Every college football fan knows who Nick Saban is. Urban Meyer and Lou Holtz, too. Coaches who won it all amid admiration for how they built their players into champions. They all wrote books about it, with advice like this from Meyer: “Average leaders have quotes. Good leaders have a plan. Exceptional leaders have a system.”
Whether you like that as much as, say, “it’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up” or “show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser” is up to you (both credited to Vince Lombardi).
But it’s clear that many coaches use a decisive and simple approach in communicating what success looks like to their young players. P.J. Fleck at Minnesota was famous for his “Row the boat” motto and Indiana’s Curt Cignetti is unapologetically brash: “We believe everything's earned, not given. When we fall short, we say we fell short. We don't cry a river, whine and complain.”
Which brings us to first-year Florida coach Jon Sumrall. He appears to have re-awakened the sleeping giant that is the Gators, up to No 8 in the AP Top 25. He has plenty of mottos. Our Mark Long has a wonderful look at this fiery young coach.
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