Our primary role as coaches is to build people, and it's a responsibility that all Kings coaches embrace. Through principles such as Leadership, Teambuilding and Communication, we encourage our players to share ownership of our program by fostering on-field leadership; we show them how to develop a collective belief in the power of a team while still maintaining a healthy sense of "self"; and we strive to build relationships of trust and mutual respect that will inspire and motivate.
We use this philosophy to build a team, and we use this philosophy to develop individuals. We believe that a coach is, first and foremost, a teacher--a teacher of fundamental physical and mental game skills and a teacher of the life lessons that can be learned through the game of football. We are devoted to long-term development. When our players are done playing with the Kings, we want to know that we taught them something that they can use to achieve success in whatever they choose to do in life.
The Role of Winning in Football
In reality, the seemingly complicated discussion on the place winning should hold in football can be summed up rather easily: Winning should be the fruit of our efforts and not the focus of our efforts. The outcome of a game is important, but not as an end in itself. Our focus is on preparation: as coaches, we strive to teach players HOW to prepare to win, to work hard to win and not to give up. We teach them to want to win because that is how they might triumph on a goal-line stand, stay in school, hold together a marriage, or work through business problems. And if we do all of this effectively and focus on the development of physical and mental skills, we will win more than our share of games--and this without sacrificing the personal and individual significance that all of our players should draw from their football experience.
True to our philosophy, the Kings were recently awarded the Private Schools Sportsmanship Award for 2010 by the Northern Virginia Football Officials Association (NVFOA). This award is based on the actions of coaches, players, parents and spectators. Go to NVFOA for more details on this award.
