News
Pete Carroll shares his Win Forever philosophy at TCU
13 Apr 11
By Stefan Stevenson
sstevenson@star-telegram.com
Pete Carroll brought his "Win Forever" philosophy to the TCU campus Friday, where he spoke to a group of college, high school and youth coaches.
The Nike-sponsored event is the first time the Seattle Seahawks' coach has spread the word on his coaching philosophy outside of Los Angeles, where Carroll helped found the program in 2003 when he was the coach at USC.
Yogi Roth, Carroll's co-author for the book Win Forever, says the mission began after Carroll founded A Better LA, which aims to reduce violence by empowering change from within the community.
"Coaches spend on average 480 hours a year with a kid," Roth said. "There's 21.8 million kids playing sports, a fourth of them have a single parent and 84 percent of those single parents are moms. So the role of a coach is massive."
Carroll discussed his coaching philosophy and TCU before Friday's event.
How did Win Forever spawn from A Better LA?
This is an effort for us to keep the word out there and generate revenue directly back to the foundation. I would never have written a book or done any of this kind of stuff if it wasn't for being motivated to help out with what's going on. It's fun. We're bringing the message to a bunch of coaches. They may like it, they may not. We don't care, we'll tell them anyway.
How's this different than a typical coaching clinic?
It's not an Xs and Os clinic, it's about philosophy, approach and style. We think it's somewhat of a different outlook than what is classically [perceived] the way coaches coach. But we think the times have changed. We have to stay abreast of the changing athlete and all that they're exposed to and all that they deal with in their world. We have found our way to communicate with them and we've had some success.
Do you think college athletes should be compensated more?
Absolutely not. I've always felt that way. They have a great life. We just need to keep the adults out of their business. They have needs, too, but their life is structured on campus where everything is taken care of and they don't need anymore than that. I think that just lends itself to a whole different world.
Gary Patterson has often said he wanted to make TCU the USC of Texas. What do you think of what he's done at TCU?
He has done an extraordinary job if you look at the times for TCU in the last 20 years. Prior to him coming here it's been hard. He's found a great pattern of how he does his work. His philosophy and style, his aggressiveness, and bringing in great coaches -- he's found his rhythm. This is what we hope to share with people. This is what you have to do in order to be good over a long stretch and he's done exactly that.
