Saturday, November 1, 2008

Adding emotion to the plan

UF coach Urban Meyer and UGA coach Mark Richt are both considered excellent motivators.

As an example, "After moving to Florida, [Coach Meyer] whipped his team into a frenzied state for the national championship game against Ohio State by wallpapering their hotel meeting room with clippings about how the Gators didn't even deserve to be on the same field."

Coach Meyer also plays video of his team's losses on a "continuous loop" in the locker room, weight room, and athletic offices.

To turn up his team's energy level, Coach Richt has secretly ordered new uniforms for his team and, last season, "He told his players they'd better celebrate so much after their first touchdown that they received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty; if not, they would do some extra running when they got back to Athens."

After the Bulldogs scored, the entire team left the sideline and stormed into the endzone.

Said Richt:

"I always knew motivation was important. But I thought all the fundamentals and stuff were here [putting his right hand above his head] and all that emotion stuff was here. I learned it's really about 50-50. You try to do a good job preparing the team in fundamentals and scheme-wise, but you also want to find a way to add emotion to the plan."