“Every time you’re in front of your team everything you say matters and it has to be intentional.”
-Dabo Sweeney, head football coach, Clemson University

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

This wasn’t the introductory team meeting that players were expecting. It was 2004 and Louisiana native Ed Orgeron has just been hired to lead the program at Ole Miss, one of the gems of southern college football. In his deep Cajun-like drawl, instead of projecting how physical his team was going to be, he pontificated on how tough he was. Before players knew it, “Coach O” was ripping off his shirt and challenging some of them to a fistfight. Luckily, no one obliged. “It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” a former player said. “I mean, we had plenty of guys on that team from some really bad places. He would’ve been jumped or shot or both. I still can’t figure out if he knew that, that no one would try and fight their new head coach.”

Turns out his coaching staff wasn’t spared this brunt of tirades either. During that first season in Oxford, he’d wear them down both emotionally and physically, treating each as if they were defensive linemen—the only position he coached before getting the promotion. Ultimately, he strangled the life out of the program, finishing 10-25 over three seasons from 2005 to 2007. In hindsight, he says going 100 mph, on and off the field, “broke people, it broke the team.” He was using the wrong messaging and it had a catastrophic consequence on the progression of the program.

Now the 2020 version of “Coach O” has made a 180-degree transformation, thanks in part to the experiences he had in that first go around. Coming off a national championship campaign at Louisiana State University, Coach Orgeron told me it took him over a decade to learn two very important lessons: number one, don’t have kickers and quarterbacks compete in the Oklahoma Drill (seriously) and two, never take for granted an opportunity to message the core values of the program.

The Pathway: Teaming

“Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand.”
– Confucius

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

“Nobody washes a rented car.” If you spend enough time around North Forney High School (TX) head coach Randy Jackson, you’ll probably hear that gem on more than one occasion. A layman’s translation: if something isn’t owned, what responsibility do people have to take care of it? A football program’s culture must be owned, not rented, and it must be owned by every player and every staffer that associates with it. And if the landing is ownership, then the launch must be a collaboration, where players are given the opportunity to work with coaches in protecting the culture. For those like Coach Jackson, this competency is more about accommodating a lifestyle inherent in this generation more than any generation that came before it. “Kids have information available to them now everywhere,” he says. “They don’t need us for information. Their voice is heard by liking and sharing things all day on social media. How can we not give them a voice, but they are getting it everywhere else?” How players are given this stake will be the focus of this competency. So, for many reasons, I felt impelled to begin my research with this collaboration. Without collaboration, there is no ownership. And without ownership, there is no player-driven culture.

Collaboration as a Competency

One of the base foundations of establishing a player-driven culture system is generating ownership through collaboration. While the head coach and his staff are responsible for building the program’s culture- which I elaborated on in the Prologue- in order for players to feel as if they have an investment in the culture, they need to be entrusted with the process of defending it. The behavior of collaboration is without question more relevant now than it has ever been. The players that coaches are working with now are used to having a voice. It’s the social media generation, where every “like” is quantified and every voice, regardless of source, is equitable.

Why Collaboration is Essential to Creating Player-Driven Culture

Coaches are now using collaboration to empower players with various ways in which they can have ownership in the program, all of which I present in this study. The science behind the positive effects of collaboration is overwhelming, and perhaps too lengthy to go into detail here. Quite simply, collaboration is one of the prime behaviors that lead to ownership, and this collaborative effort between a coaching staff and its players is developed through an act known as “teaming.” The Harvard Business Review defined teaming as the process of identifying and briefing essential collaborators to work together in accomplishing a goal. Consider the “goal” as the core values described in the Prologue. While this competency of “teaming” may be a mainstay in the business world among adult professionals, it has only started garnering traction in football programs. It’s the goal of any player-driven model to build a culture where teaming expected and begins to feel like a natural part of the developmental culture.

The Pathway: Vulnerability

“Culture, by definition, is connecting people.”
– PJ Fleck, Head Football Coach, University of Minnesota

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

Back in 2014, longtime assistant football coach Brent Myers sat with his hands clenched into fists under the table, finding it hard to control his true feelings. It was nighttime, mid-way through a late July training camp and he was exhausted. While every player and coach in the Weber State University program got up to address the entire group about what the program means to them, Coach Myers kept wondering when this was all going to be over. “I kept asking how this crap is going to help us win?” he recalled. “I just wanted to go out and practice.” The exercise was called “testimony and commitment,” and had become a staple in head coach Jay Hill’s pre-season routine. A former assistant at the University of Utah under coach Urban Meyer, Coach Hill put his spin on the activity by having both players and coaches tell their life stories in front of the entire program each night in pre-season camp. Flash forward five years later and Myers, the old grinder of a football coach of 30+ years has been transformed. Perhaps uncoincidentally, this personal transformation runs parallel with the program’s success. After going 2-10 in 2014, the Wildcats finished with 11 wins in 2019, one win shy from playing for the FCS national championship. While the tangible proof of the transformation results in wins, the intangible and perhaps more important factor lies in the connection the team and coaches created in that mountainous terrain in Utah.

