The National Football League kicks off another season this week. In honor of my favorite sport, I thought I’d bring you some tips from the football world. Some of these are only tangentally financially related, but I found a lesson in all of them.
How to Deal with Adversity
This summer professional sports in America had a couple of public relation nightmares. Both of these quotes I grabbed from one of Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback, one of my favorite reads each week.
The Michael Vick dog fighting situation was much talked about but perhaps the best quote was by the Atlanta Falcons coach:
“When you have a crisis involving one of your players, and this certainly is a crisis, I believe you do three things. You mourn properly, you do something positive for someone deeply affected by the crisis — someone like [Owner Alan] Blank — then you get back to putting your energies into what was important before the crisis. That’s what we’ve done.” – Bobby Petrino
This sounds like solid advice for anyone in a crisis such as this. I’d only add that it’s worth it to look into an the ounce of prevention. If they had been following their biggest franchise player, they have known it long before they committed so much money to him.
How to Prevent Adversity
The NBA had a problem with one of their officials betting on games he was officiating, definitely a huge conflict of interest. The NFL Commissioner was quick to address the NFL officials:
“Let’s be thankful it wasn’t us. But let’s react like it was.” — Roger Goodell
Looks like Mr. Goodell here is learning from someone else’s mistakes. Sounds like he’s going to put preventative measures in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen in the NFL.
How to be More Productive
Football coaches script their first 20 plays before the game even starts. Incorporating that idea into his own life, Steve Rubel says he scripts out five things he’ll do at the office the next day.
Value of Education
Even if you make millions, education is still important. The USA Today article is about how many players are taking classes at top business schools.
Other Ideas
If you are still looking for more tips on how to apply football to your real life, perhaps you should read Winning the NFL Way: Leadership Lessons From Football’s Top Head Coaches
This is a great article. It’s especially great because I, too, am such a huge football fan. I really like Roger Goodell’s response to the whole NBA fiasco.
Great post. I am a huge football fan and loved reading this, especially the quote about dealing with a crisis.
I personally think Roger Goodell was the best thing to happen to the NFL in the last 10 years. Fans are tired of these “special” athletes acting as if they are above the law and the society owes them something. The game needed to be cleaned up. Too bad the NBA doesn’t have the guts to do the same.