Team Building - Session 6

This is the latest in a series of this year’s Team Building with Saluki Football. I hope it’s of value to you. If you would like the entire outline, please email me and I’ll be pleased to send it to you.



Strength and Skill - Group Discussions


• In the sport of college football, what kinds of strength seem to be important? How are they observed and developed?


• How are these various areas of strength observed and developed?


o Physical strength


o Mental strength


o Spiritual strength


• Among your skills as a football player, which has been most important to your success? How did you acquire and develop that skill?


• Which skills need further development for you to be the player you want to be? How do you intend to do that?


Session 5 – True Freshmen


• Tell us your name, your home town, the position you play, and your uniform number.


• By the end of your career as a Saluki Football player in four or five years, what would you like to say will be your greatest strengths and skills?


• If you could have a three hour lunch with any living person on the earth, who would you choose and why?

Team Building - Session 5

This is the latest in a series of this year’s Team Building with Saluki Football. I hope it’s of value to you. If you would like the entire outline, please email me and I’ll be pleased to send it to you.

 

Poise and Perseverance – Group Discussions

• Roger’s introductory remarks about poise and perseverance.

• Poise is defined as: “a dignified, self-confident manner or bearing; composure; self-possession, steadiness; stability.”

• What does poise look like on the football field, from your position? Tell us about a situation, down and distance, time on the clock, score, etc…

• Who among us of Saluki Football consistently demonstrates that kind of poise? Tell us about a situation when you saw it in action.

• When you hear the word “perseverance,” whose name or face comes to mind? Through what did that person persevere?

• Through what have you persevered to be a Saluki Football player?

• Through what do you expect we will have to persevere this year to become Missouri Valley Football Conference Champions?

Session 4 – Red Shirt Freshmen

• Tell us your name, your home town, the position you play, and your uniform number.

• Tell us a story about the best football team with which you have played.

• Tell us something about one of the most influential people in your life. How has that person impacted you?

Team Building - Session 4

This is the latest in a series of this year’s Team Building with Saluki Football. I hope it’s of value to you. If you would like the entire outline, please email me and I’ll be pleased to send it to you.

 

Motivation and Mentors – Group Discussions

• Roger’s introductory remarks about motivation and mentors.

• Tell us about the most motivational coach for whom you have played. How did he motivate players to be their best?

• What most consistently motivates you to be your best?

• What demotivates you most consistently, leading you to poorer performance and attitude?

• How do you work to motivate other players and to help them compete at their highest level?

• Tell us about someone who has been a mentor to you as a football player. How has he influenced you?

• Who have been mentors in your life outside of football to this point? In what areas of life have they been most helpful to you?

 

Session 3 – Sophomores

• Tell us your name, your home town, the position you play, and your uniform number.

• When you allow yourself to dream about your football career, what is the ultimate achievement of those dreams?

• If you could trade places with any living person for just two weeks, who would you choose and why?

Team Building - Session 3

This is the latest in a series of this year’s Team Building with Saluki Football. I hope it’s of value to you. If you would like the entire outline, please email me and I’ll be pleased to send it to you. Several asked for and received it each of the last two weeks.

 

Attitude and Ambition – Group Discussions

• Roger’s introductory remarks about attitude and ambition.

• In your group make a list of five or more attitudes which are productive in the process of becoming a championship football team.

• Now make a list of five or more attitudes which are detrimental to the process of becoming champions.

• How does one monitor his attitudes to be sure he’s being helpful and not harmful to his team’s development and his own development?

• Ambition is defined as: “an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment.”

• Toward what are you personally ambitious? How important is it to you?

• Would you say that your ambitions are mostly personal or corporate; more individual or team oriented?

• When do you find that your personal and corporate ambitions come into conflict? How do you deal with the discord?

 

Session 2 – Juniors

• Tell us your name, your home town, the position you play, and your uniform number.

• Share with us one highlight from your college football career.

• Tell us about someone for whom you feel personally responsible. (Who is it? Where does he/she live?)

• Why do you feel so responsible for him or her and what does feeling responsible lead you to do?

Team Building - Session 2

As promised, below is session #2 of this year’s Team Building with Saluki Football. I hope it’s of value to you. If you would like the entire outline, please email me and I’ll be pleased to send it to you. Several asked for and received it last week.

 

Session 2 –

Hunger and Humility – Group Discussions

• Roger’s introductory remarks about hunger and humility.

• For what are you most hungry as a Saluki Football player? Why?

• What action will your hunger produce in you? How will that hunger drive you?

• Definition of humility: “the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, etc.”

• Who has been a model of real humility in your life? Tell us about him or her.

• How does one’s humility affect others around him?

 

Session 2 – Seniors

• Tell us your name, your home town, the position you play, and your uniform number.

• In your years as a Saluki Football player, how have hunger and humility contributed to your development as a player?

• If you have a tattoo, tell us about it. (What does it represent? When did you get it?)

• Do you have any regrets about having it now?

• If you don't have a tattoo; what would yours be if you were to get one?

The Gospel According to Starbucks

I recently finished reading “The Gospel According to Starbucks” by Leonard Sweet (Waterbrook Press) and found it to be well worth the purchase price. Its subtitle, “Living with a Grande Passion” is appropriate and one idea in particular seemed very applicable to our ministry with the men and women of sport. Sweet used the acrostic, EPIC, to explain why Starbucks has done so well in capturing the imaginations of people all over the world with coffee and more.

 

EPIC stands for: Experiential, Participatory, Image-rich and Connecting. He further states that our expression of the Gospel of Christ would be more appealing to our generation(s) if it were also EPIC. Below are some ideas regarding the EPIC nature of our work together.

 

Experiential – our ministry is very much this way, if we are close enough to share the experiences with coaches and competitors. That’s a little dangerous because we could experience losses as well as victories. We may experience grief as well as exhilaration. Further, the more we enable the men and women of sport to experience our life in Christ, the more likely they are to love Him and commit their lives to Him. If we will pray WITH them and not just for them. If we will not treat our faith like an academic exercise and more like sharing a cup of coffee, they’ll be more deeply engaged. Help others to experience the love of Christ and they’ll find it more than attractive.

 

Participatory – our ministry is much better received when others can participate. I find that when I ask athletes to pray for each other, their hearts engage and barriers between people evaporate. When I ask others to read the scripture prior to discussion, they are thrilled to participate and their understanding of the Bible grows. When I take a coach or player with me to visit someone in the hospital, they participate in a rich part of Christ’s service. Let’s find more ways for people to participate in our ministries and they’ll find it to be an EPIC experience.

 

Image-rich – when we speak or write we must find ways to employ image-rich metaphors and stories to carry the Gospel. Recall the vivid images Jesus used in parables and all of his teaching. If we’re close enough to the sport, we’ll see the images everywhere. They are as close as last week’s game, yesterday’s practice or today’s conversation. Help them see the truth of the Gospel as illustrated by their own lives in sport. Those are the images with which they’re most familiar and which resonate most deeply.

 

Connecting – the people of sport are in an environment which simultaneously connects people and distances them from one another. Most sportspeople know that they’re at their best when they’re well connected with others, but their drive to excel and much of the general culture tries to separate them from those same people. We will do well to help them connect for support, relationship and to experience genuine Christian fellowship. Communion, koinonia, fellowship, the corporate nature of life in Christ is indispensable and EPIC. We can be the ones who introduce this dynamic form of ministry to men and women in sport. Practice hospitality well and thereby join millennia of Christ’s followers who made an impact on the world.

 

In summary, let’s be EPIC in our work with the men and women of sport and we’ll be as effective in sharing Christ with them as Starbucks has been in sharing coffee with the world.