Most Teams Lose Before the Season Starts | Randy Jackson

Coach and leadership expert Randy Jackson explains why great teams focus on winning "Day Zero." It's the period before competition begins when expectations are set, relationships are built, and culture is established.

Randy shares why culture matters more than strategy, how alignment impacts performance, and why getting everyone moving in the same direction is one of the most important responsibilities of a coach.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why most teams lose before the season starts
• Creating alignment before adversity arrives
• Why culture matters more than plays and schemes
• Vision casting and building team buy-in
• Getting everyone moving in the same direction

🎧 This conversation originally took place inside Momentum Sessions, a free community for coaches who take culture seriously.

Join future live conversations and connect with other coaches at:

👉 momentumteams.com/sessions

About Momentum Sessions
Momentum Sessions is a free, private community where coaches explore how culture, leadership, and standards actually work inside real teams.

Join future sessions:
 👉 momentumteams.com/sessions

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

The worst thing, you just can't put posters on the wall and talk about it once. I call it the daily fist fight. You have to talk about it every day.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

So today's session, welcome everybody, is with someone whose work has shaped how thousands of coaches build culture. Coach Randy Jackson is a best-selling author of Culture Defeat Strategy, a nationally respected program builder, and someone who has lived the daily grind of building disciplined, connected teams. Coach, it's great to see you. When you say culture defeats strategy, what does that really mean to you? And why do you believe culture is the first battle that every coach must win?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Well, for me, it is most coaches get tied up in the offense or scheme and you know what's the newest play, things like that. And until your team all points in the same direction and are all on the same mission, you're you're not going to be elite. Like that, that is the first priority is for all of us to be aligned.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I know you've turned around programs by focusing on just culture. If a coach stepped into a new program tomorrow, and I know you've done this many times, what should the first, like, let's say 90 days kind of look like? The first day.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

In fact, the day before I take the job officially, let's say uh I'm gonna start on a Monday. Yeah, I'm gonna ask the principal, our administration, if I can have a team meeting on Thursday before I ever show up, and I'm going to energize and create the vision and get everyone going home that day saying our school hired the right guy. So it is paramount that you get the ball rolling and you create that confidence, and so it is a the first 90 days is such a big deal, but you have to, you kind of have to know what situation you're going into. So one time I took over in uh Mesquite, Texas, just for anyone who's familiar, Mesquite Petite, and they had lost 19 games in a row. And so I knew I couldn't go in there and be a drill sergeant. I knew I needed to instill confidence, and I did. I talked to them about it honestly, everywhere I go, I give them kind of the same speech of uh for you guys who've ever heard the story about the I think it's Creskin or somebody, but uh the wheelbarrow in Niagara Falls, and you know he's he's retiring and he's doing all these tricks, and everyone's cheering. And he said, Hey, would anyone like to see me push somebody across the wheelbarrow in the wheelbarrow across Niagara Falls? And and again, he was gonna retire, so there was uh thousands of people there, and they all cheered and he said, Okay, I need a volunteer. Well, everybody's got quiet, of course. And so I tell them that story and I say, There's gonna be change. You're gonna have to be ready for the change. Just get in the wheelbarrow and trust me, and it's gonna be good. So those are the kind of things you do from day one, and you just keep building on it and instilling like confidence where uh they and we work the heck out of them, you know, a lot of work. Um, I'm a big believer in everything matters and we're gonna hold them accountable, but you must sell the vision that we're gonna stack day upon day, and and so those first 90 days are energizing the parents, everyone that uh things are about to get good.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

