Tag: Leadership

No One Conditions Alone

I’m in the process of writing an article for Hockey Strength and Conditioning on my experience helping with the San Jose Sharks prospect camp a few weeks back and I wanted to share a modified excerpt with you.

Mike’s intern Marcello, after coaching for a few hours (aka not at all warmed up or training) hopped in with one of the Sharks to do a brutal conditioning session on the treadmill. Why suffer the anguish? Conditioning alone sucks. Actually, conditioning sucks. Conditioning alone just sucks worse. It’s a huge help to have someone going through the grind with you.

Since returning, I’ve implemented a No One Conditions Alone policy at Endeavor. Coming back to Potenza’s incredible ability to lead by example, I didn’t tell anyone it was our policy; I just started conditioning with people who ended up having to condition on their own (we have to audible on our conditioning strategies for some of our athletes based on weekend tournaments and injuries). The first time I hopped in to do shuttles with someone, I got a thank you email. Our athletes noticed. Our staff noticed.

Just the other day, as luck would have it, one of our hockey players had to go through this brutal isohold->slideboard series 6x through, all with a 12 lb vest (the highest volume we go with this).

He was alone. I hopped in. Fellow coach David Lasnier hopped in. One of our interns hopped in.

Most recently, David and I trained together through a torturous circuit (4x through 50 yard sled march, 50 yard farmers walk, 20 sec squat hold, 20 kettlebell swings, 50 yard overhead keg walk, 20 sec front plank), after which I was only pretty sure that neither of us would throw up or pass out. I was in my dark place bad.

Quick side note. “Dark place” refers to that state of being where:

1) You can hear yourself breathing from the inside of your head

2) You can hear other people talking, but it sounds more likely someone narrating your life than someone actually speaking to you

3) You’re EXTREMELY fatigued. When I was in high school, I was so tired one morning (back to back practices with off-ice in between) that I got half way through my bowl of cereal before I realized I had poured orange juice on it. That is extreme fatigue.

After I got a drink from our fountain, I turned around to see one of our interns doing shuttle runs by himself. Damn it. I limped over to the track and immediately jumped in with him. As I returned back to the beginning of our track from the 1st lap on our shuttles I saw David walking over to one of our stationary bikes, where he sat down and finished a conditioning session with one of our other interns.

I try to encourage a team atmosphere at Endeavor. It’s important to me that our athletes know they aren’t being barked at by someone with a loud voice, but no work ethic. It’s important they know that our staff and everyone they’re training with are in it for the same goal: to make them succeed.

There are two major take homes from this “experiment”:

1) Lead by example. I didn’t have to say much before all of our coaches and interns were hopping in to condition with athletes or race them during sprints if they needed an extra push. I just did it.

2) Go through the grind together. Athletes have a lot more respect for coaches that put their blood lactate where their mouth is (not my best metaphor).

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

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Becoming a Successful Leader

My friend Mike Potenza was kind enough to invite me out to San Jose last week to help out with the San Jose Sharks prospect camp. Throughout the week, I had the opportunity to interact with the entire coaching/scouting staff, the athletic training staff, a few of the Sharks players (that were around for the Summer), ~45 domestic and international elite level prospects, Mike and his supporting interns/volunteers, and John Pallof (one of the smartest people in human performance that I’ve ever met). Needless to say, it was an eye opening experience.

More than anything else, there was ONE common theme for this camp:

To build a successful organization (or team), EVERYONE has to be a leader.

The Sharks went as far as to bring their guys to a US Air Force base to do team building exercises with Sargeant Mike Malloy. This incredibly important aspect of athletic development is largely overlooked in most sport and training settings.

In youth athletics, being a leader is typically equated with being a star. It’s unfortunate that this is the message our athletes get, as it certainly discourages uniform team-wide leadership.

Many people recognize leadership as meaning:

-Holding yourself accountable for your actions
-Putting your best effort forward, even when no one is watching!
-Never giving up until the job is done (e.g. never acquiescing to the mental torture fatigue instills)

Being a leader also means being a good teammate, which EVERYONE can do.

If one of your teammates is struggling, it’s YOUR job to pick them up. In other words, it’s easy to criticize/complain about a teammate being too slow, not passing to you, taking a bad shot, etc. It’s only moderately more difficult to pull that teammate aside and talk to them in a civil manner. I say moderately more difficult because it actually takes less energy and you can squash problems immediately instead of letting them fester. On the contrary, criticizing tends to spawn infectious negativity that creates a culture of unresolved condemnation. Simply, we need to spend less time pushing each other away, and more time pulling each other along.

It’s unlikely that every player on a team will like every other player’s personality. We’re all different. However, often times building a successful organization comes down to the players’ ability to look past “dislike”, and to consistently empower struggling teammates in pursuit of a strengthened common purpose or goal.

The message sent to the Sharks’ prospects was to always hold a hand out for your teammates. Let them know you’re always there to help, to genuinely look out for each other. Think about how this changes the “pressure” put on individual players when they know they are truly part of a unit, a team.

This message starts from the top down. As presidents, coaches, and trainers, we need to let our players know that we’re in it for the same reason they are. No egos. No malice. No “politics”. Just development.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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Determinants of Hockey Success

Developing skill and following a quality athletic development program are absolutely paramount in any hockey player having a successful career. However, these things really come second to two fundamental qualities that establish whether any athlete will be successful, in sports and in life.

These two qualities are integrity and desire.

People that lack integrity are invariably exposed for being selfish at heart. Integrity is a character trait that all successful leaders have, and encompasses a wide variety of other admirable traits like honesty and trustworthiness. With that said, everyone faces adversity from time to time. Whether it’s getting cut from a team you wanted to make, or being down in a big game entering the third period, every player has to navigate obstacles that stand in the way of what they want. A burning desire is often what pushes players to good players to perform great, and what, when collectively shared, gives teams the fuel to win championships and create lasting memories.

I could go on about these things forever, but I thought it’d be easier (and more entertaining) if I let my good friend Al Pacino define these for you. Check out the videos below.

*Al can sometimes use language that may be considered in appropriate for children. Watch videos at your own risk.

Integrity

Desire


-Kevin Neeld

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