Five ways to fire up players
Some 96 years ago, he stood in the locker room, searching for the right words to motivate his football players.
The grainy film shows Knute Rockne starting slowly, pointing out what needed to be done in order for Notre Dame to win this football game.
Rockne’s voice rises as the speech goes on, and so does his actions. He pounds his left hand with a right fist as his voice becomes even louder.
“We’re going to get them on the inside and we’re going to get them on the outside,” he cried out, nearing the crescendo.
“We’re going to get them on the run,” he shouts, “and we’re going to go, go go.”
Rockne’s speech helped provide the Fighting Irish a 12-6 victory over Army that day. Even more important, the grainy film of his speech inspired coaches far and wide, from college to high school to youth league to offer speeches to inspire their football team.
But do they work? Does the motivational aspects of a pregame or postgame speech really matter in today’s world?
According to local football coaches, it still does. But so do other things.
Here are five motivational techniques coaches use as Friday night football is once more upon us.
1. Music
Along with motivational speeches, the football players get a large dose of music.
“We’re big music people so we have a lot of it at practice,” said McGuffey head coach Ed Dalton. “That’s probably better than anything you can say.”
Chartiers-Houston head coach Terry Fetsko said a few minutes before going out for a game, music can be heard blaring through the dressing room.
“Don’t ask me what it is because I don’t know,” he said with a chuckle.
2. Signs
Walk into the locker room or hallway leading to it at Chartiers-Houston High School and you are bombarded by posters and signs that are used to motivate the Bucs each time they walk past them.
Some run the length of the wall and show the C-H football field with the saying, “Our House” scripted across the bottom of the poster.
Other smaller ones provide keywords or quotes from famous coaches.
“This year we made a lot of posters,” Fetsko said. “Some are sayings, like from Vince Lombardi. Some of them are pertinent to Chartiers-Houston and the seniors.”
3. Video
Prior to each important game, Dalton will sometimes record a motivational speech that he shows to his players before a game.
“My pregame talk will be on video, not every game but before big games, I’ll play it,” Dalton said. “They are usually not bad. That’s probably the most modern thing we do.”
4. Themes
While it is low on the list of motivational tactics, coaches still use them.
“We use keywords, buzzwords or phrases we use over and over again,” said Dalton. “But that lasts about 17 seconds if you’re not (a good team). Then it doesn’t matter. Kids love that external stuff but it really isn’t the external stuff that matters. It should be the internal stuff that should be motivating you.”
5. Realism
Nothing loses the crowd faster when players don’t feel a coach is being genuine in talking to their players.
“The more genuine I feel, the better the speech,” Dalton said. “Players can smell out a phoney. Sometimes it can be as simple as a kid from the other team at the 50 saying something or an (opposing) coach saying something. Then, it’s all right; here we go.”