“It takes hard choices.” This is the title to Chapter 3 of my favorite book, It Takes What It Takes, by Trevor Moawad. Trevor Moawad is a mental conditioning coach and has worked with some of the best players and teams all around the world. If you have not read or listened to this book, you need to.
As coaches, we can develop our players in the weight room, preach about nutrition and recovery, talk about mental toughness and GRIT. All of that is important for developing players, but do you as the coach understand it enough for it to impact your athletes. Do you understand that it takes hard choices to become great. Because if you do not understand that, then how do you expect your athletes too?
The talk of all professional sports is longevity and being able to play the game for as young as you can. We see athletes like LeBron, Vince Carter, Adam Vinatieri, and Tom Brady play for years and years and continue to produce. As outsiders, we look into their training and nutrition and recovery and think that is the answer. What outsiders don’t see is the decision making and the choices that they made and didn’t make throughout their careers. All the times they didn't go out and party, or choose to eat a meal that is complete with a nutrition profile, but rather hit the gym, studied film, or worked on their craft. Even the most minute of choices were taking into consideration how this could affect them.
These choices can also be applied into the weight room, on the field and in the classroom. What we have to get our athletes and ourselves to think about is, at the end of the day, will we regret the decision that we made. Will it affect our long-term goals? We have to preach to our athletes to not be a could’ve kind of guy. LEAVE NO DOUBTS. This doesn’t mean to always bench at 90-100% 1RM for lifts and bury yourself into the ground. This could mean that you worked your tail off BEGINNING in the warm-up and finishing with the last rep of the last exercise. Being a leader and doing what is right, holding other players accountable, being the guy that everyone knows they are going to give it their all, handling their business in the classroom, taking control of their nutrition and recovery.
Everyday, we wake up with choices. Like my college football coach used to say, “You are guaranteed two things, death and opportunity.” Those opportunities have choices that follow along with them. As coaches, we need to keep preaching these opportunities and the choices that come with them. Our goal should be that every time our athletes wake up and come to train, go to class, and live their lives that they are making choices and decisions that will benefit their futures. Everybody makes decisions that they regret, it is going to happen. The goal that I have and that we should all have is, not making very many of those. If we can lay our heads on our pillow every night and not have any regrets with decisions and actions, then we did something right. On the counter to that, if you go to bed and think, “Man, I could have done more, I could have studied harder, I could have chosen to eat a good dinner instead of hot pockets, I could have been a better son/daughter/wife/husband, I could have etc.” We want to limit those nights and days.
I mentioned a lot about choices. If you really think about it and ask these players that are great at their sport. They are really choices. Think about how you would answer these questions, is it healthier to eat an apple or a bag of chips? Is it a better idea to go out and party on the weekends or study for your exam on Monday? Should you play Call of Duty all night or get to bed early and get a workout the next morning? The answers are pretty easy and we all know what those answers are. When it comes down to it, we all know what to do and our athletes know what to do. If they want to be great and make it to the next level, then they have to do the things they might not want to do, but what they have to do.
Like I preached all summer to my boys down in Lucas, Texas, “Don’t leave anything left on the table, treat everyday like it is your last time playing this great sport you love. One day you are going to look back at your time in high school. Make sure that you have no regrets on ANYTHING you did.”
Scot Mullenix
Strength and Conditioning Intern
University of Tulsa