No correct coaching philosophy

My college is having our homecoming celebration next weekend, which will mark the 35th anniversary of the first soccer team in school history. Many of the players returning to the festivities were teammates of mine, and they will be making the journey from as far away as England, Jamaica, Florida and Georgia; and yes, even Maryland. When you get to be my age, the number of people able to make it back begins to dwindle, and the chance you'll have opportunities to see them again get smaller and smaller.

We do a pretty good job of staying in touch through social media and cell phones, but there's nothing like spending time in person. It's something you just can't replicate. The last time we all got together a few years back. We spent the entire day swopping old war stories about our time together in the "Land of the Misfit Toys" as we affectionately called Coker College. There are so any stories to tell, most of them unfit for public consumption, but the one story that we always come back to is "Black Sunday."

During my junior year in college, we had probably the best team I had the good fortune of playing on in my many years in this game. Our senior class was the first graduating class, and those players had been together through the lean early years and had figured out how to play together under Coach Griggs' style and philosophy. We had some good junior and sophomore players, but we also had one heck of a recruiting class that brought some really great freshman players from all over the country. The blend of players seemed to work, and we had high expectations for our outgoing senior class to have the best year in the school's short history.

Things don't always turn out the way you expect them to.

We took our talent for granted and we weren't meeting even our own expectations. It all came to a head after a weekend trip that we expected to dominate, but came back with a loss and a tie. As we got out of the team vans when we returned to school that Saturday afternoon, we were told to be at the field bright and early Sunday morning – a rarity, as Sundays were many times our only rest days of the week.

We were greeted on that bright Sunday morning by a coach with an attitude that we had not seen in the years we played for him. He began to lecture us on the off-field antics we were having that he attributed to our lack of success on the field. He popped open a can of Budweiser, dumped most of it out and then ripped it in half and threw it toward us. He then grabbed a pack of Marlboro's and tore them in half, threw them on the ground and stomped up and down on them. Finally, a pack of rolling papers that he tried to rip in half without success and our chuckling about it put him over the edge. For the next several hours he put us through the most intense physical workout I've ever been through in my life, culminating in us carrying one of our teammates across the street to the hospital for dehydration.

Somehow it worked. We ran off a string of victories to finish the season with the best record in school history until we fell to the College of Charleston in the playoffs.

As players we've all been through rough patches in our seasons, or have fallen below expectations. Still, it's how you handle yourselves during that time that can make or break that season. Coaches use different tactics to encourage or motivate their players, but those tactics too can decide your season's fate. I've tried to be a disciplinarian as I've watched my English friends get something out of my players with their styles that I wasn't able to, but the kids saw right through it and I probably did more damage than good. Right or wrong, I choose to be an educator and try to teach them what they are doing wrong and how to change their pattern of behavior. It doesn't always come to the conclusion that we want, but at least I'm true to myself and I give the players the best of what I have.

Whatever your motivational techniques are, it's important for coaches to give the players the best of what you have to offer. As a player, the best you can do is to give it your best and keep on keeping on. Winston Churchill once said, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."