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Vernon Croft Training Academy Coaching Philosophy
My Coaching Philosophy
Vernon Croft Indiana State Head Women’s Soccer Coach  Every year I try to sit down and look at how the past year has changed my professional and personal life. Each year I am able to look at both and continually adjust and re-develop my coaching philosophy of which I have the pleasure of sharing with you today. I think the most important topic I want to get across is that I by no means feel that I know everything about the game and or life, but do feel that my experiences at all levels of the game as a player and coach have given me some insight that has helped me develop my belief towards development of student-athletes as athletes and as people.As long as I have coached, whether it be youth or college, I believe that within interscholastic involvement the most important part of your experience is the academia within your institution. Without a professional league right now it is important that you look beyond your soccer career to your life career. The degree you will receive at graduation will carry you for the rest of your life and your experiences that you have gone through to get that will help you achieve in the real world. Such experiences are the ability to manage your time appropriately, to study/work when you don’t want to, prioritize what is important and what can wait, solve the problems and/or demands you face in each and all of your classes, and most importantly how you handle adversity on and off the field. With this being said it is important that I provide the opportunity for our players to be successful with their academics as well as putting a high standard on developing that success. I wear a number of hats as coach here. I have been a career counselor as they get older and closer to graduation, as an academic advisor as needed (secondary to our amazing academic support program), at times as a surrogate parent, as a relationship counselor, and as a friend. With this being said I hold our student-athletes accountable for their academic success and failures by needing an individual GPA of 3.25 to get out of study hall and I challenge them to achieve the highest team GPA we possibly can. The latter has been a tremendous achievement that these young ladies have not needed much push to achieve with the latest team GPA of 3.34. With the size of our roster being nearly thirty it is an achievement they all should be proud of because it is not an easy task to accomplish. I put a lot of responsibility in our players and staff as my trust and belief in them is already achieved and it is theirs to keep or lose. I expect them to make as many choices for themselves as they can, with some being good ones and some being poor ones that they can learn from. This is something that is carried on the field as well as off the field within their own personal lives. On the field I am not going to tell you that this is how it is done, I will provide you the direction you need and I will put you in environments that will challenge your decision making process. Thus allowing you to find success in challenging situations which will lead to individual and team success, as well as failure at times where you will be held accountable for finding a way to be successful. I truly feel that our sport is a unique one in that we do not have time-outs to call if the flow of the game is not in our favor, nor do we have plays that are called once we cross the middle of the field. Our game is one that is a constantly free flowing game for the players to solve the demands appropriately by themselves in the midst of play. It is my role to create situations in which you can solve these problems with more success than failure, and to not dictate how you should play. I want your personality to come out on the field as it does off the field. I am a firm believer in that “success is a choice” and the choices you make determine your success or failure and then how can you learn from the failures to become a better student, athlete, and person.  I am a competitor, and I want our players to be competitors on the field and in the classroom. If you are not willing to compete for every little thing from winning the 4:4 games, to the shooting activity, to the fitness, to getting the higher grade on an exam then you will only achieve adequacy in your athletics, academics, and life. A true competitor knows what it is like to win and to lose and when they lose they know how to face that adversity and figure out how to win. If you are always winning, then you have not challenged yourself against the best and you can not become a better team or person. You need to challenge yourself on the field or in the classroom every day and compete in these environments to be successful. What can you do to make yourself a better person? Each year we chart fitness activities and game activities, this year we will be charting many more activities to continue the development of the competitive desire, especially on the field. One of the many attributes I love about our team is that they challenge themselves academically to the point that I can watch their success and be proud of each one of them at all the grade checks throughout the year. They achieved the #1 ranking, not I; I simply followed their path, supported them, challenged them, and then became extremely proud of them for this. They competed against themselves and the other programs in the Missouri Valley Conference (of which we have had the top team GPA for four straight years) and the country. Competition is the end all to success on the field, in the classroom, and in life.The biggest challenge in the continued success of this program has been the chemistry of this group of young ladies as the dynamic of the team changes every year with players graduating and new freshmen coming in. For us to be successful it is vital that we feel we are a group and not individuals or even as small cliques. To get to this point a former assistant football coach here at ISU mentioned to me his philosophy on the dynamics of a team, which has stuck with me since. A team is made up of 5% of individuals trying to take the team in the right direction while 10% of the individuals is trying to take the team in their own direction with the remaining 85% of the team trying to decide which way to follow. I asked him why only 5% going in the right direction and then 10% going the opposite way; his response “it is easier to lead in a negative manner than it is to lead in a positive manner.” This year might be the first that we have a truly competitive group with fantastic character that actually has a higher percentage trying to lead in the right direction than the percentage leading the wrong direction. For me to help, it is important that I try to get us all focused on one common goal rather than many smaller goals per each clique. I want us to be the best possible team we can be, not by comparing our success to others but by comparing our success to ourselves and how we can continue to improve. I want to know each player as a person and as an athlete and know what they want for themselves to be successful. I want to be up front with them, straight forward and honest with their role on this team, and to fit their “personality” into the mold of our group of players. I do not want to tell a player that this is your goal; I challenge them to determine their own goals. I don’t want a player to be satisfied with a goal of playing this year, I want them to have a goal of starting. Overachieve, that is what I want from each and every player in this program as well as our staff; myself included. Do what you have to do, and then do more. I was brought up in a family where education was a very important part of our lives and athletics complimented our lives. My family is full of educators and I knew I was going to continue our tradition in athletics as opposed to the classroom; my classroom is the field and your time on our campus. I truly love what I do and have a true passion for my job here at Indiana State. I have often been asked why I chose to coach in college and my response is always the same. I feel I can have the most impact on the players I am around at this level to how they will grow into young adults. My college coach had an amazing impact on the person I am today because of the demands he put on me, because of the love of the game he had, his love of Lynchburg College, and the love he had for me as a person. That is why I became a college coach and that is what I hope to instill in the players that go through our program here at Indiana State. My ultimate philosophy comes down to: 1. Academic success 2. Individual accountability based on self responsibility 3. Competition for everything 4. To bring the parts of a team together as a whole 5. To educate my players to become the complete person Our program will continue to be successful as we have a wonderful group of players that knows what it means to compete for each other, support each other, demand of each other, and to truly and honestly love each other for who they are. We’ve a fantastic administration with high regard and high demands for our program, and they want us to be successful. Then we have Indiana State University, a great place to spend four years playing soccer, getting an education, and meeting new people (some of whom will be your best friends for life). This current team has brought out a new excitement and joy for me within my “job” here and a true enjoyment of working with them. Some coaches coach for their wins and losses, I coach for this group of players and to not disappoint them. They deserve my best and the right to be called Champions. We look forward to this season and no longer look back to compare ourselves. We are our own separate tea of players and staff. Nothing from the past will affect how successful we are today and only our actions will determine our success or failure, only we have control of our success. I could not ask for a better environment to live, work, and coach. I hope that you too will take the opportunity to visit with me, the team, and our staff here at Indiana State University. Success is a Choice |
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