How to Build a Winning Team Culture in HS Sports (2022): Part 3

By Jason Shea

Today’s athletes are distracted. The constant bombardment of texts, Instagram, social media, Youtube, Netflix, etc, etc. With the touch of a button they can access more information today than ever before. With all of these opportunities and distractions, combined with a lack of sleep, it is no wonder so many athletes struggle to stay present. Not to mention the neurotransmitter and hormonal impacts associated with chronic excitation, stress, and hypervigilance.

When it comes to staying present and focusing on the task at hand, who better to ask than someone who went through both Navy SEAL BUDS Phase I and the SWCC Basic Crewman Selection Course.

From Chapter 23 of Building A Winning Culture in High School Sports….and Beyond

Coronado Beach, San Diego California. In order to become a Navy SEAL of SWCC Operator, qualified candidates must complete 3 phases of BUDS (Basic Underwater/Demolition SEAL) School prior to continuing on with parachute, SEAL Qualification training and more. SWCC (Special Warfare Combat Crewman) Basic Crewman selection course takes place on the same beach.

Phase 1 for both SWCC and BUDS is 7 weeks of the most grueling physical and mental conditioning in all of the United States Military. About 6% of all SEAL applicants make it. Of those that make it to BUDS, the dropout rate is about 75%. SWCC’s attrition rate is about 50% with roughly 240 invited candidates each year, and nearly 120 that make it.

Here is the interview with an individual who completed both BUDS Phase 1 and SWCC Basic Crewman Selection course and then had to retire his chances of a military career due to a previously undiagnosed medical disability. 

Physical Characteristics:   200lbs 5’11”

• Best run: 3 mile 18:05 in boots on sand
• O-course 6:15
• Pushups – 140 in 2 mins
• Sit-ups- 90 in 2 mins
• Pullups – 22 – full extension no kip

“The reason it is difficult is you have so many different things prior to going into boot camp. There is the Navy boot camp, in which you are physically not working out as hard. Then there are three days per week of dive motivator training. There is basically eight weeks of dead stop prior to going into BUDS.

Then you go into prep. Prep is eight weeks of swimming, running, and working out. There are swim coaches helping you. This is run by SEAL and SWCC guys. This is eight weeks of getting you physically ready to work. The intensity level here is still not you see in BUDS and SWCC. You have to pass an exit pft. You have a 1000m swim, max pushups in 2 mins, max situ ups in 2 mins, max pull-sups, and a 4 mile run. You need under 20 for the swim, 70 for pushups and sit ups, 10 pull ups, under 32 for the run on the sand.

Most guys are blowing those numbers out of the water. If you hit those standards, they say you can make it through BUDS. In my experience, the numbers don’t really mean anything when you get out there.”

“When you get to BUDS, you have to develop the mindset really quick. If you don’t develop the mindset within first hours of BUDS, you are going to struggle. Nothing can prepare you for that intensity level. How fast things are moving. Nothing can really prepare you for the intensity level of that. You learn in the first hour, first minutes, we haven’t prepared for this level of intensity.

You’re doing the same exercises, but the intensity and environment are so stressful. Dropping you for 20 pushups becomes difficult. If you don’t have the “I am going to attack this pipeline mentality”, you are not really going to do well. Either you have this, or you don’t. There is really nothing to prepare you for that. There is no skating by or being the gray man hiding behind people. Every day for me was attack the evolution, the scheduled event. Attack the evolution.

You have to find your own motivational factors. It had to be my own experience. The books I read before and videos I watched, didn’t do anything. I was trying to do the absolute best I could. I viewed it as opportunity to prove you are the best guy on this beach. It is so easy to get carried away with this sucks and the hype behind it as opposed to it is a privilege to be here and I am going to make a name with that privilege.

Everyone talked about how cold it is and how difficult it is, then that is where guys start spiraling. You have one bad evolution and one day, you don’t feel like being there and half ass things, and you are on the instructor’s radar. If you don’t have the mindset of best effort every day and don’t let others down, then things can spiral out of control.

The quickest way out is losing the trust of the guys in your boat crew. As soon as they realize they are carrying you, you are screwed. If he can’t keep up in land portage, guys are run out and instructors get a hold of you. They remediate you until you quit or figure things out. It is not just on you, it is about the team, and if you don’t bring your best you will be cast out.”

“Because there are so many nerves going on, the biggest thing was, if other people can do this, I can do this. You have a white t shirt before hell week, then earn a brown t shirt after hell week. I looked at guys with brown t-shirts and said, “if those guys can do it, I can do it.”

