"You're a good man Brad Yates," the voice of Bobby Dodd, my football coach at Georgia Tech in the early 60's. The year is 1982 and I'm on sabbatical. I had brought my family to live in Atlanta, Georgia for 8 months. Coach Dodd had been retired to what those closest to him considered a meaningless job in the administration at Tech. At the age of 18 through 23 I was busy living out of my own view of the world. In other words, I had an attitude that was closed and self-centered. I was angry and I felt like the victim. I resented what I considered to be an impersonal and unjust system. By today's standards my behavior was rather mild but my attitude turned from bad to worse and I began to hate the game that I loved. After starting as a junior, I made the worst decision of my life. I walked away from my final year of eligibility. Coach Dodd allowed me to keep my scholarship. I graduated that spring and left an angry young man. In time, my anger turned to embarrassment, guilt and humiliation. For years I dealt with the consequences of my decision, always avoiding the details of my football career.

At the age of 40, after considerable introspective analysis, I realized that my upset in college was really about me and football got the blame. In addition, my attitude prevented me from appreciating the contribution that this legend of a coach had made to my life. I now appreciated the patience and understanding that he had for me during my playing days. In his own way he had accepted me and given me permission to be my own person. Realizing that my behavior during this time was a plea for attention and recognition, I sought out Coach Dodd to make amends. He sat patiently as I worked my way through an awkward apology. When I was through, he smiled and said "life has a way of working itself out and you have grown up and I am proud of you." He once again concluded that I was a good man.

As I walked out of his office my feet did not touch the ground for days. I felt elated with his acceptance of me and proud of myself for completing this stage of my growth. Such is the power of the relationship between a coach and player. Coach Dodd had the wisdom to recognize that I was a good person in the 60's and then again in the 80's even though my behavior at these points was radically different. In my view, the relationship between coach and player is unique. The players' opportunity for growth should take precedence over the ever-present distractions including the need to win. I dedicated my book to those who Fuel the Fire, they're own and others'. I use the word fire to describe the power of positive emotion to influence individual performance. Coaches, as you read this article please realize that I am writing this out of respect for the power that your fire has to influence others.

The Fire
We all have fire. Fire is emotion, both positive and negative. Positive emotion is interest, excitement, intensity and passion. Positive emotion is warm, feels good, builds relationships, and pulls people closer together, enhances performance and is fun. Negative emotion is boredom, frustration, regret, resentment, anger and hate. Negative emotion burns, hurts, destroys relationships, and divides people, takes away from performance and is no fun.

The Fire and you
The fire that I write about in my book is positive emotion. Fueling your fire involves training yourself to manage your emotions and your energy in order to show up and give your best effort. To become a better coach you need to be eager to work hard, improve your skills, have fun or see the value of your efforts and maintain the state of being clear, mentally tough, focused and committed.

Clarity
As John Madden said about NFL coaches, "there are two kinds of coaches, those that grind it up and those that get grinded up. "Coaches that "grind it up" have fire and they are clear. Clarity, in this sense is the ability to be inner-directed, to make decisions based on your feelings, feelings related to how you want your life to be. Coaches that "grind it up" are clear that they want to coach and they embrace the challenge.
Note: To maintain your clarity you must follow the 3 R's: rest, reflect and recognize.
Rest: To take care of your self, coach yourself first and maintain your over-all fitness.
Reflect: To take the time to slow down and see the big picture, perfect and refine the skill of downtime management.
Recognize: To slow down in the face of the red flags, obey the warnings that you are not taking care of yourself and/or able to see the big picture.

Mental Toughness
Mental toughness is the ability to relax under pressure and give your best effort. The pressure in college coaching according to Sharon Peterson, Woman's Volleyball Coach at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, "is being able to recruit, teach, counsel, balance the budget, be competitive, win, etc, etc and maintain a life." Mental toughness in terms of coaching is to be up for this challenge. To be mentally tough you must program your mind through relaxation, deep breathing and visualization to believe that you are up for the challenge.
Note: Belief creates experience. The belief in your players can be transferred and allow them to believe in themselves and to create a positive experience.

