Kopion 2016

Joshua 1:9

Here is this week's podcast and quote from Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

"Five things to consider when looking for the right people"
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/five-key-things-to-consider/id1067394511?i=1000358770180&mt=2

"DISCIPLINED PEOPLE: “WHO” BEFORE “WHAT”

"You are a bus driver. The bus, your company, is at a standstill, and it’s your job to get it going. You have to decide where you're going, how you're going to get there, and who's going with you.
Most people assume that great bus drivers (read: business leaders) immediately start the journey by announcing to the people on the bus where they're going—by setting a new direction or by articulating a fresh corporate vision.

In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances. Take David Maxwell’s bus ride. When he became CEO of Fannie Mae in 1981, the company was losing $1 million every business day, with $56 billion worth of mortgage loans underwater. The board desperately wanted to know what Maxwell was going to do to rescue the company.

Maxwell responded to the “what” question the same way that all good-to-great leaders do: He told them, That’s the wrong first question. To decide where to drive the bus before you have the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus, is absolutely the wrong approach.

Maxwell told his management team that there would only be seats on the bus for A-level people who were willing to put out A-plus effort. He interviewed every member of the team. He told them all the same thing: It was going to be a tough ride, a very demanding trip. If they didn’t want to go, fine; just say so. Now’s the time to get off the bus, he said. No questions asked, no recriminations. In all, 14 of 26 executives got off the bus. They were replaced by some of the best, smartest, and hardest-working executives in the world of finance.

With the right people on the bus, in the right seats, Maxwell then turned his full attention to the “what” question. He and his team took Fannie Mae from losing $1 million a day at the start of his tenure to earning $4 million a day at the end. Even after Maxwell left in 1991, his great team continued to drive the flywheel—turn upon turn—and Fannie Mae generated cumulative stock returns nearly eight times better than the general market from 1984 to 1999.

When it comes to getting started, good-to-great leaders understand three simple truths. First, if you begin with “who,” you can more easily adapt to a fast-changing world. If people get on your bus because of where they think it’s going, you'll be in trouble when you get 10 miles down the road and discover that you need to change direction because the world has changed. But if people board the bus principally because of all the other great people on the bus, you’ll be much faster and smarter in responding to changing conditions. Second, if you have the right people on your bus, you don’t need to worry about motivating them. The right people are self-motivated: Nothing beats being part of a team that is expected to produce great results. And third, if you have the wrong people on the bus, nothing else matters. You may be headed in the right direction, but you still won’t achieve greatness. Great vision with mediocre people still produces mediocre results. " Jim Collins

This is "WHO" is getting on our bus for 2016...

Habin Bang/South Korea

Joshua Busscher/Holland, MI

It is Wednesday July 5th… That means two things. First this blog post is late, which I apologize for... second, we are half way through our captains practice week and three days away from the start of our preseason.  I wanted to start off my post with a quote, one which I am sure every one of you has heard before.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe” –Abraham Lincoln (Apparently)
This has always been one of my favorite quotes because it’s all about preparation. It’s all about prepping yourself to take on the task at hand. We are all tested constantly on and off the field and as we go through life this will remain constant. How well do you prepare for an exam, an interview, that big game etc. There is a direct correlation between how you prepare, and how badly you want to succeed.
To be honest with you guys this past fall was really hard for me. We played terrible games with terrible attitudes and it all showed in our terrible record.  Some of you at this point are saying, “come on, it wasn’t that bad, we are rebuilding blah blah” But I’m sick of hearing that. It was bad. I’ve gone from a 1st place WHAC team that was 14-3-2 to a team that barely scraped its way into the playoffs in just three years…  Now I will tell you there is a distinct difference between how both of these teams trained. My freshman year we put in work, and it showed on the field. We got stuck in on tackles and players challenged each other in ways that were constructive and uplifting. A lot of you have said stuff to me like, “Oh well there was just so many more talented players on the team your freshman year, Isaac, Jordan, Oso, Brecken, Stanko Blah Blah” Some of you guys talk about those guys like they are gods because of what they can do on the field. Truly they were all VERY talented players but my point is that they didn’t just wake up talented. They put in HARD work to become the players they were. They prepared for games like they wanted to win more than anything. Some of them lived in the gym and others did core workouts and ran sprints after almost every practice just because they wanted to prepare themselves- push themselves to their limits. We can all do the same thing.
WE can’t expect to receive extraordinary results from mediocre preparation and I take full responsibility for our lack of performance on the field this past fall. I am just as much the problem as anyone else. Now just for clarification, I don’t expect this team to be extraordinary in practice by any means. However, I expect this team to go into training each and every day with the mindset that “I will be better today than I was yesterday.” Maybe not in all areas at one time, but we can each get better in one area each and every day. Focus on your mistakes and make self-corrections. I make mistakes all the time on the field and I especially get upset with myself when I make them twice because at that point I am all out of excuses, I should know better.
It’s my senior’s year and I love all of you guys. You are all my team and I want us to really step it up this season on the field. I know that there is a lot of unlocked potential on this team and it’s been showing a lot these past couple months. Preseason begins this weekend, an entire month of preparation. Let’s make the most of it and strive to get better each time we step on that field.
-Rougas

