Coach ,

Ohio state champion Geron Stokes, now the head coach at Dublin Coffman HS, believes that the success that his program had which led to being state champions was attributable to how they practice.

He explains how his journey from what he called being a “terrible coach” to a state champion started with some reading. He shares how this influenced him and his philosophy on practice in this video (click on images for videos):

His philosophy begins with a simple idea:

PERSON > PROCESS > RESULT

(Read as “The person is greater than the process is greater than the result”)

Coach explains that the mission is to develop people beyond the 4 years that the players are in the program. He explains why he shares that info daily here:

He wants his team to be on a mission to be “the best practice team in the country.” It is the foundation of the program.  Showing up everyday to be the best practice guy in the country, you can develop habits that will go well beyond the game. 

His philosophy moves the focus away from results (W/L)and to simple minded behaviors that make the players good people. He shares that here:

Walk Thru - The Most Important Period

First, Coach Stokes makes sure that walk thrus are conducted in a different place than the practice field. It is important to them because it separates them from the pace that they expect on the practice field. 

While it is not high pace, it is high focus. From hand placement to communication, the laser-like focus and slower pace makes this one of the highest teaching and learning periods that they do.  

Coach mentions that if he had to choose one or the other on a single day, for example if storms were coming, he’d pick walk thru over practice.

Here’s an overview:

Thank you to Coach Stokes for sharing these videos from his course “How Success in Our Program Stems From How We Practice.”

As you finalize plans for camp, put some thought into the why and how of practice and be sure you have streamlined everything for maximum player learning.

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski