Building it backwards

Every summer, Jim Kiritsy posts one document.

Navy Football’s training objectives. Cultural. Behavioral. Technical. One page, laid out before a single rep gets run. Coaches love it. The last one pulled 1,581 likes and a comment section full of coaches.

I recorded a conversation with Coach this week. He’s speaking at the GW Summer Summit on July 18. We started with a simple question. Why do this every year?

His answer is the part I want you to hear.

He told me this isn’t the first thing most coaches think about. They go straight to the X’s and O’s. The install. The lift. The fun stuff. The summer program turns into a list of workouts and a practice script.

Then they wonder why the team falls apart in October.

Here is what Jim has figured out. The X’s and O’s are the easy part. They are the part everyone wants to talk about. But they sit on top of something. If the foundation underneath isn’t built, the tactics don’t hold.

Look at how he orders it. Culture first. Behavior second. Technical last. Not because the technical doesn’t matter. Because it cannot survive without the other two.

You can’t run elite execution on a team that doesn’t know its own standards. You can’t demand urgency from players who were never shown what it looks like. Speed, strength, and technique are real. But they grow out of a culture you set on purpose, months before the season.

Talent needs trauma. Discipline needs pressure. Growth needs discomfort.

That doesn’t happen by accident. You plan for it.

So before you write your summer program this year, ask what you’re starting with. If it’s the workout and the install, you’re building backwards.

Set the foundation first. Then earn the right to coach the X’s and O’s.

Keep the Fire Burning,

Leech