Here is an excerpt from a devotion by Chris Pugh on Faith RX'd, ( http://faithrxd.org/faith-workout-free-from-doubt/ )
 “Why am I here?”  “How will I do this?”  “What if I can’t…”  These are the voices of doubt.  They creep in especially when we put ourselves in position to do something great.  God prepared us to walk in the good works He planned for us (Ephesians 2:10).  But our enemy, the devil, loves to plant seeds of doubt in our minds to paralyze us from doing what God called us to do.

Preparation gives us comfort.  Our performance can bring hope.  But ultimately it’s a presence that gives us the real assurance we crave.  Our confidence grows when we know God will stay by our side no matter what happens.  It is not our preparation or our performance that will bring lasting comfort in adversity.  It is God’s permanent presence.

How do you know God will be there no matter what happens?  The cross of Christ proves we never needed perfect performance to earn His love.  “For it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)  He has prepared you for this moment.  Perform your best, and be confident He will be present no matter what!"

• Check in Time: 1 pm on August 8th at Hansen Center
• Send in your Physicals, Insurance and Health History Forms asap

Tonight we had over 150 kids show up for the Speed and Agility training. Thanks guys for a great job.

Senior Captain Scott Soldan
"Hey guys, I hope everyone is having a profitable summer and killing their workouts. In two weeks from today (Monday) I hope to see all of you at Captain’s practice for the week.  As most of you know from my past emails, I usually have lots to stay. So strap in and stay with me. I’ll try not to make this too long.
I have thought about a lot of different things that I wanted to make my post about for this week and it was hard to settle on one, but seeing that I just got done watching American Sniper I will talk about something from that movie because you all know I love it. Watch this clip from (1:55) to the end and you will see the part I want to talk about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpi6T8MDTtk
At the end of this clip the drill instructor ask Chris Kyle how he is feeling. This might seem like a simple question that would warrant a response like, “I feel fine drill sergeant” or “I’m a little cold, sir”, but sitting chest deep in freezing cold water after months of exhausting and extensive training, Chris Kyle answers by saying, “Dangerous… I’m feeling dangerous.” This is one of my favorite quotes from this movie, because it shows the mental transformation that he went through during his training. He came into training as a cowboy and in that moment with those 4 words, you can clearly see him as a warrior. I love this idea of feeling dangerous. To me it just oozes confidence. It says, “It doesn’t matter you’re your strategy or game plan is, I will find a way to beat you.” It is my desire for everyone on this team to be able to look at each other and confidently say that you feel dangerous when you step on the soccer field. When was the last time you felt dangerous on the field? Have you ever felt dangerous while you are on the field? Too many times last year we were spectators on the field. We sat back and let people have their way with us. Gentlemen, this cannot happen anymore. So how do we get to a point where we feel dangerous as a team….as one unit. There are two things that stick out to me.
The first is that in order to feel dangerous we have to be confident. Confident in our skills, knowing that we have pushed ourselves to the limit to ensure we are successful when the time comes for us to perform. This means that we train hard EVERYDAY. We refine our skills. We PLAY SIMPLE. We master 2 touch. We know our style of play inside and out. We know what to do and where to be no matter where the ball is on the field. We listen. We communicate. We are fit. These are all skills that every person needs to be confident in, in order for our team to feel dangerous.
The other aspect of feeling dangerous is finding your heart. Coach K is arguably the most successful college basketball coach in history. In his book, “Leading with the Heart”, he says, “Leaders have to search for the heart of the team, because the person who has it can bring out the best in everybody else. The person who has it inspires the entire team.” When I think about who has heart on our team, I think about guys like Reid. I love having this guy on my team because I know he makes everyone around him better! He is exactly what Coach K is talking about in his book. We need to find more guys who have a heart like Reid. I know that Reid will blow somebody up in a game because he does that day in and day out in practice. We should view every training session as a time to test ourselves and test each other. How tough are you? How tough is the guy you are going against? Will you lay your teammate out on a tackle in practice because you know he is tough enough to handle it or are you worried he might get mad at you? Are you will to run a guy into the ground in practice to show him that his starting spot is not safe? Or are you content being a nice guy that “knows his role”?
I want our team to be able to feel dangerous as we step out on the field together every game. If we do that, then we can play and compete with anybody but it starts by first of all being supremely confident in your skills because of the training that you have gone through. It becomes a reality when you find a common heart within our team, and we do that by following the example of Reid and others who already possess it. That is when we become a truly dangerous team and one that nobody likes to play against. "

On the back wall of our locker room is our Team Verse-Philippians 1:27. " Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you will stand firm in One Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel."
Heard a great sermon on this verse on Sunday from Pastor Kyle Ray of Kentwood Community Church. Here are some key points that I think will help us link this verse to our season. Paul was writing to a diverse group of Christians. "People will know that you are a Christian by how you behave in the time of trouble or crisis."

• No matter what we stand firm. 
• No matter what we stand together 
• No matter what we stand for Christ

Go back to Visioneering, one of the 4 things that "weaves into the fabric of our daily experience" is Direction. "Maybe the most practical advantage to vision is it sets a direction for our lives. It serves as a road map. In this way, vision simplifies decision making. Anything that moves us toward the realization of our vision gets a green light. Everything else is approached with caution."
Philippians 1:27 is my vision for this program. It gives us direction. It makes decisions easy. I think there are a lot of ways that this verse should really challenge us this season. We have a lot of new players from all over the world. We have good leadership. We have a solid core returning. We have a lot to prove under difficult circumstances. What will we be like on the field in training and games? What will we be like off the field in classrooms or around campus? The last couple of seasons, I think the program has struggled to buy in to this vision of the program. Some guys might done good in certain areas but as a program, we have not stood firm on our core values. As a team we have not stood together during the tough times and even in the good times. As a team, can we honestly say that we all stand for Christ? This is not to point fingers or blame anyone specifically but it is to challenge each and every one of us-coaches included, in each of these areas to help give our vision direction. At the end of this season, what will people outside of our locker room know about us?

Nuts and Bolts

1. Tuesday night SCOR training: We are training from 6-8 pm at Meadow Ridge Elementary in Rockford, 8100 Courtland Dr. NE, Rockford, MI 49341
2. Scarves are in now and will start mailing them out this week.
3. SWOL: Send me your physicals if you are still having problems. I think most of you have signed up already.
4. Tuesday Night Training: This Tuesday, we will be going to SCOR training first and heading back to CU afterwards

Here is this week's post from Sophomore Kevin Nimmo.
Hey boys, Preseason camp is coming up quick and I am beyond excited to get back to school playing with all of you. I have been thinking a lot about this next season in the past few weeks, and I’m honestly so pumped for the chance to come back and prove people wrong. We’ll be looked at as an under dog after we under achieved last season, but we made big strides this spring season and I have no doubts that we’ll make some noise in the WHAC this year.