And I know you also used a day of the week value system. How did you build that and what makes that kind of so effective? And to just make sure for everyone knows that's you're using seven values, and you every day you kind of focus on a new one each day?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, so I'm a systems person, and I I believe the more systems you have, the less you have to make decisions on a daily basis. And so uh this was just part of our system, but uh we we had we really had five core values for for the five days of the week, and then on game day we added a couple more, but uh and we added a a physical uh routine for it. So on Mondays, and we were a morning practice team, so even you know, your best of kids aren't all that excited about being on the practice field at 6 45 a.m. on Monday. And so Monday was juice Monday, and and that was gonna be our emphasis that day. We were gonna talk about high energy. After practice, we're gonna coaches are gonna call out who had the most juice, players are gonna call out teammates that had the most juice. I mean, sometimes we would have juice players of the day, we'd take their picture, put it on social media, you know, whatever you celebrate is what you replicate. So we would talk about juice that day, and uh, and Tuesday was competition Tuesday. So that was the day we were gonna get more into me versus you. That was like one of the most physical practices of the day, and so they all had meaning to them, and so it was it was Juice Monday, competition Tuesday, uh blue collar tough Wednesday, family Thursday, and then uh Count on Me Friday. And and we even took it a step farther as the years went, where I bought the coaches t-shirts that aligned with our core value of the week. So, like Competition Tuesday, uh we had uh it said competition Tuesday on the front, and on the back, it was uh if you guys my age can rock them, sock them robots, you know, as were too, you know, they're fighting, but it wasn't a big deal. And uh so we had fun with it, things like that. In fact, the the the offensive coaches had green shirts and the defensive coaches had red shirts. It was totally uh that was our emphasis that day. And even though we were like my last school, we were blue and black, Monday was juice Monday, and every coach had an orange coaching t-shirt uh for orange juice. And so it's just a thing uh that I think the more you do things like that, the more it'll get in their DNA. And I tell coaches when I talk about this kind of stuff, if here here's the culture test. If I was in front of your team and they were all on a knee, and I said, What's this program about? If they gave me a bunch of different answers, you really don't have a culture. And if you were to ask my players, they would tell you juice and competition and family and blue collar tough, like they would all say really similar things because uh the worst thing, you know, you you just can't put posters on the wall and talk about it once. I call it the daily fist fight, you have to talk about it every day.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Love it. Um, definitely want to talk more about that daily the daily fist fight and kind of some thoughts around that. In terms of standards versus rules, how do you distinguish between standards and rules? And why does that distinction matter so much um for leadership?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

I think standards are a way of life. So I would tell my players, and a lot of my players uh came from broken homes and not all of them, but even the ones that didn't, I would tell them, hey, I'm your school dad. And my son says yes, sir, and no, sir, and he is respectful to his teachers and he does all the right things, and and it's because we he was raised right. And so I'm gonna help you be like my son in my eyes, and and they like that. And and so we don't talk about rules, we talk about standards. So, like my family, the Jackson family, we have standards. So that's how I would talk to them. I think they really related to that. I can remember one time a kid, uh one of our best players, he plays in the XFL now or USFL, whatever it is, and we had to discipline him. And I can remember his dad saying to me, Coach, it's okay. He knows you have his best interest at heart. And I'm like, perfect. And because I did, but I think it's because we talked about standards, and that's what families have are standards. Like, you know, growing up, Matt, you probably, you know, y'all had rules, I'm sure, in your house, but honestly, there are probably more standards. And so a standard is is not something that is uh broken and there's going to be punishment. A standard should just be a way that we do things on a daily basis because it's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yes. And then developing leaders um at every level. You said that kind of your best teams had many leaders, not just a couple captains. How do you build leadership throughout your entire roster?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Okay, uh, great question. And I think this is really the million-dollar question that is really my mission to help coaches with. I got a text yesterday from a coach in uh Alabama, whatever it doesn't matter, but he said, hey coach, um we're gonna start doing some of your leadership stuff, but what do you do if a player is standing in front of his team and the other players are laughing at him or not paying attention, like apathetic, and and the text sort of hit me really funny, like it's never even crossed my mind. And so to develop leaders, you have to give them a chance to lead. So my answer to him was before you ever start our curriculum, you need to have kids stand up in front of their teammates, and you just need to give them prompts. Like, okay, we're gonna do 60-second um 60-second drive-by's. That's not the right word, of course, but uh, hey, what's this program mean to you? You know, Randy, you got 60 seconds. I want you to tell your teammates what's this program mean to you, and we're all gonna lock in. And I told him the ones that don't lock in, if this is truly a problem, then I think you have to have, I'm a big believer in you have to do something about it, and you have to do something about it right then. There has to be consequences. So I told him, if I ever had that problem, like if I was taking over a new school, we'd have a pit of misery over here, and there'd be a coach in charge of the pit of misery. And if someone was laughing or being disrespectful, immediately they're not not when it's over, like, hey Randy, go. You know, like it, and and it would just get corrected really quick. But uh for you to develop leaders, um, okay, leadership is vocal. So I tell players this if you're going really hard and you're leading by example, I I think that's a cop-out. Like we're all supposed to go hard. That's the minimum. So if you're not saying a word, but you're going really hard, you're not really leading, you're just doing what you should be doing. Leadership is vocal. Coaches, like I have had coaches before who didn't say much. That's not a good coach. Coaching is feedback. So, sorry, Matt, long answer, but to develop leadership, you got to get your players in front of their teammates and give them prompts and have them talk and give them chances to lead.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

