The first thing anyone asks a coach is, “How are things with your team?” When someone meets me and finds out that I am a coach, he usually asks, “Is your team good?” When I walk down the street after a game, people stop me to say, “Great win coach!” I always have a quick response, sharing all of the positive things that are going on in our program and painting our team in the best light.

In athletics we do a good job of misusing the verb need. We need a win. We need new uniforms. We need this player to play well. We need to raise this much with our fund-raiser. We need to have everyone at workouts.

The only problem is we are not looking at the verb need right. When we use need, we use it to mean something we would like to have. All of the situations above are things any coach or athlete would like to have. Who would not like new uniforms every season? We should use need a little differently.

Throughout Les Steckel’s 20 years as an NFL coach, he made stops in San Francisco, Minnesota, New England, Denver, Tennessee (via Houston), Tampa Bay and Buffalo. One place the president and CEO of Fellowship of Christian Athletes never coached was in Oakland, but something about that organization will always stick with him.