What You Do, You Do To Everyone In This Room

It’s funny.

Eight weeks ago, ESPN wrote a feature about Kalen DeBoer’s first week as Alabama’s new head coach. The article went to great detail to isolate the differences between DeBoer and his predecessor, the legendary Nick Saban.

Where they ate their lunch.

How they started their meetings.

The type of shoes they wore.

DeBoer was cast as a liberator, a modern head coach who arrived as a breath of fresh air to a program that, despite its success, was stuffy. Saban, in turn, was positioned as an old school coach who maintained reverence, but had lost touch.

Fast forward to today, and after a 5-2 start including losses to Vanderbilt and Tennessee, The Athletic ran this headline:

Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama program lacks the discipline, mystique of the Nick Saban era

I raise this not to be spiteful to Coach DeBoer, but because it plays into the purpose of this blog — to reclaim the craft knowledge that exists within coaching.

Maybe, just maybe, the old school guys knew a thing or two about coaching. Maybe old fashioned sensibilities are still relevant despite the rapid changes in our society. Maybe the wisdom of those who went before us is to be regarded, not disregarded.

A Culture of Expectations

In the first chapter of his 2005 book, Saban outlines precisely some of the processes that allowed him to build the discipline and mystique to which the headline is referring.

He writes, “In any organization, you must set out guidelines and provide the support for behaviour that adheres to those guidelines. There must also be defined consequences for actions that go against them."

Saban has a reputation for being a stickler for discipline, so his approach may surprise you. You might even call it modern:

While coaching Michigan State in the 1990s, Saban set up ‘peer intervention groups’ to allow the players to govern themselves.

“At the time, our organization had been tarnished by numerous off-the-field incidents, including arrests and academic failures,” he writes. “We created player councils to give the players a say in the rules and enforcement of those rules. Experience showed that players taking ownership in the team reduced conduct detrimental to the team.”

Here’s how it functioned:

1. Education is provided to players about how to deal with the situations they will face as student athletes — drugs, alcohol, agents, gambling, sex, dorm rooms, attendance in class, etc.

2. Throughout the year, players accumulate ‘negative points’ for indiscretions, and once these points reach a certain threshold, that player must face a panel of his peers.

3. The peer intervention group hands out any necessary punishment and devises a plan that the player must follow.

4. Continued indiscretions after the peer intervention group results in a face-to-face meeting with Saban himself.

“The coaches intentionally try to avoid any control over the peer intervention group and their decisions,” Saban writes, before noting that his players are 18-22 year old men and there is obviously guidance provided, particularly where severe and serious infractions have occurred.

I’ve seen head coaches implement player-driven discipline systems, only to meddle because they weren’t happy with the punishments. There is no point handing your players the opportunity to govern themselves if you’re going to interfere in their governance.

“The fact that the players have input into this system heightens their awareness of how they can affect one another to make the correct decisions,” Saban says.

“The peer intervention motto is ‘What you do, you do to everyone in this room’ — a phrase posted in the team meeting room.

The peer intervention system worked so well that Saban implemented it when he moved to LSU, where he won his first national championship.

Cody’s Notes

• It bugs me that I’ve read recent articles on Saban, Bill Belichick, and Pete Carroll, that paint them as dinosaurs. How quickly we forget.

• I think it’s interesting that Saban’s peer intervention strategy started while they were having discipline problems. It wasn’t a product of everything going well and the coach ‘rewarding’ the players, it was a product of adversity. When you treat people like adults, they become adults.

• I gave away discipline to my leadership group while I was head coach of Team Canada, and it was one of the best things I’ve done.

• Human beings aged 18 - 32 are far more willing to break rules handed to them by an authority figure than they are willing to break rules where the risk is being ostracized by their social group.

• They key for head coaches is: YOU. MUST. RESIST. THE. URGE. TO. MEDDLE.

• The Daily Coach also wrote a piece on Saban today, outlining his shift from transactional coaching to transformational coaching.