Bob Ladouceur - Chasing Perfection: The Principles Behind Winning Football the De La Salle Way

Dedication

To Lissa, Suzy, Cathy, Tom, Liz, Pat, Greg, Jake, Olivia, and Brooke, and my childrenJennifer, Danny, Michael, and Sophia. I love you all. Thanks for being my inspiration.

Strange is our situation here upon Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of other men.

Albert Einstein

Contents

Foreword by John Madden

I was so interested in De La Salle High Schools football program and coach Bob Ladouceurs success that I found a way to get an advance copy of Neil Hayes book When the Game Stands Tall: The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Footballs Longest Winning Streak back in 2003. My entire family read it.

We were so inspired by what we read that my son, Joe, and I decided to make a documentary about the program in order to share Ladouceurs story of success with as many people as possible. The result was 151: The Greatest Streak , which aired on ESPN in 2004. And then Hollywood producer David Zelon was so impressed with Hayes book and our documentary that he made it his mission to make When the Game Stands Tall into a major motion picture in 2014 starring Jim Caviezel, Michael Chiklis, Laura Dern, and Alexander Ludwig.

In some ways, however, the story still wasnt complete. The book, our documentary, and the movie focused on the important life lessons such as commitment, dedication, responsibility, and brotherhood that serve as the foundation of the program. But it wasnt until Ladouceur, with the help of Hayes, put his own words to paper that a more complete picture was revealed.

As everybody knows, football is a game fueled by paranoia. Playbooks are guarded, and gameplans are top secret. Thats what makes the pages that follow such a treasure. Ladouceur pulls back the curtain on the games greatest dynasty, revealing everything he learned during a 33-year head-coaching career that produced an astounding 399253 career record.

In this book Ladouceur not only outlines everything from hiring a staff to his philosophies on discipline, motivation, leadership, player development, offense, defense, and special teams, but also explains the specific drills, techniques, and conditioning regimens that have resulted in De La Salle playing the game at what I consider to be the highest level in terms of execution, discipline, and effort.

Thats right. I have been a professional coach or broadcaster for more than four decades, but when it comes to the fundamentals of blocking, tackling, and getting off the ball, Ladouceurs teams at De La Salle High School in Concord, California, play on a level that often exceeds college and pro teams. Thats why I consider Ladouceur one of the greatest coaches of any sport.

We often think of football as a complicated game. If theres one thing to take from this book, its that it doesnt have to be. Theres nothing complex about how Ladouceur teaches the game. His genius is in his ability to reduce the game to its essence.

This book offers an incredible, time-tested blueprint for aspiring coaches and is a great contribution to the coaching profession. It should be required reading for anybody who wants to coach footballor any sportfor that matter. His valuable lessons about leadership, motivation, commitment, accountability, integrity, hard work, and teamwork will also resonate in the business world.

John Madden

Introduction by Bob Ladouceur

I give Neil Hayes book, When the Game Stands Tall: The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Footballs Longest Winning Streak, a lot of credit for ending our national record 151-game winning streak. Butch Goncharoff, the coach at Bellevue High School in Bellevue, Washington, defeated us in the 2004 season opener by emulating us. He read Hayes book, and they matched our offseason work ethic, our explosion off the ball, and, most importantly, our commitment to each other, and his team reached a never-before-approached level of performance. Afterward, I couldnt help but think: Good for them.

I want everybody to play good footballnot just us.

Im frequently asked how I was able to take over a football program at De La Salle High School in Concord, California, that had never had a winning season and then post a 399253 career record by the time I stepped down 34 years later. Ive heard that question even more frequently since When the Game Stands Tall became a movie.

I never knew how to respond. Even after all these years, it has remained somewhat of a mystery, even to me. From now on, however, I will refer people to this book because its pages contain everything I learned while compiling the highest winning percentage (.934) in history, winning 19 state championships and five mythical national championships.

I dont believe you can be truly successful if you focus solely on winning. In my opinion, a successful program must be about more than outcomes. Kids will fight for you and will achieve amazing things if you stand for more than that. Its about getting kids to play together, work together toward a common goal, and mature into adults. We were never fighting for wins. We were fighting for a belief in what we stood for, the way we believe life should be lived and people should be treated. Winning is a by-product of how you approach life and relationships.

Ive learned that creating a culture of commitment and accountability is the best way to help young men mature into respectful, responsible, productive adults who are better equipped to overcome adversity in their private lives. I cant stress this enough.

The knowledge gained from excelling in this type of environment is burned into the hearts and minds of everyone who fully participates. We measure our success by how well we have embraced the essence of accountability and commitment and the relationships that spawns.

It creates a passion because wherever our players go they know they are connected to a group of people who love, respect, and accept them. I stand on our sideline sometimes in utter amazement as I watch our players push themselves far beyond what they previously thought was possible all because they felt connected to others who care.

(Photo by Bob Larson)

My first piece of advice for anybody who teaches, coaches, or manages others in the business world is a lesson I was fortunate to learn early in my career. As a young coach, I thought winning games and championships would give me a greater sense of self-worth, but I was still unfulfilled. My program didnt reach its potential, and I didnt find self-satisfaction until I quit focusing on what I was getting out of it and began focusing on how the kids were benefitting.

I always wanted to make a difference, not only with my own players but on a larger scale, which is why we have always had an open-door policy at De La Salle. If theres something you can take from us that helps you as a coach, or benefits a player or your program, thats a win-win situation to me. But theres one point I want to make clear: were not telling yo u how to r un your football program. Im just telling you how I operated mine, and how my successor, Justin Alumbaugh, and longtime defensive coordinator and special teams coach Terry Eidson, continue to do it today.

The release of the book When the Game Stands Tall brought a lot of attention to our program, and the movie by the same name brought more. We already field hundreds of emails every year asking how we motivate players, how we run our offseason conditioning program, and how our offensive line gets off the line so quickly. Ive done my best to explain it all here.