Connectivity as a Competency

The competency of connectivity is directly aligned with psychologist Abraham Maslow’s philosophy which revealed that once behind the satisfaction and security of basic needs—safety, food, water, shelter, warmth, comfort—people are no longer driven by purely extrinsic motivations. Instead, they turn their attention to deeper needs such as safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Deeper needs like a sense of belonging and love often supersede assumed motivations such as money, possessions, or recognition. In other words, if players and staff feel like their values are in line with the values of a football program, they will work harder in assimilating themselves to the culture of the program. And coaches who understand these desires, work harder to create a sense of connection with anyone associated in the program. The shared emotional connection between a group of people is a stronger motivator than anything else.

Why Connectivity is Essential to Creating Player-Driven Culture

Many coaches, like the University of Minnesota head football PJ Fleck, believe that culture, by definition, is connecting people. Coaches are in the people business and most psychologists will argue that a feeling of connection is one of the more primal desires for human beings. Ask any social worker and they will explain that the ability to feel connected is neurobiologically how we’re wired. People yearn to be connected in any way, shape, or form with one another. This behavior of connectivity answers existential questions like “why are we here?” and “what is our purpose?” Connectivity defines purpose and produces clarity in groups. It’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. But like culture, connectivity is always a work in progress. It’s an evolving process where individuals continually seek to find their place in a particular environment.

The Pathway: Empowerment

“Once players realize that their opinion matters and it’s important, they will contribute more to the advancement of the program. And that’s how you develop educated football players.”
– Fergus Connolly, performance coach

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

“David” was the type of kid many of us have in our programs. He did everything right: never in an ounce of trouble, a meticulous student, and an extremely hard worker. He was what most coaches would call a program kid. But, there was one potential glitch in David’s personality: he wasn’t a very good communicator. Like most teenagers, it was hard to get a beat on anything that was bothering him. David internalized and suppressed his beliefs, that was up until they no longer could be controlled. And that’s where the explosion ensued. This explosion could take place in many forms, poor behavior on the field or classroom and even destructive or illegal, behavior off the field. Either way, it could have a catastrophic effect on an individual’s demeanor and in turn, a team’s development. And in most cases, coaches wouldn’t know what he was feeling until it was too late. As disruptive as it was personally for David, it was even more disruptive for the team. He knew what was bothering him, yet had trouble communicating it. It’s a scenario that plays out every season in every program. Yet what if David was placed in an environment more conducive to self-expression? An environment where players were empowered to communicate their needs? Could this have been prevented?

Self-Advocacy as a Competency

The story of David is the result of players not being empowered to express themselves and their self- interests. Self-advocacy is a behavior that enables players to understand their strengths and weaknesses, know what they need to succeed, and be able to communicate that to other people.

It’s a competency that gets broken down into three important elements:

1. Understanding specific needs
2. Knowing what help or support will address those needs
3. Communicating those needs (both to other players and coaches in this case)

Why Self-Advocacy is Essential to Creating a Player-Driven Culture

Self-advocacy is the action of representing oneself or one’s views or interests. But for young players who may be inherently reserved, asking for help can be intimidating. So, they need to be equipped with multiple strategies to address their needs. The development of self-advocacy is a byproduct of an educational process provided to players by coaches, that perpetuates the intent of whole-person development. I found that this competency of self-advocacy to be one of the more difficult to attain because it exists through empowering players with the opportunity to express their personal views and outside interests, which can be a struggle for many reasons. For one, young student-athletes grapple with vocalizing their needs because it contrasts with the masculine culture football is embedded in. For coaches to create an environment conducive to promoting self-advocacy, they need to not only accept self-expression but promote it. While the mantra “open door policy” may sound cliché, many of the coaches in this study live by that philosophy and spend more of their time working on off-field pursuits to develop the players in their program. Secondly, young players are still in the developmental process of learning about themselves, and may not be entirely aware of their social needs; proving the assertation that “they don’t know what they don’t know.” Often players develop an identity that links themselves directly and solely to their football prowess.

