🏈 "Moawad knew his offseason assignment: Build leaders."

[planomateo]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...oning-coach/index.html?xid=cnnbin&hpt=hp_bn10

Moawad knew his offseason assignment: Build leaders.


plenty of nuggets in this article, some I've known about. I hope these guys realize what gifts they are given...we often get caught up in the $$'s and such, these to me are way more important than the millions of dollars most athletes squander. These are lessons that can influence people and could be extremely more valuable than the short term financial gains of football contracts. These are the types of things regular college kids never get exposed too, this is again why I'm not for paying players in college...as they get way more than the normal student.

When Alabama faces LSU on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium, Moawad will be on the sideline in case anyone needs a brief refresher. After the past 11 months, he isn't worried about the leadership void that plagued the talented 2010 team.

Throughout the year, Saban will bring in Moawad -- whom he met while coaching the Miami Dolphins -- to run players through drills that reinforce specific mental traits. The exercise that helped Hightower understand why he needed to speak up during the Auburn game involves a group of players who are tasked with planning a barbecue. Each player wears a number on his head. He can't see the number, but his teammates can. A one is the low man on the totem pole. A nine is an alpha dog. Moawad instructs the players to treat one another in accordance to the number on each person's head. When the nine speaks, everyone listens and reacts. When the twos and threes speak, they are ignored. "You start to learn status," Moawad said. "The overall goal is learning where you fit in. At different times, you need to play different roles." Said left tackle Barrett Jones: "By the end, everyone clearly knew what number they were." Hightower hadn't realized during the Auburn game that he was already a nine.

Moawad should learn Saturday whether he accomplished his offseason mission of helping build leaders for the Tide. Some players, such as former Alabama linebacker Rolando McClain, are born leaders. Others, such as Hightower, need help unlocking those skills. "Where I think Coach Saban is by far ahead of most people is his understanding that a lot of these things are skills that can be learned, and they're not necessarily things that we're endowed with when we're born or that we can only recruit for," Moawad said. "That's the right philosophy when you're developing athletes."

It certainly worked with Hightower. In August, Moawad asked Hightower to speak to the team. The player who didn't consider it his place to speak months earlier opened his heart to his teammates. "I love my teammates, and I'm a people person, but I'm not really one to get up and be sentimental or get emotional," Hightower said. "But that's what I did. I wanted them to understand how I felt about last year and how I feel about this year."

Thanks to Moawad, Hightower now knows he is a nine.

"He didn't tell me," Hightower said. "He taught me."

 

[SnakeFan]

amen!

 

[bamatommy]

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