My mentality on day one and every evolution was to show I was best guy here, even though that was not always the case. Every morning, every wake up, no one is forcing you to be there. It is a voluntary program. Before every evolution they remind you of that. Every morning, knowing you are going to be wet, cold, physically getting your ass handed to you, tested etc, you ask yourself every morning if you want this. That is when guys quit. They mainly quit in morning before evolution. Once you get moving you are in and it is game time.”

“Ocean swims were the most challenging part for me. I am not a natural swimmer. It was not so much the speed, as it was the guiding. In open water, you are guiding off the buoys. Straight line. The cold is also tough.

You get so used to being wet and sandy all day it becomes normal. Surf torture, during the tour or during hell week. At no point am I going to be able to warm up, unless the sun comes up. Getting used to being cold is tough. Buddies and I joked around during surf torture. We were trying to find a humorous element to survive the cold. That is where you see guys break, is the cold. Minus the first week where guys who aren’t physically capable of being there, the only time you see the qualified guys looking like they are going to break, is the cold.

When you start off the morning, you are dry. You wake up dry. Every lunch and dinner you are eating while wet. Sometimes breakfast as well. Breakfast opens at quarter to 6. First evolution is at 7. Most of the time you are wet by 7, then wet for rest of day. Wet and covered in sand. Doing everything wet and sandy. The toughest we will ever be is during those times. We joke about it now. Wet, sandy, and physical to pass the days, every day. The hardest you will ever be as human being is doing those white shirt days. You have something to prove every day.

The whole process is an interview. The stage I am at right now is really an interview. They realize now how quickly you pick things up. Is this guy competent. Will he make a good teammate? Passing tests under pressure. Can he retain the info we are teaching him? Physical studs who crush the program but cannot apply the skills taught and be good operators, get dropped. You have two chances and then you get dropped.”

“The Hawser line in SWCC. Mooring lines from ships tied together. 5-6 guys under the line. They are different from logs as the Hawser line can dip if you are not holding up your end. You hold over your head and have to hold your end. The line weight is around 400 lbs, and it is wet.  You do squats with it. Front carries, overhead squats, lunges. You have to do it as a team otherwise you cannot handle the line.

All these evolutions are based around that fact that if everyone moves as one, your life is going to be a lot easier. If a guy is not holding his weight, the instructor will pull him out, and the rest of you have to pull the slack. All these evolutions have a purpose. It is remediating you to drill accountability into you. There is no redo. If a mission goes wrong people die.

People have this idea that it is a mindless physical beating, but it is not. Everything has a purpose, leading toward the bigger picture. Everything is scheduled.

Through BCT and BUDS I didn’t have a point where I was physically broken. You hit failure on exercises and can’t do anymore, but never hit that point where I said to myself, “I can’t handle this anymore. I hit that on academic tests, in BCT where I said, “I don’t know if I am going to pass this or pick this up quick enough. You would study all night, sleep 2 hours, then do it.”

“Drown proofing and 50-meter underwater are just about slowing down breathing and relaxing your body. Learning to stare at bottom of pool and stay relaxed. If you let yourself go off mentally on a tangent, you are going to fail all these evolutions. You need to find a way to keep your entire body calm and relaxed. I didn’t put any pressure on myself. If I don’t pass this now, then I know can come back and do it again tomorrow. As time goes on, you start knocking out test gates, then gain confidence.

The reason test gates are so difficult is they are trying to take away that feeling of “we are not tested enough in life.” They test you daily to get you outside of your comfort zone every day. We don’t face this daily. Whether you are being shot at, they want to make you almost robotic under pressure. There is no time that I can look back on there that I was comfortable. There is no time to enjoy it. You finish one test gate; you move right on to the next one.”

“There are roughly three to four scheduled evolutions in a day. The day ends at 4pm. Timed runs, timed swims, O-course, Hawser PT, log PT, classroom time. At the end of every day you have collaterals for the privilege of being there. Then you go back to the barracks and take care of what you need to take care of. The day is scheduled.”

“The privilege starts to hit you in boot camp. It is a privilege to be there. 70k people get processed through navy boot camp. 3k SEALS and 800 SWCC. Both are very small communities. In boot camp you think: “Oh shit I am here.” Reading all these stories of all those before you. You see the guys you are with. 180 guys that went through boot camp that then went on to Coronado. Guys start quitting at Navy boot camp. Once you start seeing guys quit you realize this is real. That is when it starts to sink in.

