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Today I am talking to myself and many others that just do not know when to stop working and go home.  As a career teacher and coach I have worked so many extra hours all these years and seem to always find a reason to stay a little longer to do things on my list.  As I got older I realized that I had to find better balance in my work and home life.  I got home late so many nights and suddenly it hit me that things could wait for tomorrow.  I began to make adjustments and started delegating responsibility to my team and coaches and it made a world of difference for me at home.  Being a driven person that wants to be successful, work hard and win at sports and life I would tend to be one of the first to arrive on campus and the last to leave.  I coached football in the fall, wrestling in the winter and softball in the spring.  Yes, I spent nine months a year actively coaching a sport, but lets be real it was a 12 month job when you add in summer workouts, camps, clinics, fund raisers and

Today I am back on my series of alphabet words that describe  great  leaders, coaches, motivators and people we all are attracted too for being  great .   Good  leaders can be  great  leaders if they work really hard at building their management skills and  grow  their employees, athletes and team members with  guidance  and direction. These coaches and leaders are often  gleeful  people that  gain  the attention and can make people  giddy  with excitement when it comes to accomplishing  goals .  These bosses, coaches, business owners are  gems  in the rough and often shine as they sometimes have to  grin  and bear the brunt of organizational missteps, setbacks and failures. They  give  their all to the team, staff and organization in an attempt to  gain  buy-in from everyone so they will  generously   give  of their time, energy and commitment to make things happen.   Great  leaders  greet  people and show them they care and have  genuine  concern for their well being.  I have worked

Growing up my dad and brothers loved to go fishing. We would gather up a bunch of worms, get a few cans of corn, load up a bunch of fishing poles and go to a creek, a pond, the beach or anywhere we could wet a hook. We did it for sport and rarely ever had to keep anything we caught, we used the proper equipment to be able to catch and release. Just as many of my friends hunted with their dads, we instead choose to fish. We fished in the fall and spring mostly when the weather was good and it wasn't so hot or cold. One main life lesson I learned from my good old dad was patience. I remember going to a pond and my dad would bait his hook, cast the line in and just sit and wait. Sometimes for hours until something bit the line, took off and bent that pole. He might reel it in on occasion to check the bait and make sure it was still good since the little "bait stealers" which are small fish that just nip at the bait until it falls off would eventually leave you with an

Today I am writing about your bookbag, your purse, your wallet, your gym bag of whatever it is you carry around with you day to day.  This bag is filled with all the stuff you need for the day to function like a phone charger, some snacks, bottle of water, clothes, laptop and all the other things we carry daily to live our best life.  But, this is not the baggage I am talking about.  I am talking about the baggage we carry that cannot be seen, it is not physical or a solid thing.  It is emotional and is the result of hurt, pain, bad relationships, physical abuse, mental abuse and anger.  As a teacher I worry more about the baggage my students bring to school and how I can look for signs to get them help.   Adults also have baggage and plenty of it.  I see grown people in their 30's, 40's 50's and older carrying around baggage from emotional scars that always seem to surface when things get tough.  They have not dealt with it and have tucked it away inside deep and it is a r

Today I am writing a brief post about one of the hardest times in my life.  I was coaching at a local high school and halfway through the season our head coach and my good friend passed away suddenly and unexpected.  This was a huge loss for his family, students, athletes and the community as a whole.  I am going to go into all the details of what happened, but instead will talk about the loss of a dear friend and coach and how the coaching staff and team responded to that loss.  Losing important people in out lives is never easy and brings a rush of emotion that we deal with for sometimes months or even years.  I was the offensive coordinator at the time so when my friend passed I was asked to continue the season as the interim head coach.  I remember the conversation with the principal when he asked me to take things and finish the season.   I gladly took the responsibility not because it was a chance to take the program over.  It was the right thing to do in honor of my friend, play

Playing some form of organized sports is like a right of passage for many of us.  I grew up in a large family where every boy played football.  All of my brothers, and boy cousins played football at some point in their life.  Most of my girl cousins played basketball and softball in school, but they also played football on Sunday afternoons at my Grandma's house.  These games were brutal with heavy hitting, tackling, blocking and running.  We all got cuts, bumps, bruises, stitches and a few broken bones at some point in our childhood and teenage life.  Through these injuries and tough hits, we learned things about life that later propelled us to become productive adults, parents and friends. Learning life skills is an important part of the process of growing up and as a coach and teacher one of main focus points is to teach my kids the valuable life skills that can help them lead a good life.  A life that allows them to work, live, play and do what they want to do.  A life that is

Today in my mini series of successful words that describe great coaches, leaders and people in general I am using the letter "B".  The other day I posted words on the letter "A" if you would like to go back and read that posting.  There are all kinds of words that start with B that help describe or define a person that is dynamic and a super leader of people.  A person does not have to be a coach, teacher, business owner or leader of an organization to possess these traits.  However, I am focusing this series on coaching, leading, mentoring, guiding and helping people become better than they are and how they are built up by these leaders. I have worked with all kinds of people and most would get many of these B words as a descriptive to define their personality, behavior, actions and results.  While a few, well lets just say would be defined with other B words that are not so nice.  I choose personally to set a standard of being defined by positive words through my

Today we continue a series of blog post I have been writing using the alphabet to define successful people. These words often are mentioned when we look at successful, well rounded people that we know.  Not just your run of the mill person, but people that stand out from the crowd.  Amazing people that set themselves apart from others at work, in sports and in life.  Have you ever met a person that just attracts talented people and lights up a room when they walk in? You may be that person or certainly have the potential to be that person as well.  As I tell my students and athletes weekly, life is what you make of it and you will get out of what you put into it.  In my career I have coached with peers that met many or all of these characteristics.  I have been fortunate to coach a few guys also that had most of these traits and they went on to play high level sports, own businesses and make huge differences in their community.  I encourage you to find you letter of success.  You ask,

