Trey McClain

If you’re a coach who wants to challenge players while building awesome relationships, you should read this. The problem is . . . challenging players in uncomfortable ways is absolutely necessary for excellence but risks turning them off, damaging trust, and undermining confidence. They seem to work against each other. But it only seems that way. The truth is . . . you can challenge players incredibly hard AND build deep trust. They're not opposites. The key is making players feel how the challenge comes from caring, not instead of it. Most players in your program have never experienced that from a coach. They’ve had intense coaches who challenged and caring coaches who connected, but not a coach that does both. At the same time. Here’s the phrase to use —> “High love with high standards.” That's the phrase you need to repeat over and over and over. To yourself. To your players. To their parents. To your staff. 1000x a week. High love is high standards. Lowering standards is not a sign that you care. It’s not an act of love. It’s an act of fear. Soft coaching is the opposite of love. It says, "I don't think you're capable of more or better." High standards is high love. Holding high standards doesn’t require that you withhold love or connection. A player’s connection with you (and teammates) is the single most powerful force you can tap into to drive high standards. People will do anything for the people they love. Every player is a person first, a player second. Show each player you see them as person first. Before practice, during water breaks, after mistakes, when they’re struggling. Learn their unique desires fast. Ask about specific details in their lives, not just “How’s school? How’s your family?”. Notice their effort, not just their results. When they feel that YOU are FOR them, they'll run through walls for you. Then bring the intensity. "Not good enough! You can do better! You must be better than that!" When a kid knows you love him and believe in him, he hears your challenges totally different. Your challenges become proof that you care. But only if THE PERSON believes you care about him specifically. It’s now how much you think you care. It’s how much the person believes you care. E+R=O helps you stay clear, disciplined, and confident as a coach: The OUTCOME you want is better performance and a stronger relationship, improvement AND connection. You don't have to pick one or the other. Your EVENT is their performance (effort, focus, execution). Your RESPONSE is direct, honest feedback—HIGH LOVE + HIGH STANDARDS —delivered with energy and belief. Players WANT a coach who expects excellence. They just need to know you won't abandon them when they struggle, fall short, or fail. So challenge them in the moment, then reinforce the relationship immediately after. "That was sloppy. Focus and fix it. You can do this. Now let's go." High love with high standards. 1000x a week. Watch your players, and your relationships with them, transform.

@10_Markos_ @Cronkite_ASU Welcome Markos!

Blessed to announce I‘ll be heading to Indiana to become a Sports Reporter at the Evansville Courier & Press, part of the USA Today network! Want to thank @Cronkite_ASU — a place where I felt challenged to be at my best each day. The experience was everything I had hoped for and more. I am proud to be a Cronkite alum. 🔱 Follow your passion, it’ll all be worth it. Thrilled to make the most of my next chapter in the Hoosier State!

Jeremy Wolfe stepped down as the Reitz girls soccer coach this weekend after 33 seasons due to his teaching position being excessed. More from the Hall of Fame coach: courierpress.com/story/sports/h…

@rudy_betrayed I do something similar. LEARN, HOIST, DUMPY.

I’ve cracked wordle If you play STAIR, LEMON, then PUDGY you optimize your letter usage among 15 of the most common letters with no repeats After that, you always have enough information to correctly guess the word on the fourth turn

Friends- This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die. Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do. I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all. Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints. There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come. Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son. A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears. Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet. Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective: “When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.” I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape. But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9). With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices, Ben — and the Sasses

@NFL_DovKleiman @RexDGrossman should have won a Heisman

Name a college football player who should’ve won the Heisman, but didn’t.

@JonGordon11 B

I asked for your help on deciding which cover for my new book and I heard you! Now I’m down to the final two options I need your help to pick the winner. Which one do you prefer?

@TateCasey84 Coach F: College HC Experience: 9 years Overall HC record: 90-27 Conference Record: 61-19 Conference finishes: 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd. 3rd, 1st, 4th, 9th, 4th Bowl Record: 3-4 Conference Championship Game: 4-1

Humor me…….. based on the information below, who are you hiring and why?

Reitz defeated No. 12 Castle 4-2 Taylor Martin with a hat trick for the Panthers. Olivia Taylor had the other goal.

@kylesokeland Thanks for your hard work Kyle.

Yesterday was a wrap on the 2024-25 school year 5 team state champions, 6 Mental Attitude winners and 3 individual state champs from SW Indiana. Never had a boring season. Thank you to everyone who followed, read or subscribed — especially the last four months as I flew solo.

SEC TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!

Chloe Landry of Reitz signed to play soccer at University of the Cumberlands. Had 12 goals and 7 assists as a junior - missed this past season with a knee injury.

@ColeClaybourn Pepper spray. @ByPatForde said he got second hand pepper sprayed

That, uh, looked like a couple Michigan players got pepper sprayed? Or were they just crying tears of joy?

C🅾️MMITTED‼️ @JHaire03 @trob1023 @cmog15 @OhioStateBASE

Former Reitz pitcher commits to Ohio State. Had a 2.48 ERA with 41 strikeouts as a freshman for Rend Lake.

The @reitzgsoccer team gathered for the Sectional draw. @IHSAAtv @IHSAA1

𝗢𝗩𝗖 𝗪𝗕𝗕 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦‼️🏀

Reitz won 10 games last year and return multiple starters for new coach Brock Stone Hear from Norah Miller and Bailey Hape on this season and continuing to trend up as a program

Thank you to our talented group of seniors. Over the past four years, they’ve contributed to 53 wins against just 18 losses. The teams they’ve played on have scored 359 goals and outscored their opponents by 267 goals. Thank you Alli, Anna, Emma, Lilly and Sydney!

The Reitz-North semifinal unsurprisingly came down to the final seconds Highlights: bit.ly/3F28yAu Hear from senior Sydney Jones on the victory and her winning free kick for the Panthers