Focus
To focus is to think in a feeling sense. The feelings related to being a good coach must reflect your desire to be a leader. To be a leader you must express your fire; your interest for what you are doing, your excitement for the game, your intensity to compete and your passion to excel. To express your fire is to be real, to take a risk, and make personal growth a priority. Growth is the attitude that says that what you are doing right now is important, what you are dong right now is fun and/or worth the effort and that there will be value in the lessons learned from your experience.
Note: Feelings take care of business. Defense wins games. Defense is intensity in action. To be a good coach you must communicate the feelings related to playing good defense. The challenge for coaches who were good/great players is to communicate the same level of intensity to their players that they felt as a player.

Commitment
To be committed is the act of making a decision and following through with the appropriate choices. The commitment involved in becoming a good coach requires the ability to accept feedback and learn to let go.

Accept Feedback
Feedback in terms of your performance as a coach comes from your body, feelings and actions.
Body: Does your body enjoy coaching?
Feelings: Can you feel the fire?
Actions: Do your players feel your fire and do the people you answer to think you are doing a god job?
To become the best coach that you can be you must accept feedback and learn from these valuable sources of information.

Letting Go
Every time you have a negative experience, the negative emotions related to this experience open a file on your hard drive (subconscious). Let's say you are coaching a team and one of your players is giving you an attitude you don't like. The first time you get mad at this player, your computer (subconscious) opens a file called “MAD at PLAYER.” From that moment forward every time you get mad at this player, the negative emotions related to this incident are stored in the file, MAD at PLAYER. When the file becomes full, the toxic emotions spill out and are expressed outwardly as an angry rage or tantrum, or inwardly as depression or a physical illness or both. Letting go is a way of processing the emotions, deleting the file, and preventing a toxic buildup of negative emotions.
Note: A good coach is able to separate the person from the behavior. You may be upset with someone and his behavior, but you accept him as a person. It may sound like a play on words; however, when you are able to separate a person from the behavior, the feelings you communicate will build rather than take away from your relationship.

Letting go occurs on all levels: spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional. Spiritually, you must be willing to confront your pain, anger and frustration. Physically, letting go involves breathing, relaxation, and exercise. Mentally, letting go involves reframing your experience and/or putting your negative emotions on the back burner. Emotionally, letting go is doing what Chopra refers to as “inner work.” Inner work can mean prayer, meditation, and/or writing and talking about your upset. The idea is to embrace your emotions, learn from them, and let them go.
Note: Choice manifests your reality. The choices to accept feedback and learn to let go will allow you to become the coach and the person you want to be.

The Fire and Your Team
In evaluating your team's ability to express their fire consider the following:

This ability begins and ends with them.
As a coach you can nurture them and their fire, you cannot be responsible for their ability to express this fire. In making them aware of this fact, you are providing them with an opportunity to learn one of life's most important lessons. Namely, that we are all responsible for making the choice to light our own fire.

You teach best what you most need to learn.
As you evaluate the clarity, mental toughness, focus and commitment that your players demonstrate consider teaching your team about these qualities. In this way you provide the leadership to develop a "two way street," an environment where coach and team members share equally in the responsibility for learning to give your best effort. While as coach you are responsible for establishing and maintaining the direction of the program, the team members are responsible for "buying into" the program and maintaining the support for each other and for the program.

Summary
In working to resolve the issues related to my upset with football, I have become the person I needed when I was a college athlete. A prime example that "you teach what you need to learn." As a counseling psychologist, I understand the importance of processing negative emotions, resolving issues and making growth a priority as it relates to individual and group performance. From my experience of working with coaches and athletes, I'm convinced that you have the power to educate your players in the process of learning to give your best effort. In so doing you are providing your players with the tools to make sense of their world, how they fit in to it and how to enrich their lives. The fact that you have fire for what you do and you are working to "weather the changes" in your profession and life allows your players to learn from you at an accelerated rate, and this learning "sticks." The best that is yet to come is you as you learn to fuel a fire that is as big and bright as the love that you have for your sport, your players and yourself.