By Ryan Maloney, assistant women's volleyball coach
 |
| John Gagliardi of Division III St. John's University is college football's all-time winningest coach (489 wins) |
Right now, you can get a book of over 100 insights from John Gagliardi, college football's all-time winningest coach from Division III St. John's University, for $1.43 on Amazon.
If that's not shocking enough, Gagliardi's book No-How Coaching is filled with so many counterintuitive viewpoints that it would make most modern coaches uncomfortable after reading the first few pages. It certainly made me feel that way.
But pressing on, I managed to extract four insights that make me rethink what I thought I knew. I'm somewhere between agreeing and disagreeing with all four:
3. No athletic scholarships
True, when John started coaching at Saint John's in 1953 the football program had scholarships. The Benedictine monks of the university, interviewing him for the coaching position asked him, "Do you need scholarships to win?" The monks wanted a winning team, but they were reluctant to part unnecessarily with dollars. John remembers telling the monks he didn't think he needed scholarships to win. "Oh, God, I could see I had the job right there."
The NCAA Division III today doesn't allow scholarships. But for many years John coached his team to winning seasons and championships against teams using scholarships.
About athletic scholarships, John says, "Athletic welfare is what I call it. I've always liked that we turn out good, good students who're also good athletes."
4. No recruiting off campus
While other coaches and their staffs are investing time, money, and energy chasing after stars, John is giving prospective freshmen the welcome on campus. How does he recruit winning athletes without scouring his Minnesota-Northern Iowa-Dakota territory for the best and actively courting them? With his winning program!
John doesn't especially seek out the most outstanding high school athletes. Instead, he's looking for students with scholastic ability, willingness to learn. "Give me a mediocre athlete with responsibility and desire to learn and the willingness to improve in the classroom, and I'll show you a man who can become a valuable asset to any team."
John makes use of the talent that shows up. Any Saint John's student can join the team. Says John: "We get young men who want to think, who want to improve and who want to test their ingenuity and intelligence and judgment in tough situations."
18. No goals needed / 20. No "Mission Statement." Just win.
Just as John says no to cheerleaders and precision drills, he's pretty sparse on goals, promises, and mission statements. Just as he has a disdain for the unnecessary, he has no time for goals and mission statements. Instead, John has an intense, deeply rooted focus on expecting to win, expecting great things to happen. "We really don't have any goals," he asserts. "I believe in doing your best every day."
[...]
As for goals, John says, "Try to make it simple. Never try to expose a team to so many goals or so many innovations that they lose track of the prime fact." And what's the prime fact for the Saint John's football team? "They are a good football team to begin with and they have nothing to fear."
99. No discipline problems
Reading the sports section in your daily paper is like reading a police report. The coach's job description in many schools and colleges, and with many professional teams, includes "chief disciplinarian." Not at Saint John's. John doesn't believe in job descriptions and he doesn't have discipline problems.
What's his secret? "We get good kids," he explains. "We want guys who don't need rules. People who need rules, they aren't going to keep 'em anyway. We want guys that don't need job descriptions."
This is interesting, John's tying his team's good conduct to the idea of no job descriptions. What's the connection? John remembers when he was athletic director, having to hire other staff. "I always found the same thing. The guy that says, 'Well, it's not in my job description,' he was worthless. Completely worthless."
So John always is looking for the young men who don't need rules.
[Thanks to John Crawford for the book recommendation]