PROVO — The best coaches are the best motivators — the pregame speech in particular is of primal importance.

Or so goes the storyline in Hollywood, at least.

Motivating others is undoubtedly an essential aspect of every coach’s job. But how and when a coach motivates his team is a slightly more complicated issue.

Before transferring to BYU, I played football for Snow College. The night before each game, our head coach gave us a brief pep talk, turned the time over to the captains, and then left the room. Four captains meant four speeches per game. Ten games per season meant a lot of swearing, chair-throwing, and rambling. The speeches were heavy on emotion but light on substance. I can vouch for that statement because I personally gave some of those speeches and was, at the very least, guilty of rambling.

Cougar Tracks:

Cougars looking Sharp

Bronco Mendenhall described Wednesday's practice as "sharp" and said the players were "mentally a step ahead of where they were yesterday."

As I look back on those nights, I wonder if any of the speeches actually impacted our performance on Saturday. Given the content, I tend to think the answer is no.

In the New York Times bestselling book "Freakonomics," authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner ask the question, “Does reading parenting books actually make someone a better parent?” Given that "Freakonomics" was a bestseller and that most bestsellers aren’t written about common sense questions with obvious answers (i.e. Does eating food actually curb your hunger?), one can deduce that the answer to the question the authors raised is also no.

But why?

The authors claim that just reading parenting books does not actually lead to good parenting; the relationship isn’t causal. However, reading parenting books is correlated to good parenting, and that’s the crucial difference. Levitt and Dubner assert that the type of parents that read parenting books are already, generally speaking, good parents. Good parenting isn’t so much an issue of what the parents do, but rather, what the parents are.

Just before our team took the field to play the University of Utah in 2006, I had the thought, “I wish Coach Mendenhall would give us another pep talk.” I know I felt that way because I felt that way every game. As per our normal routine, Coach had last spoken to us on Friday afternoon. But even that speech wasn’t so much of a pep talk as it was a life-lesson, as were all of his speeches. He would read poetry and scripture, quote sermons and lectures. He taught us principles of leadership, commitment and teamwork.

But, he never raised his voice, he never threw a chair and he certainly didn’t ramble. He was always in teaching mode — except right before each game. Talking time was over.

As I think about Coach Mendenhall’s approach, I now realize that he knew what Levitt and Dunbner did: that it isn’t about what he could say or do right before the game — by then it was too late. What mattered most is what we had done in the offseason and how we had prepared during the week. It wasn’t about what he could do, but rather, who he had helped us become.

In Hollywood, there are big games and little games. The teams generally lose the little games at the first of the movie, but win the big games at the end. And part of the reason they win the big game at the end is because the coach gives an inspirational speech right before kickoff.

Related:

BYU heads into its 2nd weekend, faces Weber St.

As the college football world moves into weekend No. 2, BYU is still happily standing its ground as a hopeful soon-to-be in the Top 25 polls.

However, when one is focused on helping individuals achieve their “personal best,” there is no such thing as a big game or a little game. If the coach is on a “quest for perfection” and expects maximum effort every minute of every day, how could he possibly ever expect anything more? By expecting more effort from his players in “big games,” he is simultaneously admitting that less than maximum effort is acceptable for other games.

Thus, for BYU, this week’s game isn’t about Weber State and next week’s game won’t be about Utah.

As Coach Mendenhall said after practice on Monday: “And again, our approach already isn't about who we're playing; we have so much we can improve on.”

Or in other words, it’s about who we are, not what we do.

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