The Coaching Lifestyle

In case you missed it, America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys dropped on Netflix this week.

The show documents Jerry Jones’ purchase of the Dallas Cowboys in 1989 and the rollercoaster ride that ensued.

A key figure in Cowboys history is Jason Garrett, who was a quarterback on the team throughout the 1990s, and went on to coach the team throughout the 2010s.

Last month, Garrett gave an interview where he reflected on what he learned from coaching the Cowboys across 10 seasons. In just seven minutes of interview time, here’s all the wisdom he was able to pack in:

• As a head coach, you’re either a ‘night guy’ or a ‘morning guy’ and you’ve got to be careful about being both.
  

• He was someone who liked to finish the task before bed (ie. can’t sleep with unfinished business) so he tended to be a night guy.
  

• The most important time you have is the time with your players.
  

• A lot of coaches take pride in saying ‘I left the office at 2am and I’m back here at 5:30am’ but Garrett says, “Well, you’re not going to be very good today, then,” particularly if you’re trying to do that day after day, week after week.
  

• Garrett tried not to sleep in the office, although Dallas’ prominence meant they often had a crazy schedule — like playing Sunday Night before Thanksgiving Thursday. In those time-condensed instances, he would stay in the facility.
  

• Coaches need to work out how to be more efficient with their time, where the head coach doesn’t feel like they have to do it all — because they can’t!
  

• Garrett recently visited with Dan Quinn at the Washington Commanders, and asked him how he’s different now than in 2015 (when he was head coach of the Atlanta Falcons). Quinn said, “Back then, I was a guy who wanted to do everything. I wasn’t empowering people enough or building leaders enough, now I pull back and try to build an environment where others can do their work”.
  

• Jon Gruden would famously wake up at 3:17am every morning, but Garrett is quick to point out that Gruden also famously left work early every day.
  

• Garrett never bought into the whole ‘I have to be the first one in the building’ mantra. He understands the display of dedication and discipline, but reiterates: “Again, let’s do things in an efficient way. Coaching is unbalanced during the season, we all know that, but we should still try to live in a somewhat balanced way so that you can function at a high level over time.”
  

• The Cowboys engaged sleep expert Shona Halson to help gain a competitive advantage. The coaches asked her if you can catch up over the course of a game week (by having a 3-hour nap on Friday, and sleeping on the plane). “She said you can, but over time you need to balance it out,” Garrett recalls.
  

• Interviewer Chris Simms (another former NFL quarterback) noted that players could tell how exhausted coaches were — particularly on Friday and Saturday —which made the players anxious. “They’re in a coma and it’s like, ‘You need to wake up, we’ve got to go play a game!’”
  

• Garrett believes more coaches need to be disciplined with their own time, and efficient with how they organize everyone else’s time.

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