from Accept Love: A Coaches Manual

Build the culture.

Earn the trust.

The capacity will take care of itself.

Build the team.

G r a t i t u d e   ·   E x c i t e m e n t   ·   D e v o t i o n

A mold is not a wish. It is a form. You build it before you need it. When the pressure arrives, the mold holds or it does not. What you built is what you get.

The mold is the settle before the snap. The breath before the stroke. The shape you step into before the moment demands one. Set the mold and the moment has somewhere to land.

T H E   M O L D

Clarity is not a wish. Clarity is a picture.

Above the Line, Below the Line — those are molds. You step into one or the other. The mold you step into decides what comes next.

The Mold is Set the moment you settle, breathe, and get clear. Not before. Vague hope is not a mold. Wanting it bad is not a mold. Clear expectation is.

Step into Above the Line, and the mold holds you there. Step into Below the Line, and that mold holds you too. Either way, the mold is set the second you step in.

The work is the settle. The work is the breath. The work is the clarity about what you expect.

Then step in.

The steps that build the mold are three: build the culture, earn the trust, and let the capacity to get better take care of itself — and what you get is a team. Not a roster. A team.

O N E

Build the Culture

Culture is what happens when nobody is watching. In a canoe it is the seat behind you knowing you will pull your water whether you feel good or not. It is not a speech and it is not a slogan on a wall. It is a hundred small kept promises stacked up until they become part of the structure.

When the hard thing arrives, it lands inside the structure — and it becomes part of the culture.

My high school football coach at Amityville, Lou Howard, was a master at building a culture that changed lives. Especially mine. One summer night before my tenth year, he invited me to his house. I remember driving my mother’s car over, his wife Margaret meeting me at the door and guiding me in to see the coach. A small room packed with winning football.

Coach got right to it.

“I’m bringing you up. You’ll start at one back. You’re special. You make Amityville football.”

The best part: I got to wear low cuts.

I was somebody — although I did not know why or how. My life changed that night. I became part of a culture that made my life special. Still does.

Amityville was about spirit — the spirit it takes to win.

We could feel it. And we won.

T W O

Earn the Trust

Trust is culture with a name attached. You earn it in the ordinary hours. Show up early. Tell the truth about a bad practice or a bad game. Pay the price to make it better. We did.

An athlete who trusts you will let you in. That is the whole reason for trust — it provides access. Without it you are coaching the outside of a person, and the outside of a team, and wondering why nothing moves.

Coach Charley Tate was the defensive coordinator during my time at Georgia Tech. He rarely spoke. Chewed a cigar most of the time. Chose his words carefully — and that is an understatement. He said maybe ten words to me during all the years I played for him.

One spring practice we were scrimmaging and I made a tackle that he really liked. He reached down to help me up. Pulled me close to his face. And with a big smile:

“Stud! You love it, don’t you!”

One of the best moments of my life. The good feeling lasts. I can still feel his acknowledgment. I loved him and played really hard for him. He trusted me, and I went to the end for him.

To establish trust you do not have to like each other on a team. You have to love each other. Love provides the awareness to accept and support each other. As a coach, to build trust is to be consistent, to be real, and to communicate from a place where love resides.

T H R E E

The Capacity to Get Better Will Take Care of Itself

Coaches spend their lives chasing capacity. More, faster, stronger, sooner.

Capacity is the last thing to worry about. Set the mold and improvement pours in on its own. Athletes who are safe and feel known get better without being pushed. It is not a reward for the culture. It is a byproduct of it.

Here in Honolulu I have worked with two legends in high school baseball: Eric Kadaoka at Punahou and Dunn Muramaru at Mid Pacific. Old school, both of them. Eric passed away a few years ago. Dunn, after forty years, is still at it.

With Dunn at Mid Pacific I organized leadership training and established the concept of a core group. With Eric at Punahou I was forced into action — after a disappointing loss to Iolani, Eric had his team walk home. When I was asked to help right the ship, I asked Dunn if he minded, since they competed against each other regularly. He said, “Sure. He’s a good coach. You can help him.” When I asked Eric if he minded that I was also working with Dunn, he said, “Sure. He runs a great program.”

Two strong coaches with so much respect for each other they could look past the rivalry to see what matters: helping each other. Their strength and their love for the game let the players share that devotion and channel their own love for the game.

On both teams, players who bought in to the culture and felt the trust got way better.

F O U R

Build the Team

Culture holds the structure. Trust provides access. Capacity follows. But none of it matters if it stays individual.

The team is where it lands. The team is the mold in motion.

A roster is names on a list. A team is a group of people who know each other, trust each other, and carry each other. You do not have to like each other. You have to love each other — or at least accept each other enough to carry the boat together.

People equate team with family. In truth, team can often do a better job. Family is given. Team is chosen. And a team built on culture and trust holds people in ways family sometimes cannot.

The culture gives them a place to stand. The trust gives them permission to lean. The capacity gives them room to grow. But the team is what makes it matter.

One player getting better is progress. A team getting better together is transformation.

Winning is not the goal. Winning is the receipt.

Coaches who chase winning get compliance. Coaches who build culture, earn trust, and let capacity rise — they get a team that wins because it cannot help it.

The mold produces the outcome. Chase the outcome and you skip the mold. Skip the mold and you get a roster that performs when things are easy and fractures when they are not.

Build the mold. The winning follows.

A C C E P T   L O V E

The mold is set by love

The kind of coaches who build the culture and earn the trust are the ones who show up early, tell the truth, and live to love.

Coaches can build the culture. Coaches can earn the trust.

The one part we cannot do for them is the accepting. That part belongs to the players, as it should.

And when the culture holds, and the trust is earned, and the capacity rises — what you have is not a group of athletes. You have a team. That is what Accept Love builds.

I continue to accept the challenge of learning how to share the lessons I have learned from working with so many wonderful men and women who coach for the right reasons.

They coach because a kid needs to be seen. They coach because a team needs a mold that holds. They coach because someone did it for them once, and the debt only gets paid one way — moving forward.

That is the work I am still learning how to put into words.

If this story helps one coach set the mold on purpose, it was worth telling.

The mold gets set one coach at a time.

HiLevel Coaching Service

Brad Yates | www.BradYates.com | 808.295.2136

H a m m a h   ·   T a l k   S t o r y