Mental Preparation

There is no such thing as luck.  The more prepared you are, the easier it becomes to succeed.  Preparation makes it less likely that your strategy will not work.  When I hear people say, "The other team got lucky" I would love to tell them that perhaps if other team was more prepared it would never have been close.

For coaches, we need to arm our teams with knowledge.  They need to know their competition's strengths and weaknesses.  They need to know how to execute their strategy and how to change on the fly should something go wrong.  A coach has to plan for events that may never happen, but if they do, the team will know exactly how to operate.  Coaching is not simply about "teaching kids how to work with others" or "working towards a goal" (although these are two of the most important aspects), but it is also majorly about showing the athletes how to organize an effective strategy so they can emulate that themselves when they are off on there own.

For athletes, preparation comes in the form of having all the essential items necessary to succeed.  Something as simple as bringing the proper uniform should be a part of the list every athlete has to check off before competition.  Eating well, sleeping enough, and envisioning the goal are also important to success and no athlete is going to fully prepare themselves for sport if they don't take those aspects seriously.  If you really want to get a leg up on the competition you need to mentally beat them before the competition has even started.