Fwd: Coach Garland weekly blog (entry 2)

In recent months I have tried to make it known through the use of every available medium that our program has achieved great things from an academic standpoint (we had the highest GPA of any male team here at UVa and were also recognized by the NCAA for being in the top 10% of our sport for academic success rates). Some of you reading this have heard it so much you are beginning to get nauseous at the mere mention of GPA! I have gone to such great lengths to advertise our wrestlers academic success though b/c I feel that too often in collegiate athletics this extremely important portion of the show is overlooked and/or forgotten entirely. This is a big problem in my opinion.   We, as coaches, spend hours game planning, practice planning, training our athletes, planning competitions and coaching at competitions... but how many of us put that same type of effort and intensity into developing a culture within our program that strives for great results academically as well. This is what my staff and I are working towards every year. It is a clearly stated goal in our office that we want our team GPA to be a 3.3 (cumulative) this semester and have made a commitment to doing everything in our power to achieve that goal. Well then...the question that I've been asked recently is "how did you achieve this success, and how do you keep it going"? This is question I'd like to answer today in the form of this blog entry: How did we get here? The simple answer is that it wasn't easy! Getting the culture on our team to the point where it is now took years. We certainly were not without our mistakes, setbacks and hurdles.  That said, the first factor in our formula for success was bringing in kids out of high school that had high academic goals in mind. What I mean by this is that we stopped just looking at transcripts and we started really talking to our prospects about their academic goals, their interests and study habits. Anyone can say "I am looking for a good school" during the recruiting process. I've heard that so many times in my years as a coach that I've lost count.  So you have to dig deeper than that. The second thing we did was we began to create a competitive environment within our team academically. I would start reading out our academic progress reports to the team (both positive and negative) in front of the entire team. I would start off by reiterating our team GPA goals and then I would go over the mid year grade reports and final grade reports as a group. I would praise those who were doing well and I would encourage those who needed to improve in this group setting. What this did was create a sense between the guys that they didn't want to get beat by their buddy. Anytime you can make something a competition with young athletes, it becomes fun. This is what I saw happen with our team. Our guys began to look forward to these reports and started to push each other out of the room to do well.  This competitive culture began to grow and ultimately started to ignite a deep sense of pride in good grades among our wrestlers. Now instead of text messages about what types of wrestling technique they needed to work on, I started receiving texts about test scores, final paper grades and study hall task updates. Lastly, I think a big factor in our success was constant follow up from my staff and I in terms of academic progress. Every week I receive academic updates from our academic coordinator Wendy Sewak. She is great at what she does and always provides detailed reports. I read this thoroughly and always make sure my staff and I are following up with guys that are doing poorly or need extra help. We also made it a point to encourage those doing well and recognize them for making all their requirements each week. Establishing accountability within the team was our last hurdle and it has paid big dividends. How do we keep it going? I think we just need to keep doing what we are doing. It all starts with recruiting (doesn't it always?). We have to continue to be very careful with whom we bring in and whom we support in coming here. We have to continue to cultivate a culture of competition within our team. We need to clearly communicate our goals, set a plan in place to reach these goals, and then hold the kids accountable for doing the things needed to stay on this path to achieving these goals.