The Pathway: Mindfulness

“We made a conscious decision about getting into our kids’ heads and getting into other aspects besides football. We wanted to be part of the solution and not the problem.”
– Steve Specht, Head Football Coach, St. Xavier High School (OH)

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

Mike McElroy didn’t know what to think. The twenty-something defensive coordinator transplant from Minnesota Concordia thought he was interviewing for a coaching position at Bethel University (MN), but the setting resembled more of what one would experience on Oprah Winfrey’s couch. Yet the interviewer was not the former queen of daytime talk, it was a 31-year veteran head coach Steve Johnson. Looking back, Coach McElroy remembers more about the emotional exchange between the two that day than he did about the questions being asked. “He cried in front of me three times talking about the kids in the program and his career path,” said Coach McElroy. “It was in a way that I was taken aback by it.” Coach McElroy was sold immediately; not on Coach Johnson’s football acumen but on how genuine he was. Coach Johnson’s success as a football coach is hard to ignore. Taking over his alma mater at the age of 33, he eclipsed more wins in his third season than the program did the entire decade before. Now, at 64 years of age, his authenticity as a man that has left a lasting impression among the many that he’s coached.

A couple of years after being hired, Coach McElroy recounts a Bethel University football Gala with former players and was floored by the lifelong connection Coach Johnson made with them. “One guy that played in the early 90’s stood up and told the story of a recent struggle he encountered and some of the difficult choices he made during that time period. Throughout his talk, he kept reflecting on Coach Johnson’s core values of being grateful, tough, and devoted. He used the same language we still use today. I was shocked by the consistency of the language and the message.”

This authenticity isn’t just saved for Coach Johnson’s closest associations. During the recruiting process, he meets with every potential student-athlete that comes into the facility. Not to persuade them to come to the school that has made him what he is today, but to educate each on the process of picking a school that best fits their needs. His purpose is strictly guidance: to make each player know that he cares about them, regardless of their choice. Coach Johnson serves as an invaluable contradiction that separates the conventional association of being “football tough” with the progressive role of being emotionally expressive with no reservations or no pretense. He’s okay with wearing his emotions on his sleeve at all times, and not afraid of complete strangers seeing it. Perhaps, he’s completely gone against the grain of what Coach McElroy and the rest of the staff playfully calls “the Tommy tough nuts,” of the coaching profession, those pumping their chest on their Twitter handles. “It’s weird, it’s different but it’s special,” said Coach McElroy. “That attracts a certain type of person. No fake tough guy stuff. We are going to hit you in the mouth on Saturdays, but we’re trying to be this type of man every day.” Oh, and Coach McElroy makes sure to prime recruits for the piece of advice that he wasn’t prepared for during his first meeting: get ready, he’s going to cry.

The Pathway: Accountability

“A player run locker room was always the ones that had the most accountability, both to themselves and to their teammates. Any successful team that I played on or coached on was a player-driven locker room.”
– Herm Edwards, head football coach, Arizona State University

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

PJ Fleck often quips about the chaos surrounding his first off-season at the helm of the University of Minnesota football program in 2016. “Only half the team showed up at the first team meeting,” he says. “There were more lawyers than there were football players.” It got to the point that first spring when graduate assistants had to line up at left tackle just to give the defense a decent look in recognition drills. And this was a major Big 10 program coming off a 9-win season. For a time, it seemed as if Coach Fleck’s ultimate desire of having a player-driven program was just a mirage, at least to outsiders. During those first two years,  all operations had to be coach-led as he rushed to mature over 80% of starters that were playing for the first time (his theme in 2017 was “Rush to Maturity”). However, by the end of a 2019 campaign, which produced 11 wins, there were only two players leaving the program that off-season. The shift in culture from coach-led to player-led transpired. Now, the next phase of his player-driven culture is teaching these veterans to learn the importance of responsibility of defending the culture, which is the focus of this competency.

Responsibility as a Competency

At its core, responsibility is accountability, both individually and collectively. By definition, responsibility is the moral obligation to behave correctly toward, or in respect of, the program and the foundation of a team-first dynamic. Ideally, any player-driven culture begins with guidance from the head coach and staff. But, to complete the transformation from a coach-led to a player-driven culture, players need to begin to take ownership of the program. And the quicker players trust in the culture, the more they take ownership of it.

