The Ohio State football program has created a second playbook this year.
You won’t find draw plays or screen passes in the new playbook. In this one, X’s and O’s have been replaced by such terms as “E+R=O.”
Since becoming a head coach in 2001, Urban Meyer has believed in certain tenets: Go from Point A to Point B as fast as you can for “4 to 6,” the number of seconds in a typical play. Play for your teammates more than for yourself. Embrace responding to pressure.
But it took a chance encounter with a 61-year-old former track star and pastor to turn Meyer’s philosophy into a systematic approach that the Ohio State football coach believes will benefit his players long after they stop playing football.
Meyer was hosting a fundraiser at his home last year when, slightly bored, he wandered off and happened to strike up a conversation with one of the guests, Tim Kight.
“I had a soda pop in one hand and hors d’oeuvres in the other,” Kight recalled. “Urban walked by, kind of stopped, turned back and said, ‘You look familiar. Do I know you?’ ”
They hadn’t met. But when Meyer asked Kight what he did for a living and heard that he was a leadership-development consultant, Meyer’s curiosity was piqued.
“There was a visceral response,” said Kight, CEO of Focus 3, which he runs with his son, Brian. “He was just fascinated. It was like we were long-lost brothers. We’ve been close friends ever since that moment.”
By last summer, Buckeyes players were wearing rubber wristbands with Kight’s E+R=O formula. The E represents event, the R is for response and O refers to outcome.
The formula reflects the belief that for every event or situation a person faces, there can be a proper “above the line” response or a negative “below the line” one, resulting in a positive or negative outcome. Teaching how to respond appropriately has been his mission.
“He struck a chord,” Meyer said. “It was completely in line with what our belief system was already. To say that he’s changed our culture — not at all. He’s given us a systematic way of teaching something that we’ve believed for 13 years.”
Kight worked with Ohio State players last year, but the work intensified after the 2013 season ended with disappointing losses to Michigan State and Clemson.
“One of the big shifts has been Urban’s even deeper focus on working with the staff,” Kight said. “He and I spent most of our time during the winter designing and developing a strategy for developing a leadership strategy for the coaching staff.
“Urban Meyer did something in spring ball that I don’t think has ever been done in the history of college football. He took 60 to 90 minutes every single week for these leadership workshops for his coaching staff. No head coach takes that kind of time away from, quote-unquote, football.”
From all accounts, the assistant coaches have bought into Kight’s teachings. He has conducted regular seminars with them, and they are in charge of ensuring that their players adhere to the system.
As much as Meyer would love to have close relationships with everyone in the program, the sheer number of players on a football team makes that impossible. So the emphasis is on developing accountability within each position group. The Buckeyes call it the “power of the unit.”
“I think it’s overwhelming just to process the importance of the small group, and the value each member of the small group has to the other,” cornerbacks coach and special-teams coordinator Kerry Coombs said. “What do you want people to say about us? How do we want to be thought of?
“Then there are so many other things about character and competency and clarity of purpose. All of those conversation points are very deep and thought-provoking about who you are as a man, where you’re headed as a man. It’s less about coaching. In fact, I’d say it’s almost nothing about coaching. It’s about leading.”
Position coaches instructed their players this spring on Kight’s lessons, and players had exams as they do in their regular classes. Kight spoke with pride that, in a recent test, none of the players missed more than one of the 20 questions. This month and in July, the emphasis will be on developing trust.
“We have a systematic way of teaching leadership, a systematic way of teaching culture and a systematic way of teaching behavior and tying them together in an integrated overall system,” Kight said.
Senior defensive tackle
Michael Bennett said that, for example, if one of his linemates is late for a workout session, none of the others can participate. Strength coach Mickey Marotti oversees players’ workouts with the intent to push them to the limit. Players now understand, Bennett said, that those are tests not just to maximize, say, bench-press reps, but to see how players respond to difficult situations.
“Instead of saying, ‘Screw it, I don’t want to go through this stuff,’ I personally have gotten to the point where it’s like, ‘OK, shut your mouth and work harder,’ ” Bennett said. “This whole thing is an ‘event,’ and they’re just trying to make us mentally stronger from it.”
Meyer said he used to refer to it as a fight-or-flight mentality.
“It’s like when you back a caged animal into a corner,” he explained. “The puppy dog turns and walks away. On third-and-1 against the team up north, you better be a caged animal. So you create incredible E’s (events) and teach them how to respond.”
Kight understands an athlete’s mentality. He won the scholastic national championship in the 330-yard intermediate hurdles in 1971 while at Worthington High School. He ran track for Ohio State for one season before transferring to UCLA, which had an elite program.
“I’ve always been intrigued by peak performance,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to know what makes the best tick. Along the way, I gave my life to Christ. But I was very torn about which path to follow. Should I coach, be in business, academia or the ministry?”
He became a pastor but eventually decided to specialize in motivation for businesses. Thanks to that chance meeting with Meyer, Kight is able to blend sports and motivation.
“A football game is a never-ending series of E’s,” he said. “The goal here is to make your R stronger than any E you face. Yes, in a game — but also in the classroom, at High Street in a bar, in a conversation with a girl, at home in a conversation with parents. You can use it all the time for whatever life throws at you.
“If you look across the line of scrimmage and you’ve done all the work that we ask you to do and all the coaches have asked you to do and you know your R is stronger than your opponent’s, he’s going to check out and you’re going to win.”
@brdispatch
http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/content/stories/2014/06/29/formula-for-winning-on-off-field.html
