Life, Leadership, and Football

Seriously. I love learning. I wish I could say I have always been that way, but to be completely honest, I haven't. I was always very good at playing the game of "school," but I never had a genuine love for learning as I grew up. I was driven to do well by my desire to please my parents, my teachers, and my coaches, and I knew that if I wanted to "be successful" in life I had to "do well in school." I had what Dr. Carol Dweck would call a very "fixed mindset," and it stuck with me all the way through my college years. I was a good student, but I focused on achieving, not learning. I hated reading with a passion. Again, I was good at it (maybe just "good enough"), but I hated it. Being a double major in history and psychology was not good for someone who hated reading, but I managed to survive. Thankfully, I had a few professors who were masterful presenters that could keep my attention, and I had the motivation of my football coac

I love John Wooden. His ideas have shaped my thinking as a teacher and coach more than anyone else. I believe he got more out of his athletes than probably any other coach ever has (and he had the championships to back that up). His teams worked hard, but he also did things differently than most coaches were doing at the time. He knew that there was more to it than hard work.  Hard work is not enough. That may come as a shock to some people, but it's the truth. Often times, we falsely tell ourselves (and others) that if we just work hard enough, we will be successful. However, that isn't necessarily true.  We tell our football players all the time that hard work is not enough. Right now, every football program in Texas (that's worth a darn) is working extremely hard. Every one of them is going through a grueling off-season. Young men are lifting and running like their lives depend on it. How then can some teams pull to the front of the pack if everyone else

This is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately, and it is an idea that has helped me grow more than I could have imagined over the last three years or so. To begin with, let me just say that I have never considered myself to be a "creative" person. Generally, I would rather color inside the lines of a picture that has already been drawn than draw my own picture. Now, having said that, I would make absolutely sure that my coloring job would be meticulously done. I am a hard worker, and I like to think that I am a pretty decent problem-solver. However, "creative" has never been a word I would use to describe myself. That type of thinking was really prevalent in my career for my first eight or nine years as an educator. I have always loved learning new things. I love to read, and I do it as often as I can. I even enjoy professional development (most of the time). To that end, I have been really good at consuming. I listen and apply with the be

Those little red circles can haunt you! Last week my wife and I decided to stay off of social media for the entire week, and you know what happened? The world kept right on going, and I'm not sure anyone even noticed we were gone except for the two of us. Isn't that amazing?! It sounds silly to say something like that, but if you look at the way most of us stay CONSTANTLY plugged into our various devices, you might think that the fate of the world actually depended on our next tweet or status update. As a culture, we have become consumed by technology. I never thought I would fall into that trap. For the longest time I fought it. In fact, I have been late to the party on just about every social media platform because I have been so darn stubborn. People were blowing up Facebook, and I was just starting to text. Then Twitter took off, and I was just figuring out how to update my Facebook profile pic (I'm still rockin' the same one I put up 6 years ago when I crea

It's been way too long since my last post. Here's to a more consistent blog in 2015! It's New Year's Eve, and I just couldn't let the year pass without putting together one more post. I haven't written (well, finished might be a better word) anything since August. If you're wondering why it's been so long, you might have missed the part in earlier posts where I spoke about being a football coach. Nonetheless, I'm back, and I think you're going to like this one (or you might actually hate it). Winning and Standardized Tests Most people would never put those two things together. I never would have before last week either. Just the mention of Standardized testing can (and usually does) spark an impassioned debate. I am not here to promote testing or to speak against it. In fact, my opinion, your opinion, or anybody else's opinion on the subject really doesn't have anything to do with what I'm going to talk about. Follow along wi

Drew is fired up because he just finished putting that "big boy" puzzle together "all by himself" (almost). I am still pretty new at being a parent. Drew is my oldest child, and he just turned three a couple months ago. The last three years have been a crash course in parenthood. Every day I learn something new, and every day I realize more and more just how important his mother and I are to his overall development. That responsibility weighs heavily on me. I love my son, and I want him to experience the absolute best things that life has to offer. Just like every other parent out there, I want him to be successful at everything he does, and as I sat at the kitchen table with him tonight while he worked on his puzzle, I wrestled with a very tough thought: No matter how much I want him to succeed, there is no way I can guarantee his lifelong success or happiness. How'd we go from the simple, joyful task of putting together a puzzle to dwelling on such a