If you are like many Americans, next Sunday I’m sure you’ll tune in for at least part of Super Bowl LX when the New England Patriots take on the Seattle Seahawks. Maybe you’ll tune in for the actual football, maybe it’s the commercials or half-time show that you are excited about. Regardless of why you tune in next , there is a special opportunity to learn about turning around the culture of a program if you’ve been paying attention this NFL season.
You play better, you play harder when you know the guys you’re going to war with. So to take some time to know who that was going to be, I think that was so rewarding.
A quick little background. The New England Patriots are coming off of the following records the past 4 seasons: 8-9 (2022), 4-13 (2023), 4-13 (2024), and 14-3 (2025). That is quite the turnaround in one season after a couple of years of just simply being a bad football team. They must have hired some coaching legend!
Well, they did hire a Patriot legend. Head Coach Mike Vrabel won 3 super bowls with the Patriots as a Linebacker in the early 2000s. He eventually went on to become an NFL head coach for the Tennessee Titans. He was the NFL Coach of the Year in 2021, but never led any of his Titan teams to a Super Bowl. He was fired after the 2023 season when his Titans posted a 6-11 record. He then spent a year as an analyst for the Cleveland Browns where he learned about something that he used right at the start of the 2025 season when he started with the New England Patriots.
So, if you are like me, I hope you are curious about how an NFL Head Coach makes such a QUICK TURNAROUND IN THE CULTURE of his team in the locker room and on the field team!
I would encourage you to watch this video (~4 mins) where Head Coach Mike Vrabel talks about what he decided to do first with his new team that laid the foundation for their trip to the Super Bowl.
If you’ve coached for any amount of time, odds are you’ve dealt with team issues that revolve around teammates or a group of teammates who aren’t connected. They don’t know each other, don’t understand each other, and that drama holds the team back from reaching your potential. Here is a coach at the highest level of the sport being proactive to get in front of those issues. To help his guys know him and to know each other.
I was nervous. It was my first time speaking like that and speaking candidly about me and some things that are pretty personal.
The thing about this activity is that it is so simple. Will it take time? Yes! But not in the planning ahead of time. Did you catch what Coach Vrabel’s plan was for how this would work?
There was no real direction other than I said I’ll go first and we’ll see where it goes.
Don’t miss something really important in his plan and the statement above. He went first. As a Head Coach it is important that we set the tone for an activity like this. That we send the message this is critical to our success as a team, so I’m going to take the lead and we are going to give it the time it needs. Now, I know that time is precious and there are so many things that are eating into that precious resource. But let’s be honest, for most teams that fall short of their potential the root cause is often people issues creeping in at some point in the season. You are going to spend time on the people of your team at some point. Do you want it to be reacting to issues that pop up later or in being proactive to connect your players early?
Now, were his guys hesitant when this got started? You bet, you heard it in the video.
I think when we first heard that we were going to do these 4 H’s and kind of get up there and share our stories, guys didn’t really know how that was going to go, kind of what it would like, but Coach Vrabs got up first and he really opened up and I think once everybody saw that, we kind of saw how cool this could be and how good it could be for our team to get to know each other that way.
I know for many students and coaches, being vulnerable in this way is difficult. However the power of this activity is that there is a lot of freedom to choose what you want to share. The 4 H’s give direction, but not a directive. We recently did this activity in our Leadership Academy classes. Some students shared a little closer to the surface of their life, some students went a little deeper. An interesting thing though, some of the students who stayed a little closer to the surface later shared with us that they wished they would have shared something a little more personal after hearing from their classmates who did go deeper. The activity simply opens a door and your athletes will get to decide how wide they want to open it.
I appreciate the quote in the video about the vision for the team that Coach Vrable shared and was repeated by one of his players.
I just remember him telling us, “We’re going to be a tight-knit football team. We’re going to be a tough football team. We’re going to depend on one another. Have each other’s backs and whatever happens, we’re going to be relentless and fight through it with each other.”
Would you like your team to be tight knit? To be tough? To depend on one another? To have each other’s backs? To be relentless? To fight through it with each other?
I think connection is key to developing all of these qualities in your team. So, how will you be intentional about building connection within your team. If an NFL Head Coach can get a group of tough grown men to connect through a little vulnerability, I think we can get our high school athletes to do the same thing.
I would encourage you to find a way to make this activity or something like it a part of your team building process.
4 H’s - History, Hero, Heartbreak, Hope.
CONNECTED TEAMS = POWERFUL TEAMS
As a lead in to the 4 H’s activity, consider sharing this quick video (~1 min) with your team talking about the power of CONNECTION, which I believe is a choice and a controllable item for our teams. Then have your athletes share a takeaway from the video.
Connected teams are powerful teams.
Talent is the floor.
Connection is the ceiling.
Read more about the 4 H’s activity in this article from The NY Times
CHECK OUT THIS CULTURE RESOURCE
In this FREE2COMPETE resource from June, we talk about how the Heart of Culture is CARE. This 4 H’s Activity is a great opportunity to be intentional about your CARE for your PEOPLE!
PASS IT ON!
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