When thinking about our team for this next season, 1 Corinthians 12:12 came to mind. It reads:

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.”

In this verse, Paul is talking to the church in Corinth about how the body of Christ (the church) is one body made up of many different parts. I think our team should be looked at the same way. We are one team with a lot of different people, each with different roles. The body needs all of its parts to function properly. It is very important for us to have everyone on the team focused on the team goal and mission because we cannot be the best team we can be with only some of the parts working together. With just under a month until pre-season camp, we have to be sure that everyone is on the same page. One of our foundational principals is Support the Mission of the Team. In my experience playing soccer, at any level, whether it was club or high school, I’ve seen that it only takes one or two players who want to ignore the mission of the team and do their own thing to completely bring the team down. That is why it is so important to make sure that we are all focused on supporting the mission and goals we have as a team.
So with the summer quickly coming to an end, there are a couple easy ways to be supporting the mission of the team. 1. Is to keep up with the workouts and keep working on becoming as fit as you can be before August 8th. We all know that it is a huge team goal to come into camp fit to be ready for the season that starts quickly after we get there. And 2. Another team goal is raising money for the team. Keep working on selling the scarves as much as you can and work on trying to make it out to some of the soccer camps we will be running in the upcoming weeks.
Hope you all are having a great summer, keep working hard!

Here is part of your workout that was left out.

Sorry for being late again this week. I am away at camps and got behind a bit.

1. SWOL: There seem to be problems getting on/uploading documents. Worst case scenario, you can send everything to me. School password/ID is Golden Eagles. You must also provide proof of primary insurance. This is a new policy so it is important I have this documented before pre-season camp starts. 
2. Scarves: We are still a long way off from our goal. I can't stress enough how important this is. This is not about selling scarves. It is about following through on what is required of us as a program in order for the team to make a trip like Boston. Only 6 players have completed their goal- Bayer, Colp, Flynn, Hamilton, Hopkins and Mitchell. Here is an answer to prayer and another reason why it is important to get out of your comfort zones. I have set up 2 ministry opportunities during our trip (details to come). With one of the opportunities, I offered to serve dinner to this particular ministry. It is for 60 people! I just felt this was something that would be a great way to serve. The next day, Reid's dad, Mont Mitchell and Pastor at Westbrook Christian Church in IL, calls me up and offers the team a donation from his church that would cover the meal! Huge answer to prayer because I did not know where we were going to get money to cover that! Thanks Reid, Mont and the members of Westbrook Christian Church. The scarves are supposed to be in on July 8th. 
3. Training: Please check in with the captains and let them know whether or not you will be attending. The goal is to get out of your comfort zone here, even if it is just one session.
4. Tuesday Night with SCOR. I need guys to step up and help with training for U8-U17 kids for the next 3 Tuesday nights 6-8. If I can't get enough guys, I will have to pay non CU guys to help. If that is what I have to do, "Disappointed" would be an understatement. 
5. Arrival: Please let me and the captains know when you will be arriving on campus for August 8th. Guys flying in early, we are working on housing arrangements for you. 
6. Guys taking classes-you have to have your transcripts sent to our Registrar so that you can be declared eligible. Please make sure I know when your classes end so our FAR will be prepared.
7. Here is the jersey for NON. Each player will have a jersey that they will auction off. This will serve as your team donation. The color is called Volt and is significantly brighter in real life!
   

