The 2016 NFCA Convention is underway down in New Orleans. Day One officially started on Wednesday afternoon with everyone in attendance gathered in the Grand Ballroom where Carol Bruggeman, NFCA Executive Director, kicked off the event. NFCA President and Nebraska head coach Rhonda Revelle also spoke at the opening ceremony. The opening keynote speaker was Brett Ledbetter who has been on Ted Talks and gave a presentation on “What Drives Winning?” His presentation included data, video interviews with Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Kobe Bryant, and Kanye West. It was a very informative presentation that required much thought and discussion from the gathered coaches in the audience. The presentation was titled “What Drives Winning?” below are four takeaways if you missed out.
- The Winning Formula: the first thing Brett Ledbetter asked the audience to do was to define Behavior and Character. Behavior: How you act and Character: Who you are as a person. The Winning Formula for coaches is 1. Acquire Talent, 2. Manage People, and 3. Execute a Strategy. If you as a coach are able to do those three things, you will win.
- Athletes must run their own race: Even when it comes to being on a team, there is competition among the team. Teammates are essentially competing with one or two other players for one spot in the lineup. But the key note is to make sure the athlete’s main focus is on themselves. Brett used a Duke basketball player story here on two standout players who played the same position. One was drafted after two years of college and the other was drafted after his senior year. They both finished the race.
- Kobe Bryant, Thinking Emotionally vs. Tactically: This was the most interesting part of the entire presentation. We were given a glimpse into the powerful and unique mind of one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Kobe Bryant was being interviewed on BET while taking a look back on his career. What many people don’t know, and same with Kobe was that people thought he sucked when he was a rookie in the league. We watched footage from an OT game where he shot four airballs in a row. It didn’t phase Kobe one bit, which blew everyone’s mind. He then went on to explain that he didn’t pay attention to missing the shots, he paid attention to why he missed them. If he could understand why he missed them, he could work to make them next time.
- “Ask why”: Brett Ledbetter stressed that it’s important to get athletes to ask why. His reason: players from a young age are told what to do. In order for them to understand and be able to make adjustments to improve they need to know why they failed or did something wrong. If athletes don’t ask why or know why they will never succeed. He closed his speech with a looming quote, “the only way to fail is to not progress.”
