Our plans can tell you which topics to cover at which point in your season(s). But, implementation is flexible. Use our plan or create your own to consistently address team culture where it is most needed.
Team Culture Development Topics Include:
Sport Team Fundamentals is structured around a typical season but allows for flexible implementation. The Base to Summit Series is a set of 12 workouts than can be implemented sequentially, moving from Pre-Season to In-Season to Season Summit to Off-Season.
These are supported by instructional videos that explain the knowledge and implementation insights for each workout.
Team Culture Audits and Optimal Performance Self-Studies are a set of simple instruments for coaches to benchmark the balance of demandingness and responsiveness in their work with the team and the development of specific strengths of team culture and character. These tools help coaches and team members identify actionable insights on what to stop, start, continue, or improve.
An instructional video shares best practice approachesfor when and how to use these tools.
Instructional videos focuses on strategies for shaping intentional team parent/family culture to reinforce the habits and mindsets coaches are developing within their teams. In particular, it provides suggestions for improving clarity of communication and expectations within the team parent/family culture.
These quotations serve as succinct before, during, and after workout reminders and reinforcements around the targeted strengths of culture and character.
An instructional video provides coaching insights on the strategic use of quotations with team members and parents in support of the team culture and character needed to achieve excellence with integrity.
Sport Team Fundamentals align closely with Pursuing Victory With Honor and the CHARACTER COUNTS! framework by emphasizing the development of core ethical values and team culture. Rooted in the Six Pillars of Character, this curriculum helps coaches build students’ character, social-emotional, and academic skills while shaping a positive school culture. Through structured workouts, audits and self-studies, parent/family connections, and team culture and character quotations, athletes learn to embody these principles in both sports and life.
To maximize your utilization of Sport Team FUNDAMENTALS resources, we recommend professional development workshops to help you learn strategies for implementing and integrating workouts with your coaching staff and team members. Workshops can be customized to address specific workouts and can vary in length to adapt to your schedule.
The success of any culture-building initiative is directly tied to the fidelity and consistency of its implementation. For continuous improvement from season-to-season, we recommend our Sport Team Culture Survey to be completed at the end of each season by coaches and team members.
Contact us at raycenter@drake.edu or 515-271-1910 for more information, to start a quote, or to reserve a training workshop.
Sport Team FUNDAMENTALS are designed by the Excellence with Integrity Institute and delivered by The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center.
Almost two decades ago, the Excellence with Integrity Institute and The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center at Drake University, created a consortium partnership to advance our respective visions and missions. Together, we pursue strategic opportunities in youth leadership, employment readiness, athletics, education, and organizational development in community and workplace environments.
The Institute’s main focus is on research and development of instructional and assessment tools and strategies that help leaders shape culture, build character, and achieve optimal performance.
The Ray Center’s main focus is on coaching, training, and expanding our collaborative implementation projects across Iowa and around the globe.
Sport Team FUNDAMENTALS™ and the Excellence with Integrity TOOLS® are trademarks of the Excellence with Integrity Institute.