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TWO MAJOR NEWS STORIES from February provide youth football coaches and parents a chance to use football to teach life lessons to their youth players. One, the Giants’ Super Bowl victory, contains a lesson in “Honoring the Game,” the guidelines Positive Coaching Alliance has created for character development through youth and high school sports. The other is a cautionary tale of what happens when we lose perspective on sports, the story of a high school player’s National Signing Day press conference to announce his “commitment” to the
Say all you want to know about is the Giants' pass rush and the miraculous connection between Eli Manning and David Tyree. One key to the Giants' Super Bowl upset of the previously perfect Patriots was the Giants' approach to their regular season finale against
With playoff positions set, the Giants had little to gain by going all out against the Patriots in week 17. Tempted to rest players and protect them from injury, instead the Giants Honored the Game, gave their best effort and thrilled the nation by pushing the Patriots to their limits.
The Giants' decision to Honor the Game let players on both teams know that the Giants planned to meet the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The confidence and commitment entailed in Honoring the Game fueled the Giants' unlikely playoff run and eventual Super Bowl championship.
Yes, the Giants still had to execute on the field, and yes, it took one of the unlikeliest plays in football history to keep their game-winning drive alive, but like so much else in sports, the team’s mindset affected the outcome. And the Giants’ mindset in the Super Bowl stemmed from their choice to give maximum effort on every play in week 17, when the Giants convinced themselves and the Patriots that the Giants could win.
We urge coaches and parents to share with their players the lesson that the Giants’ win provides. This is the chance to tell players that if they give maximum effort on every play that they are winners in life, and that like the Giants, they may also achieve some surprising scoreboard wins.
You might even couple this message with a word of caution about being overly focused on outcomes. That was the downfall of the high school player who faked his National Signing Day commitment to a Division I college. He wanted his “win” so badly that he deceived his parents and coaches, who in turn let him down by failing to help him keep his goals in perspective.
All lost sight of the big picture of the role football should play in the life of a youth athlete, one of education and character-development. In discussing this story with your youth and high school players, you can remind them that you love and value them for their whole person. With that confidence and comfort, free of undue pressure to pursue outcomes that may not be realistic, they just may achieve their own Giant wins.
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This article is the third in a series of articles created exclusively for