So, one of the questions that I think Tyler is here. He asked the question inside the community. It's have similar along the lines of the question that you were asked yesterday, but he's got a group that's you know bought in and ready to go, but there's a team a group that's not quite bought in yet. And those two, when they come together, are not positive in the way they communicate. So I know I asked that in a little bit of a jumbled way, but yeah, how do you improve team culture where players will hold each other accountable, but in a positive okay?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

So um, that's a tough one, and it's very common. So again, you have to teach them how to respond correctly, and that's the kind of stuff we talk about in the blueprint, but it is um it's got it's but it's gotta be a taught thing, like you have to talk to your entire team about it's okay for someone to correct you in the greatest teams. Uh Tom Brady is gonna correct a Patriot teammate. But um, I had a friend who went and watched the Patriots practice one time. It was before training camp, and it was raining and they're having a bad practice. And believe it or not, Bill Belichick said, I want you guys to all run around the goalpost and back. And which is shocking to me in the NFL. But anyway, Tom Brady ran, he led the team, the slowest guy on the team, he won. He was the first around the goalpost and back. And so to to be a person who's going to correct your peers, you have to give great effort, you have to earn their respect, and you know, so you can't be a fraud, but you have to know how to say it. But I think really the biggest part is coaching the kids to that it's okay for us to talk like this. And the term I use, if you see something, you have to say something. And coaches can't be the only ones saying, hey, you didn't finish your set over here. And but whatever you talk about, uh kids will kids will do. You know, you just have to you just have to address it and say, it's okay. And we're gonna we're gonna do peer-to-peer stuff. And and again, the more they talk to each other um in front of groups and things like that, the more it'll help.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

And then the other question that's asked a lot in the community, I see, um, is around captains. Coach Braden just asked that yesterday. What's your philosophy on selecting captains and and how do you develop them?

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Okay, captains are the most misused things. Um we're going to, I'm gonna kind of give y'all a double answer here, but we're going to elect captains with the players, uh, but the coaches are gonna have final say that the players don't sort of know about. So uh we make it, I always made it where you couldn't run for captain unless you achieved something. So in the summer, we did a book study, voluntary book study, and we'd meet once a week after workout. And so for you to be able to be eligible to be elected captain, you had to attend 80% of the book study sessions or something. So you could tie it into community service, you could make them do a resume, but bottom line is you have to you have to earn the right to be elected captain, and we're gonna let the players elect them, and we're gonna not just do seniors, we're gonna we're gonna do, you know, I like to do from different units, I like to make sure there's a junior or two in there, and maybe even a sophomore. But um Sam Wells wrote a book called The Captain Class, it's one of my favorite books, and he says coaches should only appoint captains. Well, in high school, I think those players have to feel like they have a voice. So they're gonna elect the captains, but uh we're gonna have the final say and we're gonna make sure the right people are on the captain bus. And then even me, uh, so we had uh we had captains, and I would meet with them once a week. I'd meet with them every Wednesday, and uh every Wednesday I had a hard time figuring out what to meet with them about. You know, like I could ask them about the locker room. Um, I had them go to middle school games and maybe speak to middle school kids after practice. I mean, they had things, but uh, so I developed a curriculum called the Leadership Academy where it's physical books and the kids can go through it. But so I think you I think you let the players have say so in a captain, and then you meet with them weekly, and but you have to have some kind of curriculum. So if you want your captains to really lead, then you have to give them some kind of curriculum, something uh to teach them how to lead.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Okay. And you've talked um in this call about the daily fist fight, the everyday habits that make winning possible. What does that really look like in real practice?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

