If you follow our blog, you know that over the past 2 years I have posted a few blogs related to coaching my oldest son’s youth football team. Well it’s that time of year again as we enter our 3rd season with the team. Each year, the athletic boosters put together a “Spirit Wear” package for the players, parents and coaches to purchase that typically includes a t-shirt, with some type of motivational message, and matching shorts. Last year the slogan was “Out Work, Out Hustle, Out Hit”, and in all honesty, I really didn’t like it all that much. This year’s shirts have the motto “PrACTice Like A Champion” which plays right into the mentality our coaching staff tries to instill in our young players.
The head coach and I attended a youth football coaching clinic over the winter that was put on by our local NFL team, the Cincinnati Bengals, to further develop skills to help our players. During the clinic, one particular NFL positions coach used the term I.M.P.A.C.T. as an acronym for “I Might Provide A Critical Thought, Teaching or Technique”. This message really hit home for us with not only how we communicate with our players but also how we interact with each other, referees, parents, opposing coaches and players, etc. We are dealing with 8-9 year old kids who are very impressionable so how they see their leaders (coaches) act can play a large role in their own behavior.
Over and over we remind the kids during practice and in games that win or lose, we are going to respect the game and play it the right way. Too many times you see professional and sometimes collegiate athletic teams disrespect their respective sport by cheating or playing “dirty” to try and gain a competitive edge. Heck, during some of our own peewee games we’ve had opposing players get frustrated and try to take out key players or have coaches instruct their players to take a cheap shot after a play has been whistled dead. Now, I’m as competitive of a person as there is, but I will NEVER understand this type of mindset. These are young kids, playing a GAME. At the end of the day, you put your uniform on, line up and let the game play itself out – may the best team win. For our team, this year’s motto “PrACTice Like A Champion”, we hope is going to serve more purpose than just relating to our football program but rather as a way they go about each day.
While we don’t compete in sports at EXAIR, we do put in the “Practice” behind the scenes in being “Champions” to our industry. We are constantly working on developing new products to support our customer’s ever changing needs. For example, we recently released our NEW Catalog 31 which features several new products like our VariBlast Safety Air Guns, Sanitary Flanged Line Vac Air Operated Conveyors and our NEW Gen4 Static Eliminators.
If you need assistance with selecting any of these new products or to “tackle” a particular application, contact one of our team members and let us put our championship mindset to work for you.
Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN
