#240: Anson Dorrance, 21x NCAA Champion, on Creating the “UNC Competitive Cauldron” (Session from 2021 Way of Champions Conference)
Friday, 01 October 2021
Listen on the web, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher Anson Dorrance loves competition, and has spent decades understanding and creating relentless competitors in his teams. As the University of North Carolina Women’s Soccer Coach, he has won over 1000 games, 21 NCAA Championships, and also led the US Women’s National Team to the 1991 World Cup Championship. He has published
No Comments
#99 How to Help your Teams Overcome Fear in Must Win Games: A Fireside Chat with John and Jerry
Sunday, 27 January 2019
Do your athletes struggle with the right frame of mind for the “big game”? Does the pressure of a “must-win” have an effect on their pre-game mindset? Tune in to hear about some strategies for keeping a cool head win it is all “on the line”. Enjoy the Show Getting in Touch: Jerry: wayofchampions@gmail.com John:
- Published in Podcast
#96 “Success is Not an Accident; Success is a Choice” with Alan Stein Jr., author of Raise Your Game: High-Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best
Sunday, 06 January 2019
It’s not what the greatest performers do in the moment of competition that makes them the greatest. It is what they did in the “unseen” moments long before they take to the arena that matter. Success never happens in the moment. It is honed, crafted, practiced painstakingly in days, months, years prior. Choose to be
- Published in Podcast
WOC #74 Anthony Latronica, US U17 Men’s National Team and US Men’s Paralympic Assistant Coach, on the Importance of Developing Players at Every Age and Stage
Sunday, 12 August 2018
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to coach the likes of Christian Pulisic when he was a youngster? Have you thought about how life-changing it would be to coach War Heroes on the U.S. National Paralympic Team? Don’t miss this episode where Anthony shares the stories of his coaching legacy. Enjoy the
- Published in Podcast
WOC #65 The Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance with Alex Hutchinson, former elite runner and author of the bestselling book Endure
Sunday, 10 June 2018
How much of our human performance limits is physical and how much is “in our heads”? According to Alex Hutchinson, the human brain is the next frontier in breaking barriers in performance. We know more about the brain in the last 50 years than we did in the last 500 years combined. Is he right
- Published in Podcast
WOC #64 “I’m just a kid playing a game”: Overcoming adversity, managing disappointment, and building an athlete warrior ethos with USA Volleyball Player Cassidy Lichtman
Sunday, 03 June 2018
Imagine playing your entire career with unimaginable pain or working your hardest for four years to fall one spot short of making a lifelong dream come true. Now imagine the kind of warrior ethos required to say “my pain will not control my life and my disappointments will not define me”. This is the amazing
- Published in Podcast
Can Youth Sports be Both Fun and Competitive?
Tuesday, 03 April 2018
I got an email from a distraught parent the other day. She described a scene where the coach was screaming at the girls after a loss. She was beside herself at how the coach treated the girls. He was demeaning, he was loud and scary, and he had lost perspective on the age he was
- Published in Motivation, Youth Sports
#55 Coaching John McEnroe and Other Great Tales from 17x NCAA Champion Stanford Tennis Coach, Dick Gould
Sunday, 01 April 2018
What would it be like to coach some of the greatest tennis players of all time before they became the icons they are today? Tune in to our latest podcast to hear Dick Gould’s stories about these iconic players and more from over 50 years with Stanford Tennis. Subscribe to the Way of Champions Podcast
- Published in Podcast
Pound the Rock! What the San Antonio Spurs Can Teach Us About Getting 1% Better Every Day
Wednesday, 07 February 2018
One of the most successful sporting franchises across the globe the last few decades is the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA. With five NBA titles since 1999, 22 overall division titles, having won at least 50 games for 18 consecutive seasons, and having missed the playoffs only 4 times in their history, the Spurs
- Published in Deliberate Practice, Mental Toughness
WOC #30 What Makes Sports Fun for Athletes of All Ages with Amanda Visek, PhD.
