WANT CONSISTENT DEFENSE? PROVIDE A GOAL...

Playing good defense takes a lot of effort... playing great defense takes a lot of sustained effort.  One of the things I would use to help the athletes sustain that level of effort was a simple motivational poster I would keep in the locker room as a daily reminder of what they were capable of.

The poster had the title "Club 30" across the top and the rest of the poster was blank.  The goal was to hold every team we played to 30 points or less.  If the team reached the goal, we would write-in our opponent's name and how many points we held them to as a visual reminder of accomplishing our defensive goal.  As we entered the playoffs, I would reprint the poster with a list of our season accomplishments as a motivator of what is possible if we stay focused on defense.

This was a simple idea that really kept the athletes focused on defense throughout the entire game, regardless of the score.  The closer our opponent got to scoring 30, the more the bench would remind them to stay sharp on defense by yelling "club 30" as a reminder.

The picture here represented what the team accomplished by the time we entered the playoffs a few years ago.