To start a program, a head-coach needs to build his own philosophy. Simply, philosophy is an objective way of life which reflects your ideas as well as gives direction to achieve your goals. To help you achieve your philosophical thoughts, here are some of the most important strengths that a coach could integrate in his philosophy.

You have to improve yourself all the time -- You have to evaluate yourself. A good thought is: "What am I doing or what can I do to make my team a better team?", or "What am I doing or what can I do to make myself a better coach?" To improve, look at yourself and your team to make an adjustment.

You have too be flexible -- You have to change it if you cannot find a way to solve the problem. Be the best you can be. Success is to build a team and to know what to do to improve it. Especially in Europe, a frequent mistake that American coaches do is that they cannot change to the European football mentality. In Europe, players are different. Most of them do not know what sacrifies an American football player makes just to be a part of the team. Changing from a European mentality to an American mentality, is a process that takes years to be changed. In addition, equipment is practically inexsistant which causes difficulty teaching basic things such as drive blocking for an offensive lineman, without a sled. In European teams, weight lifting rarely is integrated as part of the daily practice, and if it is integrated, the lifting program is rarely related to football. (When I was in Europe, I visited about ten football teams and coached for four of them, and none of them knew what was a "power clean" exercise. "Power clean" is the base of power lifting in football.) To be a winner as a player, you have to improve yourself with practice day by day. You have to work harder every day, and start every day thinking as a winner. Remember to work harder in the things that you are weak on. For example, when I lift weights, I am very weak with the bench press, so I work more with it. I do not improve a lot, but I am working hard to improve my weaknesses. A good football player, as well as a good football coach, have to work hard to improve his limitations.

Honesty and integrity must be part of a good coach -- You do not have to be a liar. If you do not know something, say it: "I do not know". No one is perfect, but remember that a good coach looks for answers if he does not have one. In other words, if you do not know something, you have to be brave enough to look for an answer because your players need one, but more importantly you need one. (Books, videos, and other coaches can help you. Remember, be a good communicator.)

You must have values -- Normally, coaches teach the fundamentals and not the values of the game. You have to understand your players, let all the players be part of the team. Your experiences can help your players to understand the game. Give joy to the players. Treat them equally, and if a player is not as talented, make him play from time to time. In Europe, I noticed that teams form a main core in the team itself, usually the oldest players. When a new player or a player from a junior team comes to practice , these old players pound them very hard to show who was in charge. Well, I was one of them when I played in Europe, and I really do not know why I did it. Although it was wrong, it was part of the daily practice. The old players had to show who is in charge. On the other hand, when I played, we lost a lot of valuable players for this "stupid" reason. American football is a difficult game to learn. Most of the things we do such as tackling, blocking, and catching, are not naturally learned. In other words, one needs time to perfect these skills. It is very stressful to put a new player in such a position. A solution is to pay more attention to this matter. A good coach can use "red" shirts for the new commers. (Red shirt players are the new players from College and High School. Some of them "red shirt" for a year before playing in a game which means that they do not play for a whole year and practice only.)

What is coaching -- For me, coaching is just part of my life. Everything I do is related to coaching sports which I like (see my personal page). Now, I am learinig how to work a page on the Internet because I believe the internet will be the future for communication, and I still am coaching people about my favorite sport. It is amazing. In other words, you must be enthusiastic to coach football. You have a lot of responsabilities on you hands. Confidence is just a matter of time. Especially in football, you have to bring people together, offensively and defensively, as a whole team. You must be organized and have a commitment of excellence. Treat all equally and be flexible. Find a way to motivate people, and remember that we are all different. The same thing does not work for everyone. Remember to use good physical tests in choosing your player positions to direct them so they can achieve their best in the gridirion. If you are a European coach, it will be best if your players play both ways, offensively and defensively. This is very important in junior teams because the players will understand the game faster and better if they play both ways. You can use different systems to do this. You can make them play officially on one side and unofficially to the other. Or, in teams with few players, which is the main problem in most teams in Europe, you can use your best athletes both ways, and the less talented only one way.

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MY PHILOSOPHY

In my opinion, philosophy is the beginning of a team. A team without a philosophy is not a team. I think that everyone who wants to be a good coach has to have his own philosophy. The desire to win, be honest, have integrity, have flexibility, and self-evaluation are real values in our life, but for me, the key word is "believe."

• First, you have to believe in yourself, and you have to believe in what you have to achieve, your goals.
• Second, you have to believe in the coaches who work with you.
• Next, you have to believe in each of your players as well as the team as a whole.
• Finally, you have to achieve success in what you do.

To believe is not a word, it is a feeling that you must have if you want to be part of a unit team, and if you really love football, you will believe in it. There is another thing that you must believ, this is the toughest part of the game; you must believe in your defeat. To lose, is also part of the game, but there are two ways to lose a game; one is to lose with a belief to have done everything possible to win, and the other is just to lose. To lose with a belief, means to learn in your defeat, and to be stronger on your feeling, as a player or as a coach. You can be defeated in a game, but you can also be defeated every day on the practice field. Remember, this is my philosophy not yours, if you want to have a winning team, you must build your philosophy relating to your personality. I believe that "Great coaches are like eagles, they do not fly in a flock, you find them alone."

Some good tips for you

What can you do to make yourself a better coach?

• First of all, you have to attend football clinics.
• Read books and watch videos (see my book section).
• Talk with other coaches and exchange ideas and opionions.
• Find out what your head coach wants, and what he wants you to do.
• Be responsible for everything you do.
• Try to improve yourself everytime possible.
• Find pleasure in what you do.

• Teach your players to not use the head as a weapon.
• Warm up the players neck before and in every practice.
• Relationship between coach and players must be honest.
• Relationship between coaches and players must be different.
• Respect every kid, if you don't like them, work together.
• Be responsible for team and players regulation. Players would adapt.
• Remember, good football players like discipline.

E-mail: Giorgio Volpi