More Important Than The X's and O's - Helping Develop Kids Into Adults With Integrity

We all really like seeing our players improve and winning games. However, there are things more important than the x's and o's like helping to develop players into adults with integrity.

Here area a couple of emails that I sent to my team to help teach the importance of hard work, attitude, and helping others. Go ahead and use the emails with your own team if you like it.

The Results

Both emails received a nice response from our players. For the first email, most of them said they liked the video -- they gave it an average rating of "8". Our players also did a good job of picking out core values. I was happy with the results and the email served as just another way for us to reinforce our core values. I plan to send it again next year.

For the second email, players offered lots of good ideas to "help others". Our team ended up doing a few different things. One idea was to clean up the gym after a couple of our games. So we all stuck around after the final game and helped clean up. The custodian was ecstatic and very thankful. She directed 20 players and gave them instructions while they did all the work (cleaning up the gym, moving tables, and cleaning the commons). The gym was cleaned in record time!! The kids had fun with it, it was a good team bonding experience, and I think they felt good about helping out.

Feel free to use these emails with your own team. And if you have any ideas that have worked well for you, please share them below!

Comments Most Likes First   Oldest First   Newest First Daniel Freeman says: 2/22/2013 at 1:25:27 PM I thought that the film was great and indicated what was needed to be a true champion by putting forth their greatset effort regardless of the outcome. everyone seemed to be doing his best in whatever they were doing. And the music was out of sight. Thanks for postinmg this activity. Like     login   register Ken Sartini says: 2/22/2013 at 10:21:22 AM I think that this is great video .... its the mark of a true champion - win or lose. One thing we always told our playes was.... After a game, we are going to leave the locker room cleaner than when we came in, regardless of who made the mess before us. We did this at every school we played. I had several ADs call and say how great our kids were, how they acted and cleaning up after themselves and others. Another thing we used to do was to meet for breakfast on Saturday morning... my asst. and myself were always there..... the kids were great, we would have some laughs at each others expense, regardless of whether we won or loss the night before. One Saturday I couldn't make it and my asst. didn't go either. Our principal got a phone call on Monday morning telling how nice and polite our kids were. Talk about Kudos. The principal called me in and told me what had happened.... I was so proud of them! Like     login   register

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