What are you waiting for???

With the hustle and bustle of school and football season less than a week away, right now is a prime time to sit down with your coaching staff and get a plan together.  Get a plan for practices, get a plan for drills, for schedules, get a plan to get a plan if you have to, but please don't forget to incorporate some sort of character development and leadership training with your athletes.  Perhaps the most powerful reason is a group of statistics about who you are coaching.

This photo is courtesy of NFL HSPD.

Perhaps the most notable statistic on that photo for me is the 99.7%.  Think about that number for a minute.  That is a huge percentage of players that will not play past college.  What does that have to do with you as a coach?  That means that 100% of the players you coach will go on to be citizens of a community, some will become fathers, some will become husbands and some will choose different paths, but there will never be a better opportunity to touch those athletes lives.  There will never be a better opportunity to teach skills that will help these kids succeed in the future, whether playing sports or living life as an adult.  Don't get me wrong, I want to win and I want to win bad, but you are doing yourself and your players an injustice if you do not take some time to focus on helping shape the character of the players you are coaching.  What are you waiting for???