News for the Week of Feb. 20, 2012

Program Notes for the Week of 2/20/2012:

President's Day:
In honor of President's Day, I would like to attach the following link which details a short history of soccer and U.S. Presidents:

http://homepages.sover.net/~spectrum/presidents.html

Hope you find it interesting.

Soccer Site of the Week:
During February, soccer news regarding the high school team is a little slow so it provides a great time to present some info. on leadership and other team related topics.  This week I would like to present some information from Connie Dieken from her website at:

http://conniedieken.com/influence-blog

Connie was a well known TV broadcaster in the Cleveland area for a number of years and now is a consultant/speaker/author on communication and leadership topics.  She also happens to be an Avon Lake resident.  Her blog tackles issues to do with influence, leadership, and communication which can be applicable to the workplace or to a team sports environment as well.  Just another resource to give players and parents something to reflect upon.

Shorty Sez:
We continue to feature the teamwork philosophies from Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski who is a pre-eminent expert on leadership and teambuilding. This week we are continuing with the concept of the fist to reflect upon is as follows:

Coach K sees his team as the five fingers on a hand. When the fingers fit together, they create a powerful fist. When fingers are outstretched, they are on their own and can be easily broken by a fist. So it is with a team - if they play together and unite with a common goal they become like a fist which can always defeat individual fingers which are operating on their own. A great team possesses five qualities - Communication, Trust, Collective Responsibility, Caring, and Pride. These can also be thought of as individual fingers and when all five come together, they can form a fist which cannot be beaten.

This week we look at Collective Responsibility - Coach K believes that great teams win and lose together.  Handling the responsibility for wins and losses together removes the burden from one individual's shoulders and distributes it among each memeber of the team.  That atmosphere is conducive to high level performance and places you and your team in the position to be bold and unafraid, and if you should lose, you are not alone.

Some poeple like to win individually and some like to lose selectively. They'll say "It's someone else's resonsibility" or "It's not my fault".  But one of the key components of keeping the fist together is taking responsibility for your actions as a team.  Every individual member has to realize that it's our job no matter what happens.  Ths bottom line is that we win and lose together.  Great teams embrace responsibility - It's that simple.