During the course of my research, I found there to be a difference between authoritative responsibility, when a coach is telling a player what to do and assumed responsibility, where ownership of the program develops organically. While coaches do need to create the initial vision of the program, eventually they need to turn the keys over to a particular unit or group of people to hold others accountable, letting them drive the bus. “When you give players ownership, that’s when they become problem solvers,” performance coach Fergus Connolly told us. “It’s not just about the game. It has to do with culture, organization, and self-management.” Yet understanding the struggle of bestowing too much responsibility can sometimes have devastating consequences. We’ve all been in the position as coaches when we’ve given responsibilities to players that perhaps weren’t worthy of it. We get wrapped up in the potential optimism of having our best players lead when they simply are not ready. So, when is the right timing to endow this absolute leadership? Many of the sources to this study didn’t talk of a watershed moment. In fact, they believed that like most aspects of culture, responsibility eventually fermented itself over a significant period of cause and effect using the methods detailed below. Players begin to learn their path as leaders, much as coaches do.

The Pathway: Adversity

“Allowing players to continually work through failure promotes comfortability in pressure-filled experiences.”
–Mike Norvell, Head Football Coach, Florida State University

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

Will Healy was only three games into his head coaching career and this was certainly not the vision he had for himself. His Austin Peay State University football team had already been outscored 154 to 59, and things weren’t getting better. As he went to seclude himself  in the corner of the Eastern Illinois University baseball team’s dugout after this last drubbing, he questioned his purpose as a head coach and mentor. “I remember just crying,” he said. “I asked myself what did I do to deserve this? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? I hurt so bad. It killed me for the coaches I hired that they weren’t having a great experience. It killed me for the players that bought into what we were asking them to do that they couldn’t enjoy some semblance of success. I took it hard.”

He originally believed that his identity as a football coach was not based on results but on the process of developing young men. So, why was losing a game hurting this much? He questioned what was really important. Call it a watershed moment, call it what you want, but it was at that moment where he made a conscious decision to teach the value of appreciating wins rather than lamenting about losses. Although he would have to wait an entire season to put this new philosophy in order, the Governors finished 0-11 that season, this shift in mindset started to produce tangible results. He led Austin Peay to an 8-4 record in 2017 and five wins in 2018, the first back to back five-win seasons since 1984-85.

Now as the head coach at UNC Charlotte, he built upon the mentality of celebrating wins by incorporating what is known as “Club Lit,” a fictional club-style party dynamic hosted in both home and visiting locker rooms alike. The lighting is dimmed, illuminated solely strobe lights as the bass pumps from a local DJ’s digital turntables. It’s a reward for winning but more importantly a lesson in the hard-fought world of Power 5 football.

Photo Courtesy of UNC Charlotte Football

By Mike Kuchar
Senior Researcher/Co-Founder
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikeKKuchar

During the course of my research, I found that sustainability of culture may be even more difficult to obtain than creating it. As Clemson University head coach Dabo Sweeney told us after his initial success, he had to train players how to fight complacency. So, I wanted to make sure I addressed all the obstacles that coaches may encounter when working to sustain a player-driven culture. Player-driven culture is without question the healthiest form of culture, yet it has its risks and may not always be attainable due to the various circumstances presented in this section. There can be several obstacles, I refer to them as constraints, that may prevent complete establishment of these competencies. How coaches navigate these waters of uncertainty is at the crux of developing sustainability in culture and as one of my sources told me, “the soil needs to be ripe to build your culture.” Quite simply, he meant that all components, time, resources, support, etc., must be completely aligned to create your culture.

This Epilogue is about the six roadblocks or constraints, I found coaches were having in building and sustaining a player-driven culture. Of course, these constraints can vary based on the level you are coaching. For example, many coaches at larger collegiate programs may not have to work through financial issues, while high school programs may not need to be concerned too much with recruiting. What makes creating player-driven culture so difficult is that all parts of the program must be on board, or aligned, with the cultural initiatives. High school coaches have the liberty of time to establish this—many can stay at their current post for several years. But at the collegiate level, the administration is not as patient. There are no more five-year plans, so to speak.

Remember, the end game in a player-driven culture is always ownership, where players and coaches are given some form of autonomy to defend the core values of the program. Some coaches, like Tim Rulo, the head coach at Chillicothe High School (MO), refers to this progression as impact teaching, while others refer to it as “whole person” development, as I explained in Competency 4, Emotional Awareness. Impact teaching comes in the form of developing players in every aspect of their lives—athletically, academically, and socially. It’s a need that many feel this younger generation is thirsting for. “I see young men struggle,” Coach Rulo said. “I see grown men struggle. The struggle in dealing with conflict, how to lead, and how to get people to get on board. I feel like a lot of times I see men being passive in areas of their life as they get older because honestly, they’ve been spoon-fed how to do things.”