Friday, October 11, 2024

Lessons from Jack Clark

Many of the same qualities of great coaches belong to great players. Learn from them.

We don't have to know a person for them to be a mentor. Jack Clark, Cal Rugby coach, is a mentor. How? Clark shares extraordinary understanding of sport and coaching. 

Here are notes from the first half of a podcast (the meat starts at about five minutes):

Clark began rugby coaching in 1982. "I felt like an apprentice."  

He brought in more experienced coaches, "you don't know what you don't know." Many coaches are not ready. Playing is not the same as coaching. 

As a young boy, he wanted to learn more about players and coaches. George Plympton was a model, "a look behind the curtain." 

Mike White was his football coach at Cal. Clark felt that rugby blended football and basketball. "Rugby was a more free-flowing sport" 

"You've got to be able to make decisions with the ball in your hands." Everyone has the ball sometime. 

"Make informed decisions." 

"Everyone has to do their share of the dirty work." 

"All skills, all players..." a correlation to life.

Sport is not family, which is supposed to be unconditional love. You should care about one another, empathy and kindness...high performance teams are highly conditional. "Those conditions help this organization operate and succeed."

"Everyone is putting everything they have into it."

"I've had the most wonderful coaches...qualities worth emulating"

Coaching priorities, "willingness to tell you when your best could be better." Ask yourself, "am I at my peak performance?" 

"Happy to be coached..."

"They understood my strengths."

"Learn...the mentality of an individual...build playing the game based on their strengths...building a blueprint...based on what they do well." Make lists of what the player does well. 

"70-30 percent" maintaining strengths, working on weaknesses

"I shouldn't draw a paycheck unless I can develop players..."

Too much emphasis on weaknesses results in less confident players...

"Program and train optimism." (the host, Dr. Michael Gervais)

Identity - "I don't want to put people in boxes...influence people to be their best self...help people get from where they are to where they want to be..."

"We're always chasing...a level of play...that's going to be difficult." 

"What did we do well? I want that collaborative discussion...what do we have to work on?" 

"Identify what we can do well..." team buys into that deeply. The team understands performance...

(Gervais questionaire): 1) What went well? 2) What do we have to work on?"

Lagniappe. Control. 

Lagniappe 2. Great teammates. 

 

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