We practiced early, and and I know this doesn't apply to everybody, but it's but bear with me. So it was dark when a lot of the players showed up to our facility. So I wanted, so the daily fist fight is with coaches and players. I wanted our so we had an indoor facility and whatever, but I wanted our doors up and I wanted the lights on and I wanted music playing. I wanted when those kids showed up for a 645 practice. If they showed up at 615, I wanted there to be music and an environment where they knew we were glad they were there. And so I had a coach in charge of music, I had a coach in charge of opening the garage doors and and make sure the lights are on. I I mean we just had all the things, and so uh if most coaches won't do this, um, the hardest part of coaching is showing up every day and and hold the standard, and the standard is hard. And so uh in for me, we got to see our kids year-round. If a kid was late in February, he was gonna go see this. Is how we did it. If a kid was late, I had a coach who's basically the pit of misery, it was a kind of a different thing, but don't even come out here with the rest of the team until you see go see Coach Smith. And he's gonna handle it. And and well, there wasn't any question, it was the daily, like that was our system. And it can't be where if you're late on Monday, something happens, but on Tuesday, coach is busy and the principal's there, and and nothing happened to the late people. The daily fist fight for me is here's our standard, here's what we're about. And if you ask our players, they would give you the same answer, and we're gonna hold them accountable and we're gonna celebrate the ones who are doing great every day. Um, if we saw them 250 days a year, all 250 days, those things are gonna happen. It's very difficult though. I mean, because it's just it's never ending.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Right. And it's a daily practice that but you've embedded it into your program and your coaching staff, and it's just this is how we do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah, and I I mean, it's really one reason like it it's it's the hardest part of coaching is you really just there are no days off on making sure we do it. I consult with some different schools uh for football, and so I watch practice and I'll zoom with the coach and I'll tell him this. I watch games, and so um and I'll see teams practice, and they don't practice at the tempo that we practiced. But we graded loafs in practice. So when our when our practice was done, our position coaches, I said, I want you to grade 12 plays, I don't care what plays they are, find 12 random plays, and I want you to grade effort. And here here, just for you guys who care, uh here's what we did was when we thought the whistle blew and the play was over with, either you were engaged or you were sprinting to get engaged, or it was a loaf. And for every loaf, that position group, they would meet the next day before practice, and for every loaf, they did an updown or something. That's a that takes more effort than a lot of schools want to do. My assistant coaches probably didn't love it, but we practiced our butts off because they knew something was gonna happen if they loafed. And when I watch film now, when I'm consulting other people, uh offensive linemen and people like that, they're I'm thinking, man, they're not going hard enough. And because it requires the daily fist fight, and you can have whatever you want as long as you're willing to have the daily fist fight and make sure it happens.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

I'll jump to this quick question from Coach Dick Wettinggel. Um, how do you build team culture when you have a mix of veterans and new players? He was talking about the port. Portal system already affecting his program. So yeah, how do you build culture when you got a mix of old players or you know veterans and then Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