Today we are continuing the series on successful coaching, leading and mentoring of people.  Being successful as a leader, mentor, father, mother, coach, teacher, pastor, business owner or whatever your title is requires a skill set that is constantly developed as you become the best you can.  As I look back at my career as a teacher and coach and as a business professional I am grateful for the people I was blessed to work with that had these qualities.  They were successful at what they did and were so consistent with the habits they had to remain on top of their game.  I have tried to be the best leader I can and at times sure I failed at one or two of these qualities somewhere in the process.  The key is knowing where you are, where you want to be and how you will get there.   You don't have to be a leader to maximize some or all of these qualities.  I have worked with front line teachers, sales people and other peers that exhibited many of these traits.  They may not have want

Coaches hold the key to make or break a teams success. Coaches that have poor interpersonal skills, have huge egos, don't care about their student athletes and just use power to bully their way with the athletes put a sour taste in the mouths of the players. On the flip side, a great coach inspires, motivates, leads, guides, teaches and mentors his or her players.  They can inspire a love of the game and a life long relationship with the players they impact.  There are plenty of good sports coaches out there that keep the season humming along, but it’s those great sports coaches that kids (and parents) will remember and love forever. Here are four things those great sports coaches have in common that make student/athletes want to play for them. 1- They love to teach: A great coach loves to teach the sport and does so with passion.  They use the game and its learning to teach life skills, build relationships and build the skills of each individual athlete.  They inspire the players

Creating awareness of your current professional career growth and direction begins with knowing your own routines, habits and results.  We go to work and before you know it the day has come and gone with the results we may not have desired or planned for once the morning started.  There is only a set amount of time in a work day that we can devote to getting work done, doing our jobs and getting the results that both we and the company desire.  Finding ways to become more productive both at work and in your personal life will benefit you and make you more productive at both.  Thinking back to some of the things you have learned through the years from parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, leaders and friends that you once did is a good way to see where you currently stand.   Have you changed, backed off of how you used to be, are you as driven, have your priorities aligned differently now from where they once were.  These things can get in the way and many times it is a new habit we have

Today I am discussing the importance of standing strong to you values, morals and belief system during times of trouble, struggle and strife.  Unfortunately, we are living in a time of moral, political, faith based and other belief systems that have led to a division among friends, family and co-workers.  I have friends that have different values in all of these areas and still remain friends with them despite the differences of opinion.  We all grow up in different households, build different values and form our own opinions about faith, politics, life and all those other things we see and hear daily.  I have had some very interesting conversations lately with friends over the phone, online and other ways and it amazes me how some people think, have formed an opinion and just are dead set on that being the only way. I have been told I am hard headed at times and I definitely have a certain opinion about things.  If you read my blog or follow me you may have figured out by now that I a

Today I am writing about being a teacher and thinking back on my career especially when it started.  We go to college and learn our subject matter, take those fancy classes about classroom management, fundamentals of teaching and all those other elective classes to prepare to go conquer the world and be the best teacher we can possibly be.  Prior to graduation you serve an intern with a veteran teacher and in a short semester you are off into the field at your first job.  I am not discounting all the training, classes and prior knowledge and experience brought into that first job.  It is a plus and helps set a foundation for a bright future, one that regardless of what some people think is not easy, very rewarding and comes from the heart. Over the years we have all been through tons of training, read books, attended seminars and continued our education to become the most qualified teacher, mentor, facilitator, administrator, media specialist, lead teacher, and all the other opportunit

Today I am writing about seven things that I look back on that I should have done a bit different when I was twenty.  Thirty four years later I have learned many lessons in life and am grateful for those lessons.  Setbacks, disappointments, tragedies, and unexpected life events allow us to grow and become who we are.  These events give us wisdom to share with our children and the next generation.  These events make us tough skinned and give us direction to overcome obstacles.  I am mostly satisfied with the way things have worked out so far, but looking back I now see doing these may have opened doors for me, my family and prepared me for life as an adult. 1- Get rid of toxic people- We all have family, friends and co-workers that we know are energy vampires.  We do not look forward to being around them or hanging out with them.  These negative people drain you and will hold you back with their poor pitiful me routine.  Get rid of them, see them less often or whatever it takes to keep

  Today I am writing about remote learning and giving some basic ideas and tips on how as parents we can not only survive but thrive during this Covid 19 mess.  As a career teacher it has been a daily learning experience for myself and my students.  It is up and down roller coaster ride of positives, negatives and in between.  With the various stages of Covid, spikes, slow downs and the gaps in between kids have learned 100% online, hybrid learning, and some even in class fulltime.  It is frustrating as a teacher and parent as it has added even more stress, anxiety, and tasks to our daily schedules that are already jam packed. I did some research and put together a simple list of things that have worked for me as a teacher and have helped the students and parents I teach to do a good job of maintaining grades, assignments, and online schedules.  It has been very challenging and is not the best option for most kids, but it is what it is for now.  As parents and teachers our options are

I was coaching at my old high school in 2009 and in the middle of the season I suddenly lost my dad. My dad was a 30 year retired police officer who also served over 30 years volunteering at the local high school as president, vice president and secretary of the boosters club.  My mom and dad along with several great parents had helped raise millions of dollars and build most of the very nice athletic facilities the school has today.  They loved to go to football games home or away.  For over thirty years on Friday night if they were not rotating in the concession stand they sat in the same seats at home games every Friday night.  My dad sat on the top row, on the brick at the corner.  I can see him now sitting there watching me, my brothers, cousins, and nephews playing football on Fridays.   Dad and mom were road warriors and followed the football team wherever they played.  They went to every game home or away for a minimum of 30 seasons. Even when their health started to fail them,