It is my twentieth year as an S&C coach: I have had one high school job, four internships, one grad assistant, two assistant strength coach jobs, one head coach job, and two businesses. I have been fired twice and been passed over for jobs an innumerable amount of times. I have moved a lot. I have lived on futons in kitchens and the cheapest places I could find on Craig’s list. I have had dozens of athletes become S&C coaches. I have had dozens of interns get full-time positions and a large percentage of those interns go on to become head strength coaches. I have had a blessed career. At times it did not feel like a blessing. Other times, I questioned the choice of becoming a strength coach. The Breakdown

• Year 1 – High School: Enfield High
• Year 2 – High School: Enfield High + Velocity Sports Performance Internship
• Year 3 – Division 3: Springfield College + Harvard, Georgia Tech, and Ole Miss Internships
• Year 4 – Assistant: Georgia Tech
• Year 5 – Assistant: Georgia Tech
• Year 6 – Assistant: Georgia Tech
• Year 7 – Associate (Top Assistant): University of Southern California
• Year 8 – Associate (Top Assistant): University of Southern California
• Year 9 – Associate (Top Assistant): University of Southern California
• Year 10 – Associate (Top Assistant): University of Southern California
• Year 11 – Head: Army West Point
• Year 12 – Head: Army West Point
• Year 13 – Head: Army West Point
• Year 14 – Co-Owner/Head Coach: Allegiate
• Year 15 – Co-Owner/Head Coach: Allegiate
• Year 16 – Co-Owner/Head Coach: Allegiate
• Year 17 – Co-Owner/Head Coach: Allegiate
• Year 18 – Co-Owner/Head Coach: Allegiate
• Year 19 – Co-Owner/Head Coach: Allegiate
• Year 20 – Co-Owner/Head Coach: Allegiate

What have I learned? I think a lot. Can I distill this down to a couple of key lessons? Let’s find out. Lesson 1 – What you do matters This is the most important lesson. I have heard it more times than I can count, in different forms, mostly from people telling me what I should and should not do. S&C is the biggest discreditor to S&C. “I was just like you, I thought I could cure cancer with strength training” or “You don’t mess with a Ferrari”. These comments come from a certain place that always confused me. How could someone who has committed their life to improving others not care about what you do? I have to believe what I do matters. If I don’t believe that to my core, then what is the point? Athletes are putting their safety and performance in the hands of the strength coach when they are training. What that means is that we are obligated to do the correct thing, every time, with no exceptions. Being cavalier with decisions based on the notion that what you do is irrelevant to an outcome is negligence. To say what we do does not matter is the same to me you do care about the people who entrust their future in our hands. If someone discredits us, it devalues our decisions, and that comes at the expense of the people depending on us to make good decisions. We are all at different stages of our careers. You know what you know, and you can do what you can do. The version of yourself as a coach today is always lesser than a future version. That is only true if you are constantly concerned with the choices you are making. You only commit to improving if you believe what you do matters; it has to then. I can say with great certainty that what I did and what I will do will make a difference. I want to be respected for character and consistency. I want to be appreciated for making good decisions that result in great outcomes. The detractors I have come across in my career all have perspectives on why they disagree with something or devalue other things. Usually, it comes in the bookends of one’s career. The beginning is shrouded with bias and attachment to training ideologies. We lack identity so we latch on to things that give us that. The other end is the disenfranchised group. Years of fighting the good fight, resenting the younger group has it better because of your sacrifices, and hearing what we do does not matter has led to a state of perpetual frustration. One cannot blame someone for feeling anger over the lack of admiration younger groups have for those who come before them, but it is not a new story. I can have empathy for why people make bad choices but do not have to tolerate it. Younger, old, and the coaches in between have an obligation to continuously strive to better themselves to do better things. No matter what stage you are in your career, what you do has meaning. That meaning is the difference between winning and losing. Lesson 2 – What others do, does not matter This is built on Lesson 1. If you believe in what you are doing, it will make what others do unimportant. We live in a shared and compared age. We can get recognition for hard work by posting on social media. When we do that, we shift focus from performance or outcomes to the court of public opinion. It could come from ignorance, it can come from agenda, or it can come in the form of trolling, but you will face criticism. If you did the leg work, researched and laid out your program, vetted your decisions, practiced and rehearsed your program, and implemented it to the highest level possible there is nothing to worry about. I’ll admit this one is hard. It is exceptionally hard when it comes from other coaches. The truth is that it does not matter other’s opinion of your program. Your athletes, the staff, and the coaches you work with are the only ones that count. If a coach who knows nothing about why you are doing something disagrees, who cares? If they are vehemently against what you do, and you are right, you now have a competitive advantage. The competitive advantage is only as good as your belief in what you are doing and constantly searching for better answers. You have to be willing to pivot from a strong belief when you find a better way or find that you are wrong. There are no exceptions. Sometimes listening to criticism is good. It forces you to truly evaluate your program. Sometimes ignoring criticism is the best option as well. This is not a new phenomenon. We have done this since our inception as a field. We have always discredited others. Our ‘programs’ and ‘philosophies’ have always been superior when compared to someone else. We go to conferences and say how bad something is because it serves our interests or beliefs. We have always gone out of our way to discredit what others do because it may discredit our own. The reasons are extremely semantic and do not push the needle of performance, so who cares? Whatever they do, is of their concern. Whatever you do, is of your concern. More times than not, criticism of what you are doing is a reflection of their self-consciousness. Always remember people are biased before they are logical. Bias precedes agendas which leads to criticism. You should be the only person you listen to when second-guessing. Vetting your decisions is important. Vetting other people’s decisions about you is not. Lesson 3 – The rep is your reputation  How you do something is how you do everything. I heard some that disagree with that. My initial reaction is they are probably a below-average coach. I mean that. We give out too many passes to coaches who are polarizing and become above reproach. Conviction is not the same as knowing. Show me your sessions with your teams or clients and I’ll know relatively quickly if you are a good coach or not. That is your reputation. Saying absolute statements does not have as much weight as seeing what you can do with a group or a client. Seeing, not saying, is believing. I evaluate coaches on three things:

