When to Turn Celebration Into Preparation
It is exciting to win a championship. Being a champion means you have climbed the mountain. You have overcome all the obstacles and adversity over the course of the season to be crowned ‘Champion’!
When you win a championship, you deserve all the accolades. Your hard work paid off. You should celebrate your success enthusiastically.
At some point, though, celebration needs to turn into preparation.
In the world of lacrosse, you find many teams have difficulty repeating a championship season.
One valid reason that can impede a team’s chances for a repeat is injury or team turnover. Injuries can sideline some of your best players and contributors to the team. In addition, every season will see some turnover. New players will be on the team, while some players from the previous year move on. Alterations in the team dynamic will affect how a team performs during the course of the year.
On the flip side, there are two reasons that can thwart a team’s ability to repeat as champions:
- Target on your back – When opposing teams play a defending champion, they look to bring their ‘A’ game. In this sense, every game can be extra challenging.
- Resting on your laurels – Some defending champions believe what they did last year will yield the same result. There is also the risk that defending champions may take their competition lightly and approach preparation in a lackadaisical fashion.
These two types of mentalities are something all teams need to avoid if they are to become repeat champions.
A repeat championship is the focused objective for the University of Maryland Women’s lacrosse team as they head into the 2020 season seeking to defend their title.
Maryland was considered the preseason favorite as they marched into the season with the No. 1 ranking. There has been some team turnover due to injury, graduations of seniors on the team and newcomers including incoming freshman.
Maryland definitely has a target on their back as every opposing team will try to dethrone the defending champs.
According to Maryland head coach Cathy Reese, the team is mentally approaching the season as a new beginning because, in reality, it is.
REESE: “As we open this season I think it’s kind of a blank canvas and we got to see where it takes us. Looking at 2020 we’ve got a great group with strong chemistry and a lot of balance, but we got to look at things one year at a time.”
Reese has preached a “year-by-year, game-by-game and practice-by-practice” mentality as to not become swallowed up by expectations or complacency.
To follow-up a successful season, you have to “up the ante” when it comes to focus and preparation. What you did last year no longer matters. If you are satisfied with what you accomplished yesterday, you will not accomplish much today.
Exercise: Maintaining a Championship Focus
Come up with a team motto that energizes your team around a common objective for THIS season, such as “One Focus, One Goal”.
A team motto is a rallying cry to gather up the troops and focus one day at a time.