You get out to Californian and see the base and the beach, and guys walking around. We had just gotten out there when a hell week just finished. Seeing guys limping etc. That is when it starts to hit you and realize “I want to be one of those guys.” You start seeing guys dropping left and right. You realize Just how difficult it is to make it through a week. That is when you realize how much of a privilege it is to be there.

Out of the 180 guys that started, thirteen got brown shirts. SEAL and SWCC combined. You feel lucky and privilege to still be going. So many things you can’t control happen in these pipelines.

The farther along you get, the more respect you get from the instructors. The history of the community, the privilege every day, you feel lucky to be there. The amount of time and money that goes into being there is huge. You have to earn that feeling. Every day you earn it. You are earning the privilege and have to earn it every day. Once you make it, you have the privilege of wearing that pin. It is the process of earning that privilege every day that keeps you coming back for more when you wake up in the morning.”

“You do have those guys that absolutely shock you that quit. There are a ton of excuses as to why guys quit. Any reason you quit is just an excuse. Any reason for quitting is an excuse. Then you have the guys who quit that just didn’t want to do it. The type of guy that makes it is that pipefitter. Not afraid to go first. Steps up. Finds humor in things. Attacks every evolution. Blue collar work ethic. Jokes around. They want that guy that says this is what I have to do and just going to do it. A lot of my buddies quit. They didn’t want the grind of the process. If you really want to be there you are going to be there.”

“I played a few sports growing up. I always had that mindset of if other guys can do it, I can do it. It bothered me if someone beat me in a sprint. Especially in hockey. It wasn’t a jealousy thing. I can’t think of time when guys beat me in hockey sprints. Especially in punishment sprints. I learned that from my dad. The only thing you can control is effort. Especially when things are going wrong. That carried over into adversity. That carried over into the pipeline. You are going to either complain about the punishment or you are going to crush it.

I learned that in youth sports. I also saw that in MMA. My goal was to go to UFC. If I am going to do it, I want to be the best. That helped translate to pipeline.

Never show any emotion. There is nothing better than when competing against someone, seeing them break. This creates motivation. Blood in the water. Guys start falling out, you pick up the game.

Dad growing up. Biggest thing growing up was the only thing you can control, is your effort level. I remember a time when my dad got mad at me. I was five or six years old and scored about 6 goals one game. My dad came into the locker room and screamed at me. He was so mad at me because I was not playing hard defense. At that moment I realized how important it was to be humble and always try as hard as I could on both ends of the ice.

At the pipeline you can never get complacent. The goal of this community is to defeat complacency and build accountability. Instill a level of professionalism. You can take the lessons they teach you and become a very good operator. Grow as an operator and have a good career.”

“If guys were struggling you would try to carry guys as far as could. There were a lot of guys out there like that. There is a point at which you realize guys just aren’t meant to be there. There are guys that get dropped because they are having a bad day. Seeing guys struggling, I took pride in helping guys out when needed. The two spot on the boat and the knot on the Hawser line. Me and a couple buddies, our goal was to be on those spots and dominate those. I looked at the knot on the Hawser line as my spot. Running on the two spot on the boat during land portage. Those are the guys that others talk about later.”

“Kids from a young age need to be taught personal accountability and what it really means, especially in the ultimate team game like football. Your output in practice is going to make you perform better as a team. Kids need to be taught not to just show up but need to be held accountable to get better in those 45 minutes as opposed surviving those 45 minutes, then going home to watch tv. As a coach you can teach this mindset at a young age. If you want to build a good program, you need to realize, if you are not getting better every practice and fulfilling your capabilities, we are going to fill your spot. That is why the NSW pipeline is so successful. We all go in there knowing if we don’t perform every day, we are going to find someone to replace you.

I think kids need to learn early on that they need to take accountability for their actions and their effort. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. As simple as do your job.

Motivation, discipline, and personality all play a role. Personal intensity. Discipline. Not accepting complacency. Have your mind where your feet are. You cannot be thinking about “we have drown proofing test at 3, then a four mile run at 7. If you are not thinking about the 4 mile-run while doing it, you are not going to pass it. Being present is critical. You have to think “I’m at practice this is an opportunity to get better.” You need to teach people to have their mind where their feet are at the moment. This goes for adults as well with regards to work. Max effort and full concentration at each task.”

