DJ’s Motivational Mondays | Strategy

By definition, the word strategy comes from military combat as having a plan of action to defeat an enemy. Today, we mostly know it as a plan to complete a goal. I recently received an article about a very successful former college baseball coach at California State Polytechnic University named John Scolinos. He clearly had a strategy in coaching college athletes from 1946 until he retired in 1991. I encourage you to read the full story by Chris Sperry at https://www.sperrybaseballlife.com/stay-at-17-inches/.

In 1996, Coach Scolinos gave a speech about the basic principles of his coaching strategy at the American Baseball Coaches Association Conference. As he stepped onto the stage, Scolinos had a string around his neck with a full-size home plate attached. Seriously! He asked the audience, “How wide is home plate at any level of play in baseball—little league through the Major Leagues?” The answer is 17 inches. No matter the level of play, home base is always the same size.

The rules of life are always the same, and many of the problems we see in the world today are because we have widened the plate for everyone to be accepted or fit into the rules without consequences. I am not 100 percent sure about this, but I have a hunch Coach Scolinos was a hard-nosed; follow-the-rules; and if-you-can’t-then-you-won’t-play-for-me kind of guy. My research revealed that his players had some astonishing things to say about him. Through his coaching, they learned more about life than anywhere else in their lives. Coach Scolino’s strategy, his plan to achieve the goal of preparing his team for the field of play, extended beyond the lines of a baseball diamond. His influential strategy has made him one of the most successful college baseball coaches in history winning 1,198 games in his 45-year career.

What is your strategy to achieve greatness? Greatness isn’t easily attained, but you have all day, every day, to prepare and strategize to achieve it.