Keep working hard and preparing for this season both on and off the field.
Coach Bell

• Scarves will be in on July 8th. I will have Advancement start mailing them out to donors and if you want to personally hand deliver scarves to your donors, I will be back in office on the 10th. We are still way off on our numbers for our goal. Please get on this asap.
• SWOL issues. I am sending all of the freshman/transfers an email with instructions from CU Admissions that should help with your ID and email questions. 
• Freshman: Some of you have got to follow up on your PLAYNAIA application. You will not be allowed to participate until you are declared eligible by the NAIA. 
• Tuesday night training for SCOR. I need as many guys as possible to help run SCOR kids on July 14th, 21st and 28th from 6-8pm. We are expecting big numbers and need as much help as I can get. SCOR will be making a donation for trip. 

U2 is comprised of four band members: lead singer Bono, lead guitar player "Edge," bass guitar player Adam Clayton, and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. The band members have known each other since they were teenagers in Dublin, Ireland.

Bono has said that the way the band functions is even more extraordinary than the band's music. He has described the band as more of an organism than an organization. Several aspects of the band's culture standout: a shared mission and set of values a participatory, consensus-oriented decision-making style and a caring community.

SHARED MISSION AND VALUES

To begin with, the members of U2 share a vision of their mission and values. While you might expect a band's mission to be to achieve commercial success measured by Number 1 hits and concert attendance, U2's mission is to improve the world through its music and influence. Bono calls it "the spark." He feels it sets U2 apart from many other bands. U2's songs address themes the band members believe are important to promote, such as human rights and social justice. Bono has described himself as a traveling salesman of ideas within songs.

The band values excellence in the music it produces and in its concert performances. Bono has described this value as a desire to achieve the band's potential. He distinguishes it from envy, which is an unhealthy state of mind that exists when people want what others have in a competitive sense. U2's members value continuous improvement to achieve their own potential, never feeling satisfied that they can't become even better.

PARTICIPATIVE, CONSENSUS ORIENTED, DECISION-MAKING STYLE

U2 is further unified by its participative, consensus-oriented decision-making style. The members of U2 argue relentlessly over their music, which reflects their passion for excellence. Bono has stated that this approach is frustrating at times but that U2 feels it is necessary to achieve excellence.

The key here is that the band's members appreciate each other's strengths. Bono has said that although he hears melodies in his head, he is unable to transfer them into written music. Because he considers himself a "lousy guitar player and an even lousier piano player", he relies on his fellow band members and recognizes that they are integral to his success. To Bono, U2 is "the best example of how to rely on others".

A CARING COMMUNITY

Like all human beings, the members of U2 have experienced difficult periods in their lives. These experiences have shaped them in important ways. Bono's mother died when he was 14 years old. Bono describes the period following her death as one in which he felt alone and abandoned. Although he longed for the emotional support of a family, his grief-stricken father was unable to comfort his son. To some extent, Bono's desire for family was met through his friends and getting to know their families.
Having experienced what it was like to suffer alone and how the support of a family could help an individual make it through difficult periods, when Larry Mullen's mother died when he was 16 years old, Bono reached out to console him. Thus began a close, supportive friendship. When Edge went through a difficult divorce, the band members were there to support him. When Adam Clayton became addicted to alcohol and drugs, the band members reached out to help him recover. Bono has stated that when one of the band members is in need, the band rallies around to support him and they put that need above the performance of the band. It's no wonder that one of U2's most popular songs is entitled, Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own."

Have a great week.
Coach Bell

Updates on upcoming events/important reminders

• Workouts-check your email for the new workout. You should have reported your Ajax (Beep Test portion) and MAN U Run score to the captains. Please follow through on this. The scores will give us an idea where we are as a team in regards to our overall fitness.
• Scarves: Still need quite a few of you to respond. We have to have this taken care of by July 15th. 
• PLAYNAIA and SWOL/Physicals. Submit the necessary information asap. You will not be allowed to enter camp if either of these are not completed.
• Monday Night Training: 7pm at Game Field. If the Baseball field is open, we will be there.
• We will be running running training sessions for SCOR on the following dates and I need volunteers to help. They will be making a donation to the trip. Here are the dates: Tuesdays July 14, 21, and 28th from 6-8 pm. We will be working with U7 through U18.  

Here is junior Eric Hamilton's post for this week:

-E-Money