Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo / Pixart
When Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi began training camp with the Green Bay Packers in 1961, just months after the Packers came within yards of winning a championship, the legendary leader began his first practice by uttering, “This is a football.”
From there, Lombardi added to the team’s practices brick by brick, from reviewing proper formation techniques to route running and even tackling. Step by step, he went over every detail concerning the basics of the sport with a team that included all-stars and a future Hall of Famer, laying the groundwork for a career in which he never lost another championship game. Lombardi’s lesson is that, to be great, you must never lose focus on the fundamentals of your profession. His attention to details proved to be the team’s primary strength as it won two Super Bowls in a row.
Difficult But Not Impossible
As park and recreation professionals, we can apply this philosophy to a great number of responsibilities, but nowhere is it more critical to reinforce fundamentals than when working with children. From an administrator’s point of view—in addition to the fact that children are both a delicate and difficult group to work with—one of the main reasons it’s demanding is because the profession typically experiences significant turnover with volunteers and seasonal staff members from year to year. This can significantly impact the quality of the programming as well as the experience of those participating.