The intensity you bring is going to be different from the youth program. The intensity, expectations, and consequences are going to be different. You are not going to remediate a bunch of young pop warner kids.

There needs to be accountability. Guys need to be accountable. There are consequences for not performing, not putting max effort forth, and not being present. Programs that win compete during practice. The guy behind you is competing for your job. You now need to instill competition. You practice and compete at the highest speeds and highest levels. If you don’t have competition at practice, how are you going to know if you can compete for real.

The same time of mindset we brought to each evolution. I am going to attack this challenge and be the baddest guy on this beach. The things you think you are capable of; you can now do. After you you’re your best effort and complete the challenge, what is the next challenge? That is the ultimate goal. To go out and do the job with the best of your ability. You don’t want to be a guy who is just floating by.

“Trust is huge. That is the quickest way to lose your reputation out there. Comes from everything. Your word, what you do every day.”

 “At first, they don’t give you any advice. They want to see if you can make it through the initial first phase. Seven weeks. Hell week is the 4^th week of BUDS and for SWCC it is the 5^th week. After hell week, they shift gears toward more of the teacher. It is all on you.

At first, my goal was to get to bed that day, to make it to the end of the day. Then timed runs or timed swims was finish in the top. O course was to finish first. Swim was to finish toward the top to middle of the pack.

How many pushups would we do in a day? Sometimes up to a thousand, usually in the hundreds. Eight counts over 10k total. Ton of leaning rest, sometimes one to five minutes. Then doing with log at BUDS or Hawser line in SWCC. Houser PT and log PT are the civil names put on it. Everything has to be scheduled and worded the right way.

Saw many guys break in the Hawser line. SWCC had to use the Hawser line because they could not use the log. It has only been around for 5-6 years. “

“I became more confident as I went along. You can’t prepare for it. You can’t practice 50m underwater or drown proofing, combat tread or lifesaving. Before the evolution you feel you could either pass or very easily fail. Once you realize physically, I am okay, then you start to build confidence.”

“Mentally, right before hell week was as close to knowing I was going to make it. I believed it wasn’t me who wasn’t going to make it. It would have to be outside factor. I could get injured or fail a test gate. Week four was “let’s get this over with and knock it out”, while week one is anxiety and uncertainty about what lies ahead.”

“Calm mindset. Go back to do what your job is on that play. No question in your mind you are going to make the stop. Realize you have no choice but to make the stop. Do you job and don’t be the guy that f’s it up. You trust that the guys that are there next to you are going to do their jobs as well.”

“Wrestling definitely. Hockey. Wrestling probably would take the top spot. It is the mindset. Guys have never been physically demoralized if didn’t wrestle. Wrestling teaches humility and how to pick yourself back up after getting physically beaten. At the end of the day there are soccer players, baseball players that are studs that go out and do it. But in my opinion wrestling definitely takes that top spot.

Being out there every day, it’s a different environment you cannot explain. It’s like a college campus of guys trying to do this job. Never get to step back and look at it because it just becomes a part of your everyday life out there. What probably makes the place so unique is the amount of failure that goes on out there. 80-90% of the guys there are usually dudes waiting to get processed out. The rest of us are trying to make it. Then cafeteria is empty and then the next group of guys comes in. It is one big cycle.”

“At certain times 90/10 mental, then sometimes 80-20mental. You either take things personal or you rationalize this place is meant to make you fail and rationalize what is going on. You learn how to do it and not break. It is all how you handle what is going on outside and inside your head, and how you choose to look at it. Goes back to being a privilege to be there. You see all the guys that didn’t make it that would kill to be there, and you realize what a privilege it is to be there.

You can’t leave your fate in anyone else’s hands. If you give them any reason to think that you shouldn’t be there, you are screwing yourself over. You either want to them to know your name because you are doing well, otherwise if they do know your name, it is because you are doing so bad.”

Stay tuned for How To Build A Winning Culture In Team Sports Part 4: Its All About Development As a Person. If you haven’t read part one or two in this series you can find them here: Part 1 How To Build A Winning Culture In Team Sports – Part 1: Intro Plus 3 Powerful And Proven Strategies and Part 2 How To Build A Winning Culture In Team Sports Part 2: Performing Under Pressure And Team-Building Strategies.

For more on Building a Winning Culture in High School Sports…..and Beyond pick up a copy of the 500+ page book on Kindle or Paperback today. Be sure to check out the other books in the Specific Sports Training and Athletic Workout Programs series as well.

Thanks for reading!