I think that being intentional about culture is more important now than ever because these are all just one-year things. So not to bore you guys, but I went to Germany in 2022 and coached pro football. And it's about like D4 football. You can have two Americans on the field at one time, and one of my guys played receiver at Penn State. Like he could play. My quarterback was played at Southern Utah, whatever. And but then my right guard was from Germany and he was 5'10, and my center was 35-year-old diabetic from Germany, you know, and so it's just a mix of players. But here's the fascinating part, and I wrote a book on this called A Royal Season, but there were players from 18 different countries on our team. So for a guy from Texas who had never been to Europe, it was awesome. But we had a great culture because uh from day one, I made sure we were pointing in the same direction. In fact, um, here's how here's a great little exercise. Have everybody cover their eyes and spin around three times, and you say stop, and then you say, Okay, I want everybody to point to true north. Well, you know, points, hands are gonna go all over the room. So do this with your team, spin them around, say everybody point to true north, and then have them uncover their eyes, and they're all gonna see hands go everywhere, and they're all gonna chuckle. And I did this with these guys, and I said, guys, we're we're from all over the world. Until we point in the same direction, we're not gonna be very good. So for us to point in the same direction, we have to come up with some common things we believe in. So I let them, and these are grown men, and they loved it. Um I'm telling you, a 35-year-old sinner still wants stickers on the back of his helmet. So let them, those core values I gave you, uh, juice, compete, blue-collar tough, let them come up with the core values. When I was a kid, we'd go to a restaurant, and and if I got to get a Coke, I was lucky, and I sure wasn't going to get a refill. Well, kids today, they tell parents where they're gonna go eat. Like it's a total different game. They're used to their voice being heard. So the more you can let the sophomores and seniors and all be together and choose the core values. Now, I did I let my players uh at my last three schools all vote on the core values, and and truth be told, they were always the same at every school. So I massaged it and got what I wanted, but they had ownership and thought they chose on, and they sort of did. But um the more you let the veterans and the new guys make decisions, here's what we're gonna be about, here's how we're gonna point in the same direction, the more they'll bond like that. And then the last thing I can say is I used to take kids to lunch. So in the summer, and this would be great any time of the year, but in the summer I would go have lunch with six to eight kids, and we would talk about, I would just ask them questions. What do you watch? This is that's when I learned kids don't watch TV anymore, they just watch YouTube, and you know, so like I would ask them what their favorite TV show is, and they'd look at me like I was an idiot, you know, and so but we would bond, and so if I had uh seniors and sophomores that I needed to mesh, I would go have lunch and things like that, and I would have three seniors and three sophomores, and we'd all get to know each other, and because it's hard to um not fight for that guy in your foxhole if you know him real well.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yep. When you defined your you got them to find pick the values, did you then define the behaviors that relate to those values and how they really play out in life? Great question.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

So here was the system. So I got the job, my last job was at North Forney, and what I did was we met every day, and I just told stories. I told them like our locker room is terrible. So I told them the story about the all-black rugby team sweeping the sheds that all you guys know about.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

And I held them accountable, like we're gonna keep the locker room clean, but I just need you guys to know that the rugby version of LeBron James literally picks up paper. And I told them stories about Kobe, Michael Phelps, anything you can think of. I just told them stories for about three weeks, and it was awesome. Kids love stories. In fact, one of my coaches, this our our our uh football period is in the middle of the day. Uh, one of my coaches said about after a week, like one of his players in class said, Hey, who's Coach Jackson gonna talk about today? You know, so they want this, so tell stories for a couple of weeks, three weeks, whatever time, and then you start the core value process. So um I said, okay, guys, we're gonna do five core values, and we're gonna we're gonna pick them. And so I said, let's do our first core value. And it ended up being juice, which is what I knew it was gonna be, right? And then so after we picked juice, let's say it took a, you know, we did it on a Google form and things like that, and and so we didn't waste a lot of time. Like we didn't miss weightlifting to pick juice. Uh, we did that in a Google form. Well, then the next day in our meeting, I said, now we need to define juice. So you can't achieve like nothing is possible if you can't define it. If you say you want to lose weight, what does that mean? Okay, well, I don't I need to lose 12 pounds, and well, how are you going to? You know, well, we're gonna cut carbs, and so we can't have juice if we can't define it. So we'd get in the process, and during this meeting, we start defining juice, and I'd say, okay, give me words, and I'd write them on the board what juice means to you guys. And we'd talk about it, but we wouldn't come up with it. And then I think this is really key. We had a team chat, and in the team chat, I could talk to them at night. Like I might post a picture of uh Muhammad Ali and I'd say, What does this mean to you, or something? I mean, it's really good stuff, and but anyway, in the team chat at night they would define juice so you could read them all, and the next day we would look at them and we would come up with a definition of juice. So they're really in on everything. And so once at once we did juice and once we defined it, took a couple days, we'd go the next one.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yep. And then you can celebrate them because now you know what it really looks like in real life.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah. Yeah. And and they feel like they invented juice. One time I had a coach call me, a good buddy of mine, he said, Hey coach, um, I'm in with my new staff, we're in the coach's office, and we're coming up with our core values. Uh we just need some help. And I said, Okay, buddy, here's what you need to do. You need to hang up the phone and let your players come up with these core values. If y'all just give them to them tomorrow, they're gonna be like, okay, whatever. These are like classroom rules in my English classroom. Let them have ownership on this because you're still gonna lead them the right way. Like, I still knew that family was gonna be our Thursday core value, but they to this day they think they did it.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah. I think Herm Edwards told us coach fed player led.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

