• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Superheader

Join The Newsletter and Stay Up To Date!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Tudor Collegiate Strategies

Where college coaches come to dominate their recruiting competition.

  • Recruiting
  • Workshops
  • Webinars
  • Blog
  • Honey Badger
  • Podcast
  • Admissions
  • Shop
  • Busy Coach
  • Tudor University
  • (0)

Coaching Life · November 1, 2015

Choices Successful Coaches Make

by Mike Davenport, CoachingSportsToday.com

Divide the world of coaches into two groups — successful and unsuccessful.

What separates the two?

The choices they make.

You are free to choose

There is freedom in coaching.

“You’re nuts,” you could say, “Look how boxed in I am by these rules and regulations.”

I get that.

I’m the NCAA compliance coordinator at my school. I deal with hundreds of bylaws coaches need to follow.

BUT, you ARE free to make choices. Especially choices regarding how you approach, how you prepare and how you engage with coaching and those you coach.

In my coaching journey I’ve connected with boat-loads of successful coaches. I’ve noticed 7 choices they make which impact their success. Every day these successful coaches:

  1. Choose to be honest
  2. Choose to have a vision
  3. Choose to teach, to guide, to nurture
  4. Choose to be curious
  5. Choose to be a life long learning
  6. Choose to ask questions, and then to listen to the responses
  7. Choose to be demanding but not demeaning

These are foundational-choices. Without these choices, success is illusive, or if it does happen it will be short-lived.

For instance, honesty is the #1 trait followers want from their leaders. As a coach, AKA leader, people expect honesty from you. Chose to be dishonest and your followers won’t follow. You will be a coach-of-none.

And those other six choices? Just as foundational.

But wait, there’s more

There are other choices a coach can make — important ones. Ones that can help you in your journey.

  1. Choose to accept being wrong
  2. Choose to change opinion
  3. Choose to share knowledge
  4. Choose to help competition get better
  5. Choose to help others who need it
  6. Choose to be singular-in-focus
  7. Choose to have a wide perspective
  8. Choose to conserve energy
  9. Choose to define success
  10. Choose to say, “Don’t know”
  11. Choose to care, and show it
  12. Choose to stay on course
  13. Choose to stand firm for principles
  14. Choose to enjoy coaching
  15. Choose to find joy, especially while building things
  16. Choose to do morning rituals 
  17. Choose to be a fitness example
  18. Choose to be empathetic
  19. Choose to follow rules
  20. Choose to change rules not liked
  21. Choose to make sports better
  22. Choose to be skeptical
  23. Choose to think
  24. Choose to be accountable
  25. Choose to put the big-boy/big-girl pants on when needed
  26. Choose to act professional

Actions You Can (and should) Take

The list goes on. BUT here’s the interesting thing about the ones above … those choices  are mindsets. You could do any, or all, right now.

This moment.

No cost involved.

NO PERMISSION NEEDED, from anyone else.

Use this to your advantage. Here’s how … pick a foundational choice, #1 for example. Say this, “Today, I choose to be honest.” How does that feel?

If you already have chosen to be honest, then bravo. Move onto #2. How does, “Today I choose to have a vision,” work?

Continue down the list until you find a choice you stumble on. Hold your focus on that choice until it becomes authentically you.

You make coaching choices every minute of every day. Be thoughtful on the ones you make.

 A quick note

This week I’ll be posting an article a day. Its more than I normally do. I hope you can tune in, but not to worry if you can’t. I’ll send a recap next week.

-Mike

Filed Under: Coaching Life

Previous Post: « Are You Following This Recruiting Call Rule?
Next Post: Strategies for Improving Your Campus Visits »

Primary Sidebar

Client Access

Please log into the site.

Not a member? Click here to signup.

Join The Newsletter and Stay Up To Date!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Blog Categories

Footer

Tudor Collegiate Strategies

11312 U.S. 15-501 North
Suite 107-105
Chapel Hill, NC  27517

866.944.6732

  • Home
  • Total Recruiting Solution
  • On-Campus Workshops
  • Conferences
  • Admissions
  • Tudor University
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Contact Us

Connect

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Tudor Collegiate Strategies. · Website by Overlock Design Co.