Way Of Champions Podcast

This week on the podcast we delve into an incredibly important topic, the mental health and well-being of our athletes. With the recent withdrawal of one of the world's top tennis players, Naomi Osaka, from the French Open due to depression and social anxiety, this topic has been in the news a lot recently. There have been two distinct camps; one that says you make millions of dollars so suck it up and play, and the other that recognizes that just becasue these athletes are so exceptional in one area of their life does not mean they are not struggling in others. One of the people leading that discussion recently on CNN and the BBC is our friend Dr Jarrod Spencer. Dr. Jarrod Spencer (@jarrod_spencer) is president and founder of Mind of the Athlete, LLC, a sports psychology company committed to improving the emotional health of athletes (www.MindOfTheAthlete.com). He is the author of Mind of the Athlete: Clearer Mind, Better Performance and the co-author of the book the The Sky Is NOT The Limit: Discovering the

This week, in order to celebrate Christian Pulisic becoming the first American male to win the Champions League, we dig into the archives for our interview with his father Mark. Mark is a former collegiate and professional player and coach, and our talk took place soon after Christian completed his $73 million transfer to Chelsea of the English Premier League. Since then, Christian has hit some incredible heights, and experienced some devastating injuries and extreme disappointment, yet came through it all to become a Champions league winner with Chelsea one week ago.   Today we speak about a variety of topics, including what it was like to raise Christian, how many times Mark and his wife Kelly said no to great opportunities, how they limited his competitive team practices to 2 sessions per week, dealing with pressure, Christian's goodbye in Dortmund, and so much more. We trace Mark’s professional career and his short stint coaching in Germany and what were the major differences with coaching youth players i

Carlo Cornacchia is a long time friend and coaching collaborator, and has both played and coached at the highest levels the game of soccer has to offer. He played professionally in Italy for clubs such as Napoli, Atalanta and Cagliari, and the last few years he has been a part of legendary coach Claudio Ranieri's staff at Fulham in the English Premier League, Nancy in France, and both Roma and Sampdoria in Italy. They recently wrapped up a 9th place finish in Serie A with Sampdoria, punching far above their weight and budget during the most trying of seasons.  In our chat today, Carlo and John discuss how players and the game have changed from his playing days, what are the qualities of exceptional coaches such as Ranieri, how to connect with players at any level, and how young coaches transitioning from their playing days must pay their dues, and "taste the mud" as he says. What is great about Carlo is that not only has he coached internationals in front of massive crowds on the world's biggest stage, but he

Joe Sagula has spent the last 40 years as an NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball coach with the University of Pennsylvania and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. During that time his teams have won over 800 matches and 17 Conference titles. He is a 9x ACC and Ivy League Coach of the Year and ranks 15th all time in Division I wins. More importantly, Joe is an amazing guy, who is focused on creating a culture of love and respect, constantly reinventing himself, and creating a transformational experience for the kids he coaches. In this weeks episode we discuss love, power, vulnerability, culture, being a lifelong learner, joy, and so much more. Buckle in and get ready to take some notes! This week’s podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sports Refund. Many of you probably buy trip insurance, every winter I buy ski pass insurance, to make sure that if I get injured I can get my money back on that expensive investment. Well, many of us spend thousands of dollars on our kids sports club fees, but what

This past week, John has been assisting his local competitive soccer club with their annual tryouts, and like most years, tryouts are a trying time! How do you balance the "as many as possible, as long as possible" philosophy with facility shortages, lack of trained coaches, and the fact that competitive teams and leagues require different levels of commitments than some are willing to make? How do athletes prepare mentally to perform their best? How can parents support their kids during this time? How do you support the child who gets cut or moved to a new team? And how can coaches be humane and empathize with their players and parents while at the same time make the difficult decisions they are called to make? We have never covered this in depth on the podcast before, so we figured we would give it a shot this week. Please let us know what you think! This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sports Refund. Many of you probably buy trip insurance, every winter I buy ski pass insurance, to make