So let's close up here. If you had to give one piece of advice to a coach who's just starting to build a culture, what would that be and how can they get buy-in from their players really from day one?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Okay, Napoleon said a leader is a dealer in hope. I heard a player one time say you never saw Nick Saban yawn. You have to instill hope from day one. Here's what I did. So when I took over that team that lost 19 games, I said, We're fixing to go out here, and we had 45 minutes. In 45 minutes, we're gonna get good at this one play called stick. And and that's it. Like today we're gonna get good at stick. And so you just eat the elephant, you know, one bite at a time, but they must look at you like you are the answer. So it is all about energy and making them feel 10 foot tall and bulletproof. So one of my ex-players asked me the other day, uh, he's a coach, and he said, Coach, um, and I hadn't talked to him in 15 years. He said, tell me uh what do you what did you do to be successful? I mean, it was very open-ended question, and so I'll try to say this fast, y'all, but I really had never been asked that before. And I said, there's two things I think a great coach does, and that is one, uh, don't take no for an answer. So we're gonna be good. I'm we're just not gonna, we're not gonna not be good because I'm not gonna take that for an answer. We are gonna find a way to be good. So that means we're gonna be on time, uh, we're gonna be prepared, we're gonna give great effort. Like, don't take no for an answer. The daily fist fight. And then number two is you have to make them feel 10 foot tall and bulletproof. So you have to work them hard, don't take no for an answer, and then celebrate the heck out of the ones doing it right. And I think that is uh, you know, it's not gonna make you win every game, but you're gonna win the ones you're supposed to, and you're gonna win some that you're not supposed to.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Coach, this has really been a pleasure and an honor to talk with you and get so much wisdom from you. Again, so the website is coachrandyjackson.com. He's got two books, a bunch of resources on your website, and there's ways to connect with you if they want to work with you one into one, right? Yes, sir. I do offensive football stuff.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Um, and but you know, um, I do a lot of culture stuff, captain playbook, things like that. Feel free to reach out, and I will certainly get back with you. I've got free resources on my website, and but um I'd be happy to connect with anybody and talk more.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Love it. Coachrandyjackson.com, culture at coachrandyjackson.com. Thank you so much for your time, and I'm sure we'll be in touch down the road.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Thank you, Matt. Best part of my day was being with you guys. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Hey, it's Matt. Thanks so much for listening. This conversation was originally recorded inside of Momentum Sessions, a free community for coaches who want to build stronger culture, better leaders, and more connected teams. Inside, you can join future conversations live, ask questions directly to our guests, watch the full video replays, and connect with other coaches who are taking this work seriously. Join us for free at Momentum Teams.com slash sessions. That's Momentum Teams.com slash sessions. We'll see you inside.