Sometimes you need to storm into a locker room at halftime and light a spark!
We were trailing by eight after a flat first half. The effort wasn’t terrible, but the energy was gone. Maybe it was the third straight week on the road, maybe the long bus ride — whatever the reason, we weren’t playing to our potential. The X’s and O’s weren’t the issue; our mindset was.
There are games where halftime adjustments to blocking schemes or coverage concepts change the outcome. This wasn’t one of them. What we needed was belief. We needed players to look in the mirror and see more than they thought they were capable of. That’s part of a coach’s job — to help young men catch a glimpse of their own strength before they believe it themselves.
So we challenged them — not with anger, but with conviction. We reminded them of who they were, what they’d prepared for, and what it meant to play for each other.
When we re-took the field, something clicked. We scored 20 unanswered points to start the second half and never looked back.
Halftime speeches fade, but belief sticks. Sometimes the most important adjustment isn’t drawn on a whiteboard — it’s drawn out of your players’ hearts.
Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time!
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