80/20 Rule for High School Teams

In today's post I will share with you the 80/20 Rule and how you can benefit from it as a high school coach.

As a high school coach we only have the players standing in front of us.  We have to find a way to build them up and train them as a unit to compete.  But we also know there will be players who will not comply and pull the team in the wrong direction.

If you have 100% of the players in front of you.  The top 80% is what you have to work with.  This is called The Pareto principle.  The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a theory maintaining that 80 percent of the output from a given situation or system is determined by 20 percent of the input.

How does this apply to high school sports. 

Lets first go to Urban Meyer's book Above the Line:  Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Season.  Coach Meyer takes the Pareto Principle one step further by breaking down the 80-20 percentage to a 10-80-10 percentage.  

The thought behind this is the top 10% will be your elite athlete.  They will create the nucleus of the team because they are disciplined and are in the relentless pursuit of daily improvement.

The 80% is the majority of the team that are reliable and do a good job.  These players are relatively trustworthy but need to be monitored, motivated, and disciplined to stay in line.  These players rely on structure of a program and led by the coaches.

The bottom 10% are known as "coach killers."  These players are uniterested, defiant, and really do not care about the program or themselves.  These players will eventually quit because the demand on their time and the amount of work are to much for them.

You can read about how Coach Meyers implements this process and more by reading  Above the Line:  Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Season.

The challenge as a high school coach is for you to create a program where the top 10% can continue to develop and grow while at the same time coach up the 80%.  Work it consistently and slowly the 80% group will get smaller while the upper 10% will get bigger.  We also hope the bottom 10% get smaller as well.  Not because they quit.  But because we find a way to make them better.  In reality, you are getting more players to buy in and be all in.

Coaches still have to spend time with their 80% players.  Never let anyone drop to the bottom 10% and always coach them up to get into the top 10%.  Sooner or later, you will have to let the bottom athletes go if they are not committed to the process.

As a high school coach, never cut a kid for his lack of talent.  If the player is doing his best, giving his all, totally committed to the program, then keep him around.  But if the kid is a distraction because of attitude, grades, attendance - then let him go.  The kid made his choice.

Coach Meyer's book leaves us with four approaches for moving the 80% to the Top 10%:

1. Mastery and Belief

2. Harness the Power

3. Building Ownership

4. Positive Peer Pressure

Where did Coach Meyer get the name of the book Above the Line?

The name comes from the old idea of "drawing a line in the sand."  One side of the line in the sand would stay and fight while the other side of the sand would retreat.

Same goes in football.  Heck, same goes for life.  We all have a line that once we cross it we are heading down a slippery slope or climbing a new mountain.  Either way there is a journey. 

If the player's life is above the line, they will be champions; not only on the field, but life.

Here is a slide from my presentation I use to give my teams:

Take this idea of living life above the line and make it your own.  Write out some behaviors you want your team to have and tell them about it.  Better yet, let the players spend some time on it as well.  The more the players are in involved, the more likely and easier it will be for them to buy in to the process.

If you want to read daily messages about items like this, I recommend you read Daily Discipline. 

The sports psychologist that helped Urban Meyer develop his plan of life Above the Line and others is Brian Kight.  He is well-respected author, writer, and speaker.  His writings are perfect everyday and you as coach can take something away and help your team.

So if you want to learn it straight from the source, be sure to subscribe to this free daily email from the guy who helped Coach Urban Meyer build his championship teams.

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