This fall marks my 6th year of coaching football. I never had any interest in coaching. I started when my son Magnus’ flag football program needed parent coaches. It was only a Saturday morning commitment back then. But like the mythical slowly boiled frog, who forgot to jump out of the pot, I am now the defensive coordinator for Magnus’ 7th grade tackle football team. Which is an everyday-in-August commitment. Oy.
As a coach, I am really a student. I am trying to learn as much about football as I can to help my players play well, have fun, and be safe. But like Uncle Rico, I still have a strong desire to win.
Back to School
2 weeks ago I had a great opportunity to learn some new things about the game of football. On Varsity Day, Coach Tom Price, President of Cardinal Football, brought the local Varsity football players from Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin to practice to work with the 5th-8th grade players in the Cardinal football program that feeds players into Homestead. While the high schoolers were working with our athletes, one of the outstanding Homestead football coaches on Head Coach Drake Zortmans’s staff talked to the Cardinal coaches about football.
The coach, Dan Juedes, is a 70-something who is not only in the Wisconsin Football Coaches Hall of Fame, he is in the National Football Coaches Hall of Fame. He coaches at football camps across the country, including at many of the Big Ten schools. In fact, Dan has been coaching so long that when he started the Big 10 conference only had 5 teams.
Dan’s Lessons
As the novice coaches gathered around Dan, he shared a few gems about coaching football. His first lesson had been passed along to him by the legendary Bo Schembechler, the former head football coach at the University of Michigan. Dan told us:
‘The average football play lasts 7 seconds. All players look pretty much the same during the first 2 seconds. What separates great players from the ordinary is what they do in seconds 3 through 7.‘
-Coach Dan Juedes
When Dan shared this I felt like I had heard Einstein explain the Universe with E= MC2. Because Dan’s 7-second rule took a very complex game and broke it down into a very simple formula for success.
Josh Hunt, our 7th-grade teams’ head coach, and I couldn’t wait to share this valuable insight with our players. So once we were reunited with our athletes (and it felt so good) we eagerly shared our new insight with our team. And we have been resharing the 7-second secret every day since.
Applying the 7-Second Success Formula
On Saturday we had our first game of the season. The last thing I told the players before they took the field was to give a full 7 seconds of effort on every play and great things would happen.
But the much bigger opponents overwhelmed our team out of the gate. They ran around us and over us until they were knock, knock knocking on the endzone’s door.
But with our backs to our own endzone, defending a first and goal play from the 6-yard line our team gave a 7-second effort. My son Magnus fired across the line from his defensive end position and engaged with a tight end. He shed the blocker at 2 seconds and attacked the opposing team’s quarterback. What happened over the next 5 seconds changed everything.
Magnus sprinted after the quarterback, and not only did he tackle him deep in the backfield, he punched the ball out of his hands in the process. Our middle linebacker Jaden Daniels was also giving a 7-second effort and pounced on the loose ball. This meant that we went from our opponent having the ball on first and goal from the 6-yard line, to our team having a first and ten at the 17-yard line. Boom!
Then our offense became a 7-Second Squad. We put together an 83-yard scoring drive that led to a 6-0 lead.
It turns out that’s all we needed to win the game. Because thanks to our 7-second efforts we held our formidable and much bigger opponent to 0 points. A shutout.
The 7-Second Life Lesson
Dan’s 7-second rule teaches us to go hard to the end of every play. While everyone starts out doing the right thing on nearly every play, at some point, most people stop giving maximum effort and forfeit the advantage to those who go hard until the whistle blows.
But the 7-Second rule doesn’t just apply to football. The basic concept applies to success in all areas of life. Most people start out strong. But they give up too early. They stop or quit just when their effort is needed most. It is true in sports and in your career. It is true in marriage and in parenting. And it is true anywhere effort is needed to create results.
Key Takeaway
The difference in life is not made at the start. It is what you do after the start. Don’t stop 2 seconds in. That’s when most people let up, thinking they have done their job. Don’t fall into that trap. True success comes from your effort during seconds 3 through 7. So play the full play. Give a full effort every time. That effort and the advantage it creates compounds, play after play, day after day, year after year. Play until the end. And the end will be sweeter than you could have imagined. Just like the donuts I will bring my team today to celebrate the donut they put on the scoreboard on Saturday. Boom!
Final Note
Over the weekend as I reviewed the game film to provide feedback, I saw the 7-second rule over and over again. The great plays were made by those playing hard for 7 seconds. The best results of all came when the entire team played hard for 7 seconds. And as a proud Dad-Coach, I saw that Magnus had 3 sacks in the game and the game-winning tackle on 4th down in the 4th quarter. All of which came from giving full effort all the way to whistle. And I was amazed as I counted to 7 seconds over and over on our biggest plays. It turns out that Dan and Bo really know what they are talking about.
Also, I want to note that Dan Juedes and Tom Price have been a great help to me as track and field officials running the shot put and discus events at Homestead’s home meets in the spring. Thanks guys!
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+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.
Adam Albrecht Blog 