AFCA Insider: PJ Fleck on Coaching Your Culture

BleedGopher

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per AFCA Insider:

Long before he led his Western Michigan Broncos against the University of Wisconsin Badgers in the 2017 Cotton Bowl, and long before he accepted the head coaching job at the University of Minnesota, P.J. Fleck was a sixth grade social studies teacher. The concept of culture doesn’t necessarily resonate with sixth graders.

“My background is in elementary education,” says Fleck. “One thing I’ll say about teaching sixth grade is you learn 30 different ways to teach one lesson. I think that’s what has kind of helped me become a head football coach. Especially in 2018, you have to find these ways to continue to stimulate your football team and continue to keep them interested in everything that you’re teaching or talking about.”

Fleck isn’t just talking about football either. He says that he must keep his athletes engaged in the holistic sense of the word, meaning athletically, academically, socially and spiritually.

“Coaching is way different in 2018 than it was in 2008,” says Fleck. “All areas of the student-athletes’ lives are affected by everything they do in college. I have to teach these four areas more than I ever have before.”

As any good football coach knows, teaching and coaching is about so much more than X’s and O’s. Don’t get me wrong. You can never skimp on your understanding of the game. At the same time, understanding your student-athletes goes hand-in-hand with teaching them how to play the game in your system. The common thread that runs through it all is a team’s culture.

CONNECTING WITH CULTURE
The job of a football coach is to teach lifetime lessons in a cultural way, Fleck says. Football itself is a lifetime lesson, but every year, cultural changes take place in a program, whether that’s with your players, coaches, system, processes, recruiting, whether that’s through offense, defense and special teams, or schematics, or whether that’s through relationship-building. All of that has a place in your program’s culture, and each year, coaches must find ways to evolve and improve in each aspect.

This is complicated by the fact that, at the Division I level, nearly all of your players come from somewhere else and don’t know each other. They have no shared history and different backgrounds, and outside of being one of the best players on their high school teams, each student-athlete’s journey to the Big Ten stage is unique.

“Think about it,” says Fleck. “I have kids from all walks of life, from every demographic, a lot of races, a lot of financial backgrounds, a lot of spiritual backgrounds, and all believe different things, and were raised differently and by different people. Now, you put 125 young people in a room and say, ‘Okay, well, we’re all going to be family. We’re going to do all the right things, and we’re going to represent the University of Minnesota in first-class fashion.’ That’s great to talk about, but if you’re not educating players on how you’re going to do that every single day, and you’re not going to invest holistically in their lives every single day, then it’s just coach talk.”

Fleck points at the difference between sympathy and empathy as a method for showing players you’re not all talk, but rather, you have their best interests at heart.

“I think sympathy – having the exact same experience as someone else – you can put yourself in their shoes,” says Fleck. “That’s a great way to connect, but in college football, it’s more about empathy, where you have an understanding, but you haven’t walked one step in your players’ shoes. As long as you try to understand, and steer resources toward players’ needs, then I think players respect that. Not everyone can say they’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes, but if you try to imagine it and start building relationships based on that, that’s where people from all walks of life can still connect.”

http://insider.afca.com/pj-fleck-co...utm_content=PJ Fleck On Coaching Your Culture

Go Gophers!!
 

Saw him at a clinic here while he was a western Michigan coach with a bad reccord. Thought he seemed annoying
 

Again with the grade school teacher thing. It was brief...cup of coffee brief.
 


Saw him at a clinic here while he was a western Michigan coach with a bad reccord. Thought he seemed annoying

I don't know why you would have to go there....some people might be thinking that about your posts.
 


I don't know why you would have to go there....some people might be thinking that about your posts.

I agree. When you see a poster's name you typically know what kind of a post its going to be. Usually not good.
 

I agree. When you see a poster's name you typically know what kind of a post its going to be. Usually not good.

Some guy makes a lot of good points, I just didn't know why he had to go negative. I probably dislike Richard Pitino just as much as he hates Fleck. I've realized it doesn't do any good for me to be constantly ripping him on the Basketball Board. I just stopped watching Gopher Basketball and probably haven't watched a game for the past 5 years.
 

Again with the grade school teacher thing. It was brief...cup of coffee brief.

It’s almost comical. PJ doesn’t do himself any favors when he goes down these paths.

“My background is in elementary education,” says Fleck. “One thing I’ll say about teaching sixth grade is you learn 30 different ways to teach one lesson. I think that’s what has kind of helped me become a head football coach.


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Some guy makes a lot of good points, I just didn't know why he had to go negative. I probably dislike Richard Pitino just as much as he hates Fleck. I've realized it doesn't do any good for me to be constantly ripping him on the Basketball Board. I just stopped watching Gopher Basketball and probably haven't watched a game for the past 5 years.

If you feel the need to trash Pitino, take it to the basketball board.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



Some guy makes a lot of good points, I just didn't know why he had to go negative. I probably dislike Richard Pitino just as much as he hates Fleck. I've realized it doesn't do any good for me to be constantly ripping him on the Basketball Board. I just stopped watching Gopher Basketball and probably haven't watched a game for the past 5 years.

Well if you don't like Fleck and the direction of the team. Perhaps you should stop posting here. Assuming you gave up on the basketball board already.
 

If you feel the need to trash Pitino, take it to the basketball board.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I didn't trash Pitino...that was the point. Fleck was an elementary education major. If he made connections to that experience he can bring to coaching, no matter how short it was, why are you ripping him? He didn't say he was a master teacher or anything. I have had some experience in a middle school classroom, so it wouldn't surprise me if he learned some lessons while teaching. Even if it was for a short period of time.
 

Well if you don't like Fleck and the direction of the team. Perhaps you should stop posting here. Assuming you gave up on the basketball board already.

I love Fleck and the direction of the team. I have never said anything bad about him. I don't even bring up Pitino on the basketball board. If I ever post on the basketball board it's about a high school player I've been able to watch.
 

I love Fleck and the direction of the team. I have never said anything bad about him. I don't even bring up Pitino on the basketball board. If I ever post on the basketball board it's about a high school player I've been able to watch.

Sure seemed like you were getting negative.
 







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