Resilience is quite the buzzword these days, but what is it exactly, and how do we develop resilience in ourselves, and model it for our children? Clint Schumacher is a husband, father, lawyer, HS football coach and author fo the great new book Second Wind, all about the 14 decisions we get to make about whether to be resilient or not throughout our lives. In this weeks talk John and Clint break down a few of these major choices we get to make, such as viewing obstacles as opportunities, preparing the child for the path, and more.    Schumacher is passionate about building teams that are resilient, engaged, and motivated. He has the unique experience of both working to solve complex legal problems and coaching young athletes to succeed. He has studied, applied, and taught the principles of resilience set out in this book. They work. He has completed a marathon, climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge, won a bellyflop contest, and finished deep in the money at the World Series of Poker, and has many years of experi

This week we dive into the archives, back to episode 31 where Mark Bennett visited us for the first time. This podcast was a game changer for me in terms of how I coach, communicate with athletes, build accountability, and more. It was so fun to do the editing again and listen to this one. Get ready to take some notes! Mark is a former British Commando & senior instructor within the Army Physical Training Corps who served 22 years before turning down promotion in order to leave the services & pursue his passion full time. During his Military career Mark was the senior instructor running the commando training wing & was the first person to redesign the preparatory training to focus on developing mental robustness within soldiers to increase the pass rate on one of the toughest courses in the British Army. ​Mark works as a consultant, trainer, mentor & coach to various corporations, professional & national sport organizations, teams & Universities around the world, as well as Schools &am

Asia Mape is a 4x Emmy Awards winning sports journalist and producer, and the founder of the incredible website "I Love to Watch You Play." She has covered five Olympic games, two Super Bowls and nearly every major sporting event in the world. She has also interviewed hundreds of the top athletes, and has first hand knowledge of what it takes to perform at the highest level. A former college basketball player and mom of three athletic girls, Mape has dedicated the past few years to providing parents and coaches with the latest information on coaching, parenting, nutrition, sleep, and everything youth sports. You can follow her on social media, (@iltwyp) and get instant access to all her latest posts.  Here are also some of her best articles: Kids Tell Us The Truth About Sports Parents 17-Ways I'm going to be a better sports parent Why it sucks to be the parent of a good athlete The crucial lesson parents must learn from Covid In our conversation today we cover so many items, from the origins of ILTWYP,  t

Kate Leavell is a speaker, workshop facilitator, and author of the brand new book Stick Together with Jon Gordon. She is a former NCAA and high school coach, corporate sales consultant, and Coaches Education Trainer for US Lacrosse, and now works with teams and leaders across the country to boost performance, connection, and energy as one of the lead trainers for the Jon Gordon group. She is passionate about teaching strategies that turn a powerful vision into reality, while unifying teammates around their purpose and mission. She is also the author of Confessions of an Imperfect Coach as well as a sports parent. In our conversation today, we discuss her great new book and its simple principles about how great teams come together through shared purpose, ownership, love, inclusion, and much more. Stick Together is a great book for teams coaching staffs, and other groups to read and reflect n together, and Kate delivers this message with great knowledge and passion.  This weeks podcast is brought to you by our

The children are listening, they are paying attention, and they need us more than ever. That is what our guest this week John Yeager is telling us. John Yeager is a positive psychology consultant and performance coach who works with coaches and athletes at the youth, high school, college, Olympic, and professional levels. As a former elite athlete, John was both collegiate and professional Lacrosse Player and is a member of the New England Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He has also been a coach and currently is the chief education officer at Yeager Leadership, his presentations and training programs have motivated and inspired audiences around the United States. He works with many college teams and athletes, as well as corporate leaders. His brand new book  which he co-authored is called The Coaching Zone: Next level Leadership in sport and its really good. It talks about self awareness,  what he called “The Team Dance” and a concept I really like, how to build psychological capital with your athletes. I just want to

