Preseason Training

Most coaches will inform you the purpose of their preseason is to get their team in better physical condition so they are stronger and faster. While we do want our players to gain strength and speed, our real purpose of preseason is to gain mental toughness. We want to expand the thoughts of our players on their perceived limitations.

Athletes tend to have a belief system which tells them what they can and cannot do. Perhaps they heard their limitations from other teammates or previous coaches. Some where along their growth route, they bought into their weaknesses. Once they began to believe that they could not do something, then the thought became stronger and stronger until it became a truth. Some intelligent individual once said, "Beliefs are just thoughts which are repeated over and over again until they become the truth."

It is our job as coaches to help them learn new beliefs. This is not an easy task. It means demanding of them more than they think they can give. Growth means stretching and aching and hurting a little bit. People by habit want to avoid pain and yet here we are trying to make them believe pain is a positive thing.

Our preseason is designed to force the athletes to see themselves in a different light. If they can do something they didn't believe was possible, then they increase their athletic abilities as well as their mental abilities. Once they alter their belief systems, the world can open up to them.

I learned from a master teacher a few years ago, a coach by the name of Jayson Gee, that players will give exactly what you demand of them. I watched him push his team to levels I simply didn't think were possible. He was so demanding in practice that I privately feared one of his players would pass out and never wake up. Not only did this never occur, but his teams played far beyond their talent levels. They won many games not because they were the better athletes but because they believed that they could win.

We lost games last year because we were mentally weak. This season we are determined to make certain the players develop mental toughness. It starts with a tough preseason and a mindset which believes in conquering challenges rather than cowering from them.

Every day we want to push them to a place they fear--a place they feel threatened and insecure. When they can wallow in that place, rest in it, feel at peace in it, then we are getting them to where they need to be.

In all this push for a better mental state, we also have to be aware of overtraining them. It is a delicate balance--one that is tough to measure at times. I believe this season we are finding that balance. The Golden Eagles are responding and growing, getting better with each conditioning practice. If they just get a little bit better day by day, then they will have the mental toughness they need to battle opponents in competition.