Sunday, 08 October 2017
Fun. It is the biggest reason kids play sports and it is also the biggest reason they quit. That is widely known. What is not widely known is the fact kids define fun differently than us adults. In fact, they define fun 81 different ways. You’d be surprised at what they consider fun… Subscribe
- Published in Podcast, Youth Sports
WOC #9 Rise and Shine with English Premier League and World Cup Soccer Player Jay DeMerit
Monday, 15 May 2017
Jay DeMerit has one of the most unique stories to success the sport of soccer has ever seen. An MLS reject that backpacked to Europe and climbed the English soccer pyramid from the 12th tier to become the captain of Watford FC in the English Premier League. He also represented the US Mens National Team
Developing Warriors, not Winners, is the Path to Excellence
Sunday, 05 March 2017
(This week’s blog is written by Reed Maltbie, our new Chief Content Officer and Lead Presenter for Changing the Game Project. If you haven’t seen Reed present for us yet, check out his amazing TED talk on the lasting power of a coach’s words. Drop him a line at Reed@ChangingTheGameProject.com to say hello or if you interested
- Published in Coaching, Parenting, Team Culture
Why Kids Quit Sports
Tuesday, 05 May 2015
“I just can’t take it anymore coach,” a talented but underperforming player named Kate told me a few years back. “I think I am done playing.” My mind went through all the reasons this might be happening: burnout, other interests, team dynamics, I was too hard on her, the gamut. What could it be? “It’s
- Published in Coaching, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
Changing the Game in Youth Sports
Saturday, 21 June 2014
On April 26, 2014 I had the honor of presenting a talk at TEDx Bend Oregon entitled “Changing the Game in Youth Sports.” The power of the TED platform, and its international recognition as a brand that brings “ideas worth sharing” to the forefront of conversation, was such an incredible platform to be able to
- Published in Leadership, Problems in Youth Sports, TED talks
The Bare Essentials: Three Things Every Athlete Needs to Succeed
Thursday, 06 February 2014
Elite performance is determined by a number of factors, amongst them innate talent and genetics, hours of deliberate training, coaching, and luck. But performance is also great affected by what is between an athlete’s ears: mindset. An athlete’s state of mind is perhaps the single greatest factor that affects performance. In his great book The
- Published in Coaching, Motivation, Sports Parenting
The Armpit of American Youth Sports: “Friday Night Tykes”
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
The armpit is the part of the body that is dark, stinky, and unattractive. Everyone has one, but no one wants to see it or acknowledge it, and would rather cover it up and move on. The armpit of American youth sports is the culture of win-at-all-costs, uneducated, over the top coaches and parents who
- Published in Coaching, Football, Injuries, Leadership, Problems in Youth Sports
The Most Thought Provoking Sports Books of 2013
Monday, 16 December 2013
Now that I get to make my living as a writer and a speaker, I have many perks. Perhaps my favorite is that I get to write off all of my book purchases as a business expense, research for past and future writing! In 2013, I read a ton of great books, but here are
- Published in Book reviews, Coaching, Leadership, Sports Parenting
Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification
Monday, 09 December 2013
Many youth sports coaches claim to be great talent identifiers, and point to the results of their 11 year all star team as proof. Yet they are not talent identifiers. They are talent selectors. The difference could not be more striking, or more damaging to our country’s future talent pool in many sports. Talent selection
- Published in Coaching, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
The Missing Ingredient
Monday, 02 December 2013
If you have coached long enough, you have probably said this about a player: “He’s got a lot of talent, but he is just missing something.” I have written on similar subjects in the past, and there has been academic research in this area. In all likelihood, that missing ingredient was often the inner drive
- Published in Mental Toughness, Sports Parenting
Coaches, a Little Common Sense Please!
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
“My 8 year old had 6 days of soccer last week!” “My 11 year old’s coach said he could not play on any other soccer teams except his. No futsal with his friends, no indoor, nothing but this team.” “My 13 year old was told that if he did not commit to play Fall baseball,
- Published in Coaching, Leadership
Is Losing Stressing You Out? Try This New Mindset to Fix it!
Saturday, 19 October 2013
As a young coach, I was convinced that there were only two possible outcomes to a game, winning or losing. Of course, losing was to be avoided at all costs, even if that meant not playing weaker players, benching underperformers, criticizing referees, you name it. Then I started to study people whom I would call
- Published in Coaching, Leadership
Mental Toughness Week
Tuesday, 01 October 2013
Why are we so afraid to challenge kids these days, or to let our kids be challenged? We all know that our greatest accomplishments, the things we are most proud of in our lives, be they building a business, or our family, or athletic achievements, all came with struggle! Nothing great comes easy. This week
- Published in Confidence, Mental Toughness
Why We Rage: The Science Behind Crazy Parents and Over the Top Coaches
Friday, 13 September 2013
Have you ever noticed when you go to your child’s soccer game that you react one way to bad calls, aggressive fouls, or intense situations in your game, but have little or no reaction to similar situations in the game prior to yours, where you have no emotional stake? Do you can sit there with
- Published in Coaching, Leadership, Sports Parenting