Mary Harvey is currently the CEO for the Centre of Sports and Human Rights and has dedicated herself to making sport better for athletes of every age. She enjoyed an illustrious playing career in soccer, winning the 1991 World Cup and 1996 Olympic Gold with the US Women’s National team, and since then has spent years in the corporate ranks and sport governance. She is A former senior executive at FIFA (2003-2008), where she became involved in the reform process at FIFA by launching the #WomeninFIFA campaign with Australian Moya Dodd.  The campaign was successful in achieving gender inclusion as a core tenet of the reforms passed in 2016. Mary has served as a sport envoy for the US State Department’s Sports Diplomacy Division on several occasions, including missions to Iraq, Jordan, Canada and Mexico. On these missions, the key objective was engaging key stakeholders via sport outreach to promote acceptance and integration of diverse groups. Mary also serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the G

Every once in a while we do a flashback to an oldie but goodie from the archives, and we decided to do that this week because it was spring break here in Oregon, and I was headed out with some friends to tech free cabin up by Mt Rainier in Washington, and I realized last second I needed a book to read. So I grabbed one off the shelf that I had not read in quite a while, yet it is one I talk about at almost every single presentation I do. It is called The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, and this book is truly required reading for coaches. Why? Everyone has these defining moments in their lives that they vividly recall. But these moments are not an accident. Science actually tells us which type of moments people are most likely to remember in any experience. Some are extraordinary and some are terrible. As coaches, we do not get to choose which moments our athletes recall, but we do get to choose the moments we create in order to ensure what we leave our athletes with are exceptionally positive moments.

This week on the WOC Podcast we ae so excited to welcome back Joe Baker from York University in Canada, along with one of his PhD students Sandy Mosher @sandymosher. You can follow Joe at @bakerjyorku on Twitter. This was a very challenging podcast, as you all know what an advocate I am of sport sampling and Joe Baker did much of the early research in this space. Joe’s research focuses on optimal human development, largely to understand how someone gets to, and stays at, the highest levels of performance. He is one of the worlds foremost experts in talent identification and skill development, and his book Developing Sport Expertise is a must have for any talent developer. He looks at various psychosocial and environmental factors influencing athletic skill development across a range of sports with a goal of  building better theory/models and construct superior learning environments. Sandy Mosher is a PhD candidate studying under Joe at York, and her recent article with Joe and Jessica Fraser-Thomas entitled “

This week on the podcast we are joined by someone who knows a ton about building and sustaining championship environments. I am talking about Brett Ledbetter. Brett is a performance consultant, author and speaker. His work focuses on character development, priority alignment, behavior management and self-awareness. He’s authored four books: What Drives Winning, What’s Really Important, What Drives Winning Teams and What Drives Winning Environments. Brett has also given three TEDx talks: "What Drives Winning," "Building Your Inner Voice" and "How to Stop Comparing and Start Competing." He is the co-founder the "What Drives Winning" conference with hall-of-fame coach Becky Burleigh, producing five conference events with top minds in sports. Brett currently works with several Division 1 athletic departments––including Gonzaga, Oregon, Florida and Oklahoma State to name a few––that hire him as a thinking partner for athletic directors, coaches and athletes. He also applies his high-performance training within edu

This week we welcome back Lindsey Wilson (@lindseypositiveperform) of Positive Performance Training and host of the Inner Game Podcast. She was on with us back in Episode 112, and she is so incredible we had to have her back on. Lindsey was an amazing athlete, an All-American basketball player at Iowa State, a WNBA draft pick, a professional player for many years, and now is not only a mindset and inner game coach for some top, top teams, but her goal is also to help coaches at every level not be intimidated by helping their athletes with the mental game. As she says, she wants to move you from “Ummmm, I don't know how to be a mindset coach!” to “Okay, it’s not perfect but I can do this!” This is often the biggest frustration coaches have - not being able to really reach someone that is struggling mentally. It’s also the thing most coaches talk about as the most rewarding… when it goes well. But how do you actually sit down and help an athlete or a team with their mindset? Get ready to take some notes as we d

