came when I was invited to speak to senior U.S. military leaders. The occasion was the Small Unit Excellence Conference, a first-of-its-kind seminar in Alexandria, Virginia, in April 2009, and I was privileged to join a diverse group of participants ranging from orchestra conductors to psychologists. The participants were looking at ways to apply the insights of our professional expertise to performance in the military. Our goal was to help set a foundation for revolutionary shifts in the actions and attitudes of the country’s small-unit armed forces, such as the Navy SEALs, the Green Berets, and the Army Rangers.
The three-day event was cosponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and attracted some of the military’s highest-ranking officers. They were seeking to answer a single fundamental question: How can the U.S. military improve and maintain consistent success?
Four-star general James Mattis, who commands the U.S. Joint Forces Command, was the keynote speaker and opened the conference. He set the tone for the days to follow by challenging the group to forgo conventional wisdom and think outside the box. There was a lot of energy in the room, and I had the feeling that this was a chance to contribute in a meaningful way to the performance of our servicemen and servicewomen. I was proud to be a part of something that stirred my sense of patriotism. It was the first time in my life I had felt this close to that calling, and I wanted to come through and help if I could.
I was assigned to a twenty-two-person breakout group, and we spent twelve hours each day going through a variety of workshops. My fellow participants were incredibly impressive, and I was so enthralled with what each speaker had to say that the time flew by. The group included top-ranking military officers and some of America’s brightest academics, and I not only learned different philosophies and outlooks from them but almost had to chuckle at the thought that my experience as a football coach somehow qualified me to be a part of something like this. Yet at the same time I felt very comfortable as part of that team, and I realized once again that when it comes to leadership and performance, the basic principles are almost universal.
As the conference continued, I saw that what we had done at USC and what we were working to accomplish in the inner city of Los Angeles had really broad applications to teams of all kinds. In both football and our nonprofit work, as in the military, the objective is similar: Each team member must maximize his or her potential to perform effectively, with the success of the team depending not only on a single star performance but on everyone working together at their highest possible level. The major difference, of course, is that if we throw four interceptions and lose a game, life goes on. In the military, in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, if someone doesn’t do his or her job, lives are lost.
In our breakout groups we were asked to make recommendations to the conference for enhancing the performance of small-unit forces. My group asked me to kick off our segment by presenting the Win Forever approach as an overall vision for directing all small-unit activities throughout the armed forces.
From the beginning of the conference, it was evident that no single overriding philosophy yet existed, nor was there a common language to connect the individual units across the armed forces. Common themes, consistent language, and an all-encompassing vision could make it possible not only to elevate performance but also to foster a shared camaraderie among the military’s many different groups. Win Forever, with its clear philosophy and terminology, we realized, could be a very effective vehicle for bringing the military groups together.
I have to say that I was a little nervous about addressing an audience of generals and admirals, but the presentation was extremely important to me.
It started in much the same way that our spring football meetings do, with my asking the entire audience to stand up and change seats. I was used to pulling this trick with twenty-year-olds in shorts and T-shirts, so it was fun to see well-established professionals stand up, gather their papers, and unplug their laptops to move from one row to another. Not everyone appreciated it, but I had a point to make, and getting it across successfully started with getting the audience members out of their comfort zone.
I then asked the crowd how many of them had a philosophy. As you might assume, many of them raised their hands. Then I asked of those people who had just raised their hands, “How many of you could stand up right now and share your philosophy with us in twenty-five words or less?” As always, the hands dropped quickly around the room—including one hand I would have expected to remain in the air, the one belonging to conference director and decorated major general Dr. Robert Scales.
In addition to having commanded combat units in the Vietnam and Korean wars and earning the Silver Star, among many other honors, Major General Scales is widely regarded as one of our foremost experts on military training and education. He also helped design the army’s training doctrine and has authored several books. Furthermore, Major General Scales’s last posting was as commandant of the U.S. Army War College. You will now recognize him as an expert analyst who regularly appears on television.
When his hand dropped, I remember seeing a few nervous faces around him, clearly wondering how someone with his rank and prestige might react to getting singled out. But he didn’t show a hint of embarrassment or discomfort. He just had this thoughtful, surprised smile on his face as he said, “You got me, Coach!” You could see that his mind was racing with the implications of the exercise.
Major General Scales is living proof that successful leaders can achieve extraordinary things without necessarily ever having asked themselves what exactly their philosophy is. He is one of many such high performers whom I have met over the years. Once the question was put in front of him, he recognized that by having a philosophy he could articulate, he could be even more effective. As a leader in a very unique field, he’ll do that in his way and in a manner that is appropriate for his needs and goals. I am grateful to him for allowing me to participate in the conference and for helping me understand just how universal the basic principles of leadership, competition, and self-knowledge really are.