FanNation

Given essentially the same talent and resources, what makes some teams or programs succeed more than others? This is a question that I've posed to myself over the years in an attempt to learn if winning programs have certain common qualities.

I was tortured in my days at the University of Florida by the arch nemesis Georgia Bulldogs. Coached by Vince Dooley, the Bulldogs beat us annually even though I thought our teams were better. No matter what the circumstances might be, it always seemed that Georgia would come up with a backbreaking big play that would inevitably turn a close game in their favor. Saw it happen again and again. In the blind firestorm of my youth, I attributed their dominance to "luck." Georgia always recovered the key fumble, always came up with the big interception, and always made a critical special teams play. It was the "Choking Gators" against the those "Silver Britches." (I still have nightmares of being condemned to Hades with nothing on my iPod but "I've Been Working on the Railroad," the incessantly played song by the Georgia band every time their team did something worth cheering about).

With time and grey setting in, I decided to do something in an attempt to ease my suffering. Long after my days in Gainesville, I sat down and drafted "My Terms of Surrender" and sent it to Coach Dooley c/o the Georgia Athletic Department. I asked him if there was some insight he could share with me to explain his team's good fortunes and perhaps his coaching philosophy. Surprisingly (I hadn't gotten to know Coach Dooley yet), he responded rather quickly. I was astonished by what he shared with me.

"Yes, Michael, we do have a team philosophy," he wrote. "It's called 'The Winning Time.' Long ago, our coaches and I sat down and calculated how much time is actually spent during an average football game 'engaged in action.' In other words, we added up how much time in a game is spent during the actual 'plays' run from scrimmage. Once we determined what that time amounted to (a miniscule amount when compared to the actual 'length' of a game), we began to focus on producing our maximum effort during this time. We deemed this time 'The Winning Time.' We focused all of our practice efforts on competing at our highest level during this time, knowing that we could 'rest' our minds and bodies when not performing during this 'Winning Time.' So I guess you could say that it's not about 'luck.' We had prepared ourselves to 'win' during 'The Winning Time' and hence our 'good fortune.'" 

So I learned a valuable lesson about one man's and one team's strategy for success. It didn't just come down to better players or even better game time coaching. But rather a planned out approach to winning.