This week on the podcast, we are airing a replay of a man who needs no intro, 8x NBA Champ and current Golden St Warriors coach Steve Kerr. We are replaying this today because Steve will be one of the presenters at our 2021 Way of Champions Virtual Conference, joining fellow coaching legends Quin Snyder, Cindy Timchal, Anson Dorrance, Jenny Levy, George Mumford, and more TBA. You can discover more about the event here: https://changingthegameproject.com/2021-way-of-champions-conference/   In our discussion with Steve, John and Jerry ask: What makes a great coach? How do you build a championship culture? Why should a coach ask their team, “How can I be better for you?” These questions and so many more are answered in this fantastic episode with one of the best coaches in the world.   Highlights from the Discussion: How an NFL Football Coach helped Coach Kerr develop a coaching philosophy How to get players to buy in to core values of a coach What do effective coaches have in common? Authority and Hum

This week on the Way of Champions Podcast we welcome Sarah McQuade, a developer of coaches. She is the Founding Director of e.t.c coaching consultants, an international Coach Development Consultancy practice, which specializes in building coaching systems, and the professional development of sports coaches and sports coach developers. She works with various national and international sports organizations and clients include the US Olympic Committee, United Soccer Coaches, Steel Sports and TB12 among others.     During our time together, we discuss the current state of coaching education, how do you build a development pathway for volunteer coaches, and The danger of bringing baggage from your playing career into your coaching career.   Highlights and great quotes from the this episode: The current state of coaching education How does a coach learn to recognize what they don't know? Is there a way to do coaching education across other sports? Where do you start with educating volunteer coaches? What

This week on the Way of Champions Podcast we welcome Caleb Porter, 2x MLS Champion Coach and head coach of the Major League Soccer club Columbus Crew. We talk about what makes a great coach, developing your own coaching style, and why being honest with your players is the best way to create a great culture. Highlights and great quotes from the this episode: What makes a great coach? Learning from a great coach while developing your own style Focusing on the WHY of coaching to bring a fresh perspective What does it feel like to be coached by Caleb Porter? How Coach Porter intentionally creates culture for his team The value of being honest with your players and creating a family environment More about Caleb Porter Coach Porter was previously head coach of the Portland Timbers from 2013 until 2017, winning MLS Cup in 2015 before winning again in 2020 with the Crew. He also coached the United States U-23 team in 2011–12, and lead the University of Akron men's team from 2006 to 2012, winning the NCA

This week on the Way of Champions Podcast we welcome back author Doug Lamov. Doug is here to discus his new book, The Coach’s Guide to Teaching. Doug was on the podcast years ago in episode #046 to discuss his previous book, Teach Like a Champion 2.0: 62 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. In his new book, and all throughout our conversation, we dive into how to give feedback, check for understanding, and how to build culture, plus much, much more! Grab a pen and something to write on--you will need it or this episode!   You can follow @DougLemov or visit his website  https://teachlikeachampion.com/ to learn more.   Highlights and great quotes from the this episode: Learning how to give feedback Teaching kids how to be decision makers Do players see because they scan, or scan because they see? How does looking at the phone on game day hurt athlete performance? Does your club have a curriculum and a plan to deliver it? "Starting an activity the phase before the one you are working

This week on the Way of Champions Podcast we welcome back Todd Beane, founder of TOVO Academy in Barcelona, Spain and a former director with the Cruyff Institute.    During our discussion, we talk about how to coach clearly, how to establish a club philosophy, why it is important to find your why, and why it is important to find define our ideal player and ideal practice.    Check out his new book Clear Coaching: Harness Clarity To Drive Development and follow him on twitter @_ToddBeane.   Highlights and great quotes from the this episode: Launching a product with NWSL The need for more female coaches Taking five weeks and forty years to write a book Searching for and understanding "why" you coach How to train athletes to be problem solvers  Bowling and playing Duck Duck Goose with your soccer players What are some of the biggest challenges in installing a new methodology? Being an Educator vs a Teacher Seeing experiences through the eyes of the kids Reflecting as a Coach   More about To