Does your team need rules?

By Ryan Maloney

Photo by Roger Coda

John Gagliardi, the all-time winningest coach in college football history, didn't have rules for his team at St. John's University. He explained his philosophy to Jim Collinson in No-How Coaching:

"We get good kids," Gagliardi said. "We want guys who don't need rules. People who need rules, they aren't going to keep 'em anyway. We want guys who don't need job descriptions."

In women's soccer, Messiah College has won five national championships in eleven years. Their coach, Scott Frey, prefers core values:

And in volleyball, Johan Dulfer, who's teams at Clarkson made appearances in the NCAA Elite Eight four years in a row, uses more traditional rules. Uniquely though, they're made and enforced by the players themselves:

Three coaches, each with unprecedented success, with three very different philosophies on rules.

But whatever the philosophy, rules without relationships breeds rebellion.