• Do your clients/athletes get better?
• Do your clients/athletes respect you?
• Do your clients/athletes replicate what you asked them to do?

The replication aspect is important. It is the foundation of research design and us proving our value as a strength coach. If we have no quality control over how we do something, you will never really know if you are the reason behind their improvement or if was it simply random. We want to be good because of our existence, not despite our existence. If they did not get better and you had a uniform technique, it was a bad program design. If they did get better and have no uniformity, you have no idea if your program was any good. Never underestimate the value of knowing you are doing a good job. We have three ways to influence technique:

• Our Demonstration
• Our Description
• Our Coaching

Demonstration is most important when you cannot describe or lack the confidence to coach. Being a good demo will compensate for a ton of inadequacies as a coach. Describing what is necessary is second most important because it gives context for coaching. You will need to be able to cite a point of reference from how you broke down the exercise when cueing, that comes from your description. Lastly, you have to coach. If your demo sucks, if your description sucks, then you will have to coach your ass off. You have to be able to say to someone with confidence they are not doing something correctly. It could come intra-set by giving cues to fix while they are doing so. It could come interset by giving points of feedback on where the set went wrong and how it can be fixed. It could come in a subtle way where you saying global, not direct things to the group. It comes in an aggressively direct way. No matter what style of coaching you take on, it is a lot easier when you can demonstrate and describe the workout. I have been in situations where I felt useless during the session from doing such a good job demoing and describing the training session. There have been other times I have stopped groups completely and laid into them about how badly they are performing. In both situations, I went off the central premise, if someone were to watch me, what would they think of me as a coach? I always think about the ability to demonstrate, describe, and coach. I want to be excellent in all, but some will take more work. I want to not be limited by one but want to be exceptional in the one needed most. My ability to coach and make people better will come down to how well they replicate what I am asking my clients and athletes to do. Replication is compounded concerning your work. If you are consistent, reliable, professional, and approachable you will have respect from your clients/athletes. That respect will lead to more of an effort to listen and try when asked to do something. That compounds the efforts needed to get to an outcome. What you do and how you do that makes all the difference in the long run. Take Home I have been doing this for a while and hopefully, I am only halfway through. The reason behind these lessons is that these are the things I learned from the most intelligent and capable coaches I have been fortunate to work with. I’m sure there are more lessons, but I don’t care about them. Things have changed in the last 20 years, but I have found that these three lessons have not. Some cliches I have adopted over the years:

• Outcomes are more important than solutions
• Work hard and don’t be an asshole to others
• Read everything, go to every conference, never miss an opportunity to expose yourself to something new

Check back in 2044 for year 40. Ill probably copy and paste this and talk about how young coaches don’t get it.