CHAMPIONSHIP BEHAVIOR: A Model for Competitive Excellence in Sports

From an Olympic gold medal-winning coach comes a new playbook for effective athlete education and team building.

From Tom Brady to Steph Curry, professional sports provide numerous examples of athletes that were deemed unlikely to succeed but ended up dominating. If "great ones" are not born, what principles should be driving the methods that make them?
Championship results require championship behaviors—it's as simple as that. Excellence results from deliberate, coordinated actions rather than unplanned convergence of good luck and talent. It values both process and outcome on individual and team levels.

In this essential book, Hugh McCutcheon provides a tested framework for competitive excellence rooted in motor learning and psychology research. A sought-after coach and consultant, he illuminates the value of sports in society and the responsibility coaches have to help their athletes succeed in competition and in life. We won't always have five-star talent, but we can often make up the difference by being five-star teachers.
CHAMPIONSHIP BEHAVIORS equips coaches and teachers with tools to help athletes achieve mastery in physical, mental, and social aspects of their chosen endeavor.

Born and raised in New Zealand, Hugh McCutcheon was inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2018. He is best known as the former head coach of the US men's national volleyball team (Gold Medalists, Beijing Olympics, 2008) and the former head coach of the US women's national volleyball team (Silver Medalists, London Olympics, 2012). Hugh stands as one of only three coaches to win medals with both genders and the only coach in USA Olympic history to have podium finishes with a men's and women's team. In 2008, he was named Olympic Coach of the Year. He currently coaches at the University of Minnesota.